I was highlighting my lines for the new movie while we waited in the doctor’s office for the baby’s twenty-week scan. Lew sat beside me paging idly through something on his phone. I couldn’t figure out how he was so calm—I was a bundle of nerves, to the point where I couldn’t even find my own lines in this damn script to learn them. But Lew just sat there and snickered at whatever was on his screen as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Llewellyn King?” the nurse called from behind the desk. I shot to my feet, dropping my script in the process and turned to help Lew up.

“Relax.” He scooped up the script and handed it to me. “It’s just an ultrasound.”

“Yeah, well…” I didn’t want to tell him that I had a script in my car for a medical drama that my agent wanted me to consider, and the very first episode dealt with a bad pregnancy. Ever since then, I’d been paranoid. And the dreams…

I nodded to the nurse when we got to the desk and Lew asked quietly if it was okay if I went with him.

“He’s the father?” the nurse asked, looking me over.

“Yes.” Lew slipped his hand casually into mine. “I think if he can hear it from the doctor that the baby is fine, he’ll stop waking me up with nightmares.”

I stared at him, aghast. “Why didn’t you tell me I was waking you up?”

He smiled and squeezed my hand before leading me through the door into the hallway with the exam rooms. “You’ve been getting more and more anxious since a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t want to give you anything more to be upset about. What did you do, watch a medical drama on TV that freaked you out?” He watched me closely, then his eyes narrowed. “Or does that have anything to do with that script I found in the trunk of your car the other day?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the nurse stifle a giggle. “It’s for a pilot,” I told him, shamefaced. “I don’t think I want to do it. Angelia thought I might want to look at TV instead of movies, with the baby coming. She said I might like to be home more.”

He looked thoughtful at that, then shook his head. “You do what you need to do to get yourself established. I can follow you around until the baby is old enough for babysitters.” He tugged me into the room the nurse led us too and pointed to a chair. “Sit. I think my seat is up here.” He kicked a little steel stool over by a padded exam table and hopped up on it. “Nothing is wrong with our baby.”

“Yeah.” But I’d be glad to hear the doctor say that.

We waited there just long enough for Lew to get bored and start poking around at the stuff on the countertop at the side of the room, and then the doctor came in.

“Good afternoon!” he boomed. “Congratulations to you two! Which of you is Llewellyn?”

Lew turned and held out his hand while I went slightly pink at being mistaken for an omega. “That would be me, but everyone calls me Lew,” he said, and shook the doctor’s hand. “This is Mike, my fiancé.”

The doctor held his hand out and I shook it. “We’re going to get Lew up on the table here while I do a quick examination,” he said. “Then we’ll see if we can your baby to pose for a picture.”

I nodded anxiously and watched the doctor like a hawk while he listened to Lew’s chest and took his blood pressure, sucked some blood out of his arm and made him undress behind a screen so he could be weighed.

Lew came out in that ugly hospital blue wrap-around thing, and that was when it really hit me. He was pregnant—we were pregnant. There was a baby coming and I was going to be a father and, oh my God, did I even have the first clue what the hell I was doing?

But then Lew looked at me and smiled and everything was all right again. Lew would know what to do, and he’d make sure I did too.

Lew stepped up on the scale and made a face when the doctor announced his weight.

“It’s perfectly normal. You’ve maybe gained about five pounds more than you should have, but cutting back on the ice cream will help with that.”

Lew looked shocked, and I laughed at him, because ice cream had been the last food obsession before the current one. Good guess on the doctor’s part.

“Up on the table with you,” the doctor said, digging in one of the nearby drawers.

Lew winked at me and followed the doctor’s instructions, lying down and making himself comfortable. They had a quiet conversation while the doctor pressed around on his belly, then took a measuring tape out and measured a vertical line underneath Lew’s bellybutton. I caught the words, “This is usually when it hits them,” from the doctor, and then Lew’s low laughter, but I didn’t have much time to think about it before Lew called me over to stand by his head.

“So far, everything looks right on schedule,” the doctor announced. “Good size, audible heartbeat, all your vital signs are in the normal ranges. You’re having an ideal pregnancy. Now, I’m just going to leave you two here for a moment while I get the ultrasound machine and then we’ll have a peek at your little bundle,” the doctor told us. “Just stay there, I won’t be long.” He disappeared out the door and I reached for Lew’s hand.

“Everything’s okay?” I asked him, even though I’d just heard the doctor say it was.

“It’s fine. My legs are cold. Darn air conditioning.”

I laughed. “You’d complain if they didn’t have it.”

“I know.” He squeezed my fingers. “I don’t know if they can tell yet, but do you want to know if we’re having a boy or a girl?”

“Do you want to know?”

He nodded. “But I don’t need to.”

“The doctor could tell you and you could not tell me.”

He laughed and his fingers tightened on mine again. “Like I’m any good at keeping secrets from you.”

The doctor came back at the moment, backing in through the door with a huge beige cart trailing behind him. He took a moment getting everything into place, then had Lew open the front of his hospital robe so we could see his belly again. “This will be cold,” the doctor warned as he shook a little bottle, then squirted some clear, bluish gel on the rising curve of Lew’s belly.

I felt Lew twitch, but in the next moment we were both transfixed as the screen on the cart came to life in shades of black and gray.

It didn’t make much sense to me at all, just blobs of non-color on the screen moving in and out of focus, until the doctor suddenly stilled. “There’s your baby,” the doctor announced proudly. He hit a button on the machine, moved the wand on Lew’s belly a fraction and hit the button again, over and over while Lew and I watched with fascination. At one point, I could see it, clear as day, the shape of a head with a little nose and a huge bulging forehead. Lew’s hand tightened on mine and we shared a grin of excitement.

“Okay, that’s enough pictures for me,” the doctor said. “Would you two like a couple?”

“Please!” Lew burst out without waiting. His smile was blinding and I lifted his hand to my mouth to kiss the back of it.

“Pictures coming up,” the doctor said and angled the wand around until the image on the screen showed the baby in perfect profile. “Do you want to know the sex?”

“Yes,” I said, before Lew could get in there. I knew he’d say no, because I hadn’t said yes, and that was an argument we’d had the other day in, of all places, a toy store. Over a teddy bear.

“Mike, I thought—”

Right on time. “You want to know. I don’t really care one way or the other, I’m just glad they’re healthy. The baby is healthy, right doc?”

“I can’t give you a definite yes or no at the moment, but so far it’s very promising. And you’re both young, with no history of risky exposures to chemicals, so the likelihood is that this will be a perfectly normal pregnancy and you’ll have a very healthy and happy baby—” He paused to glance over at us and at my nod turned back to the screen. “—boy to bring home at the end of it. Congratulations on your son.” He pointed at the screen, where with a bit of squinting I could see the shape of two small testicles and the tiniest penis I’d ever seen, floating between the baby’s legs.

“Oh.” Lew’s voice was soft and full of wonder. “That’s… Wow.”

I laughed and then I laughed some more, until Lew started laughing with me. The doctor watched us with a satisfied look on his face, then put the machine away and started wiping up some of the gel on Lew’s stomach. “We’re done here. Unless anything comes up, I’ll see you again in a month, Lew.” He dropped Lew’s folder on top of the machine and nodded to me. “From now on, Dad, your job is to make sure he gets plenty of rest and exercise, eats healthy, and then get out of the way when he starts nesting. Good luck, you two, and I’ll see you next month.” He pushed the cart out into the hall and then he was gone and it was just me and Lew, and three beautiful pictures of our son.

“Go get dressed,” I told Lew as I stared at the images. “Then it’s doctor’s orders that I have to take you someplace healthy for lunch.”

“I won’t say no to that. I’m starving,” Lew said with feeling as he swung his legs off the table. “Mexican good?”

“Again?” I asked without thinking, then winced. He’d been on a Mexican kick for almost two weeks now—I was starting to turn into guacamole. “No, Mexican sounds great. Can I have deep fried ice cream?”

“Thought you needed to stay in shape for the movie?” he asked as he jumped off the table, but the way his hand grazed over my arm was loving.

“That’s where you come in,” I said casually. “You can help me burn it off after.”

He poked his head around the edge of the screen. “What were you thinking of? Because I’d really like to rearrange the living room to make room for the Pack n Play.” Then he disappeared and I heard the distinct sound of a chuckle over the rustling of clothing.

“We could do that,” I agreed. “But then I might be too tired for anything else.”

“Cleaning out the fridge?” he said brightly as he popped back out again with his shoes in his hands. “Hold on, I have to hold my breath to bend over and tie these. Little fellow kinda moves up into my lung space when I bend over already.”

“Let me do that.” I handed him my copy of the my script, the three ultrasound pictures tucked carefully inside, then bent down to help him into his shoes like he was Cinderella. Only, thankfully, without the wicked stepsiblings. “There, ready to go?”

“Yes.” He stood up and wrapped a hand around the back of my neck. “Yes, I will help you work off the ice cream later. And maybe in the middle of the night too.” He kissed me quickly and started to leave.

I raised my eyebrows at him and waited.

He grinned, and just for a moment, I thought he should have been playing Puck from A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, he looked so mischievous. “I’ve been trying to let you sleep. But it’s really hard. And generally, so am I.” He stopped me and kissed me again. “But if you need exercise, I’m happy to volunteer.”

“The doctor did say you should be getting exercise,” I murmured.

“See? Just following the doctor’s orders.” He traced a finger over my lips, then ran his hand down my arm and reached behind me to smack me on the ass. “Come on, I need calories to fuel this exercise.” And we headed out.