BECKHAM

“You shouldn’t have gone.” Dr. Brentwood chides me with his signature lulling voice from his end of the phone. “Hopping on a plane, flying across the country, and sitting by her side as she delivered her baby was the worst thing you could’ve done. You’ve undone almost a year’s worth of work for all of us.”

“Missing the birth of my child isn’t something I could live with.” It sounds weird. My child. I still don’t know. She’s got a full head of dark hair, like both of us, and her mother’s dark eyes. I tried not to get choked up as I held her for the first time last night, and I couldn’t help stroking her cheek as she nursed her mother’s breast. On the off chance she is my kid, I don’t want to have missed those early moments.

“Do you truly believe she’s yours?” Dr. Brentwood has the patience of a saint. Usually. But not today. I hear him sigh through the receiver. Nine months ago, we thought we’d put this issue to bed. She was seeking help. The restraining order was filed.

“Did I think this would happen?” I ask. “No. I’ve had a vasectomy. We always used condoms. But she works at the fertility clinic where ten vials of my…product were cryogenically frozen.”

“They have very strict chain-of-custody protocols. It’s one of the top fertility clinics in the nation,” he says.

“Right. And Eva’s the lab manager,” I say. “Everything’s coded with numbers to protect patient confidentiality and prevent mix ups. Guess who has access to all that information? Guess who’s in charge of semen prepping when patients come in for procedures?”

Dr. Brentwood is silenced by my theory.

Eighteen months ago, I decided to have a vasectomy.

I thought I was doing the responsible thing.

I went the cryogenic route on the extremely slim chance I might change my mind someday. That’s when I met Eva. Bumped into her in the hall, right before I was about to deposit my tenth and final batch. I’d never seen anyone so exotic and mysterious before. Long neck, high cheekbones, naughty gleam in her eye, and an accent that slayed.

One dinner turned into drinks, and within weeks we were hooking up on a regular basis until I had to end it months later. She was getting attached. Dirty talk turned to pillow talk, which escalated into Eva allowing herself to fall in love which wasn’t part of the agreement.

I jumped that sinking ship while she rearranged deck chairs.

Eva capsized as soon as she realized I wasn’t coming back.

“I’m waiting on a call back from my attorney. I spoke with him last night. He’s going to get in contact with the clinic.” I run my fingers through my hair. It’s product-free for the first time in a long time. I barely had the motivation to take a shower this morning having stayed most of the night at the hospital staring at that innocent little girl and searching for a sign that she was mine. “The clinic will probably come back and say all ten vials are accounted for. If Eva switched numbers or swapped out a vial of my specimen with someone else’s, there won’t be anyway to tell without unfreezing the samples. That’ll destroy them.”

Fuck.

“You’ll have to do DNA testing,” Dr. Brentwood said. “Which could take weeks. Possibly months.”

“What do I do?” I slink back in my chair, glancing at the time. It’s half past eight. Odessa should be rolling in here any moment. “Do I pretend she’s not mine? Pretend that didn’t just happen? Ignore Eva? What if she threatens the baby?”

“She won’t,” he says. “If she believes that baby is yours, or if indeed that baby is yours, she won’t do anything.”

“You and I both know we can’t guarantee that. Eva’s unpredictable. Unstable.”

“Exactly.” He clears his throat. “Which is why you should’ve called me first before going to the hospital.”

“Forgive me for not thinking clearly.” My fist clenches the handle of my desk phone, resisting the urge to slam it. He’s not helping. I need answers. I need directives. There’s no protocol on what to do in a situation like this. Surely someone somewhere has had their ex-fuck-buddy-turned-stalker impregnate themselves with their cryogenically frozen sperm?

I laugh because this situation is as absurd as it is real.

“Can you go to the hospital, Dr. Brentwood? Talk some sense into her? Try to get some answers?”

“I can’t go unless I’m called for a consult,” he says. “The only reason we’re speaking right now is because of the signed release in her file. That expires in two months by the way.”

“Great.” I grit my teeth. “So what do I do now? She’s discharging in a couple days. She’s going to need help getting home, getting around. Caring for the baby. Her friend goes back to Baltimore tonight. She’s all alone.”

I have to ensure the baby gets the care she needs. She didn’t ask to be born into this. I’ve never been so protective of anything before, but seeing her helpless face cradled in the arms of a mother who is clearly mentally unstable brings out the bear I never knew resided in me.

“Can I hire someone? A nanny?” I ask.

“No,” Dr. Brentwood says without pause. “Again, Beckham, we do not want to send the wrong message. You cannot allow her to manipulate you this way. You cannot give in to her demands.”

“It’s not about Eva right now. It’s about the baby.” I don’t know what to call her. Eva asked me to name her, flat out refusing to offer any suggestions. It’s another one of her attempts to manipulate me, to forge a bond between the baby and me. The child needs a name, but I need to prove a point to Eva.

I need to talk to someone else about this. Not Dr. Brentwood. He doesn’t understand. I understand he can’t legally tell anyone what to do. Should anything go awry, he could be held liable, and psychiatric patients of the Eva Delgado variety can be particularly unpredictable.

Xavier’s not exactly level-headed these days, and Dane will just lecture me.

A knock at my door ushers in Odessa, two cups of coffee in her hands.

“I’ll call you back,” I say to Dr. Brentwood.

“Beckham, whatever you do, do not engage with Eva,” I hear him say before I hang up.

“Figured you could use one of these.” Odessa places a cup on my desk, her gaze scanning the bags hanging under my eyes. “Long night?”

“Very.” I take the Styrofoam cup. “Thank you.”

She takes a seat across from me, her tablet tucked neatly under her arm.

“Shit. The website,” I say. “Sorry. I completely forgot.”

“It’s fine, Beckham.” There’s something softer about her today, like she’s going easy on me. “You’re going through some stuff. I understand.”

I almost wish she’d fling a jab at me. Make an underhanded remark. Anything to make my life feel like it did twenty-four hours ago.

Fuck, life was simple then.

“Everything go well?” She crosses her legs and sits straight. “It was a girl, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“The friend. She told me. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you,” she says. “Not my place.”

“Fair enough.”

“Have any pictures?” Odessa asks. I suppose her question is only natural.

I take out my phone. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” She laughs, leaning closer.

I honestly don’t recall. I spent most of last night in a daze. Thumbing through my photo album, I come across a picture I must’ve snapped toward the end of the night, just before going home. The memory of taking it escapes me but there it is.

I hand my phone to Odessa who smiles at the photo of the sleeping baby in Eva’s arms.

“She’s beautiful,” Odessa says. “Like her mother.”

My lips part, the truth lingering on the tip of my tongue.

She hands the phone back, and I go to tuck it away but it starts to ring. My attorney’s name flashes on the screen.

“I have to take this,” I say. Odessa rises, hurrying out of the room. “Roger, what do we know?”