Page 51

“Then let me work.”

I run my hands up his thighs as I say it, and I watch the clinic drain out of his face. His belt. His button. The zip, slow, because I am in no hurry and because the sound of it makes his breath catch. I press my mouth to him through the cotton first – warm him through the fabric, my hands spread wide on his legs – and his head tips back against the chair with a soft thunk.

When I draw him out he’s already half-hard and getting firmer against my tongue, and I take him in properly, all the way, no teasing, and Luke goes very still the way he always does. His fingers slide into my hair.

I know this man. I know the place under the tip that makes his thigh jump against my shoulder. I know what the flat of my tongue does to him, slow, and what the tip of it does, quick, and I know that if I hum, his hips lose all their rhythm. I set about my work the way I set about everything: thoroughly, and with attention to detail.

He gets louder by degrees and then quieter on purpose, biting it down, because there’s a nurse’s station on the other side of the door, and some part of him is still a polite man even with my lips wrapped around his hard length. I reach up without breaking rhythm and lace our fingers together – hold his hand, his wedding ring cool against my knuckle – and the sound he makes then, muffled into his own shoulder, is worth every minute of the waiting room.

His thighs start to shake.

“Preston. Preston, the–”

The cup. Right.

I don’t stop – I work him with my hand, slick and steady, keep my mouth on the crown of him – and I get the lid off one-handed, and I hold it where it counts just as he goes bowstring-tight and comes with his fist jammed against his mouth, shaking, silent but for one small broken sound through his fingers. Every drop accounted for.

He sags. I cap the sample and set it down ceremoniously, then stay where I am a moment, forehead against his thigh, his fingers still moving in my hair.

“You’re a saint,” he manages.

“I’m an accomplice.” I climb back up into the chair built for one, into his arms, which were also built for one. “Saints don’t usually swallow.”

And Luke laughs.

We emerge at 11:52, in the correct order, thirty respectable seconds apart.

Elena looks up from her magazine. She looks at Luke. She looks at me. She looks at the wall clock, and performs a small mental calculation I can see happening in real time.

“That took a while,” she says.

I adjust my cuffs. “We were being thorough.”

“Mm.” She goes back to the magazine. “Nobody tell Mamá.”

“Nobody tell Mamá what?” I say. “Nothing happened. A man assisted his husband with a medical procedure.”

“Write that on the cup,” Elena says, and turns the page.

Six weeks later, we’re back at the clinic, and Dr. Rosenthal is wearing powder-blue.

A powder-blue three-piece with a sheen a full generation older than I am, over a shirt patterned in a paisley that should require a permit. The gold is all accounted for: teeth, watch, and today a tiny pin on the lapel shaped, as far as I can tell, like a stork. He greets Mother by kissing the air above her hand at a courtly distance, greets me and Luke as “the fathers,” and greets Elena – on the table, gel on her stomach, gown arranged with total command, because she has decided the situation will meet her standards rather than the reverse – with a small, genuine bow.

“The bloodwork,” he announces, holding the folder to his chest, “is beautiful. The numbers are beautiful. Everything about this,” a gesture at the room, the machine, my sister-in-law, “is beautiful. Congratulations. She is pregnant.”

The room exhales all at once.

I grab Luke’s hand. Luke grips back hard enough to reorganise my metacarpals. Mother, in the corner chair she has occupied by divine right, produces her leather notebook and makes a single efficient tick, as though pregnancy were an agenda item. Elena, flat on the table, pumps one fist at the ceiling.

“Now,” Rosenthal says, wheeling the ultrasound over with the showmanship of a dessert trolley. “Let’s say hello.”

The wand goes down. The screen resolves out of static, grey and shifting. And then the sound comes up – that fast, watery gallop, absurdly quick, a hummingbird with somewhere to be – and my eyes go hot instantly, without consulting me. That’s the noise. Everything since the housewarming has been paperwork, and this is the noise the paperwork was for.

“Preston,” Luke says.

“I know. I hear it. I’m being normal about it.”

“Preston.” His hand has gone very still in mine. He’s looking at the screen the way he looks at films in the trauma bay. “Listen to it.”