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  It felt like a herculean effort, but I reined myself in. “I’ll see you on Friday then. I’ll let you know exactly where and when.”

  “Of course. Thank you so much.” Veronica stood up. I did as well, and forced myself to stick just with shaking her hand. I couldn’t tell if I was imagining the flash of disappointment across her face or not.

  After she left, I just about collapsed. How the hell did I let myself get into this situation? I shouldn’t be getting more involved. I should be sending her to another doctor. If I did, then I could sleep with her all I wanted, no worries about unprofessionalism.

  Ugh, really!? Really. Here the poor woman was, trying to start a family and focusing on that, and I wanted to complicate her life by finding the best way to sleep with her? No. I shouldn’t get more involved at all, either by giving her to another doctor so that I could fuck her—I mean what kind of asshole thought that way?

  And yet, here I was, accompanying her to a sperm bank. I shouldn’t be getting more involved, and yet…

  I couldn’t seem to help it.

  6

  Veronica

  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the sperm bank visit. Maybe I should have, but I felt so out of my depth. I had done all kinds of reading up on what to expect from the pregnancy, and the first year, and so on. There’d been a few scares when I’d been with Chad and so I had done lots of research to prepare for being a mother. And, well, I wanted to be a mother, so it was fun to read up and imagine what I would do when it was my turn to raise a child.

  But the actual… process of getting pregnant? I had no clue what I was doing here. I could have just found a one night stand to hook up with. I could have found a friend or another person to be a donor and gone into the bank with them. But instead I was at the mercy of my fertility doctor and his assistance.

  Thank goodness that doctor was Ted. He made me feel so at ease, went along with my crappy, nerve-fueled jokes about finding a donor. He’d even offered to join me at the sperm bank and I was so glad for that. I needed someone with me on this, and not just a supportive friend. As much as I knew Layla would be helpful for a morale boost, she wasn’t an expert on this like Ted was. This was literally his career. Who knew how many people he’d helped get a child?

  The idea of Ted going to sperm banks to help other women made me flare up with jealousy once again. I tried to stamp that down. It wasn’t my right to feel jealous. Ted was just my doctor. That was all.

  It was foolish to think about more.

  My stomach was all in knots by the time that I got up to the sperm bank, so it was a relief to find that Ted was already there, waiting out front. He looked so relaxed, lounging against the wall. He was dressed more casually than at his office, which was understandable. He was wearing dark, form-fitting jeans and a button-up shirt, but now the shirt had the sleeves rolled up and the top few buttons undone and his hair was just finger combed, making it look soft and inviting. I wanted to run my fingers through it, get a handful and tug on it as he swirled his tongue over my clit.

  God, just seeing him made me warm all over, like I was standing next to a large fire. It was simultaneously comforting and inflaming. I could feel shivers crawling up my spine, heat pooling between my legs.

  It would just be so easy to rip his shirt open and get my tongue on that…teasing little bit of his throat, his clavicle, and then work my way down his chest until I could take his cock hot and heavy in my mouth.

  He’d taught me how to give a blowjob, just as I’d taught him how to eat me out, the two of us exploring each other’s bodies with only the barest idea what we were supposed to do - just trying to follow what felt good.

  I could remember how he had given me instructions, his hand in my hair, gasping as I sucked him down again and again until he was shaking and desperately groaning, beyond words. How much sexier would it be now, with us both grown up and Ted with his air of command, of control, his relaxed ease with which he owned a room? His hand would be in my hair again but this time his instructions wouldn’t be gasped, they’d be murmured.

  Just like that, that’s a good girl. Mmm, tongue the slit the way I like, yeah, just like that. Always so obedient for me, aren’t you?

  Such a little minx but I can get you to behave. Suck me down all the way, that’s it baby. Gotta get me nice and hard so I can fuck you…

  I shook myself out of my thoughts as I felt my underwear getting wet. I shouldn’t be thinking about him this way, and I knew it, but it was so hard when he was so goddamn sexy. I hadn’t been with anyone besides him and Chad and Chad had… left a lot to be desired in the realm of sex.

  But Ted - we’d only been teenagers but he’d had me begging and screaming with ecstasy as I’d come again and again. How much better would he be now as an adult with even more experience under his belt?

  No, Veronica. Bad girl. I shoved those thoughts away. I wasn’t ready for a relationship and I might never be, not after Chad, and not with my child on the way. I wasn’t going to pursue this with my doctor of all people…when I couldn’t think of being in a proper relationship. That would be thoughtless, selfish.

  I needed to push my attraction to the side. I was an adult, for crying out loud, surely I could do that. I needed to focus on the entire reason that I was doing this: making a baby.

  Just not, you know, the old-fashioned way.

  “Hey!” Ted grinned at me as I walked up. I could see his gaze flicking over my form, and I had to fight down a blush. So I had spent an hour on my wardrobe this morning to pick just the right summer dress. So what?

  “How’re you feeling?” he asked, offering me his arm.

  I took it, unable to stop my blush this time when faced with his southern charm. “A little nervous but determined.”

  “Good. Nerves are completely normal, trust me, if you didn’t have nerves I would be worried.” Ted winked at me and then got the door for me, leading me in.

  The inside of the bank was pleasant, with a nice lobby and reception area. It reminded me of any other doctor’s office, which was a relief.

  Ted signed us in and spoke quietly to the receptionist while I looked around at the pictures of smiling people holding babies that hung from the walls - past customers, I supposed. The receptionist got up and left, and then a moment later an older, dark-skinned woman entered with her gray hair in a messy bun and thick horn-rimmed glances.

  “Melody.” Ted hugged her hello, and then turned and gestured for me to come over. “Dr. Johnson, this is Miss DeMarcus. Veronica, this is Dr. Johnson, she’s the head of this clinic.”

  “Ted told me that you were a little unsure so I thought I would give you a tour,” Dr. Johnson tells me. “Help set you at ease about the entire process.”

  “I really appreciate it,” I told her, even as I had to fight down a bit of a laugh.

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but Dr. Johnson looked almost exactly like my Algebra teacher in high school. I couldn’t remember if Ted had the same teacher or not, but I sure hoped he did, otherwise he wasn’t going to understand why I was stifling giggles.

  “Right this way, then,” Dr. Johnson said, and began to lead us through the clinic.

  As soon as her back was turned, I leaned in to Ted. “She looks like Mrs. Haversham, doesn’t she?” I whispered.

  Ted made a choking noise, his eyes going a bit wide. “She does, doesn’t she?”

  “Maybe they’re related.”

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. Haversham was a harpy. She hated me.”

  “Aww, she loved me.” I batted my eyelashes at him innocently.

  Ted had to cough to cover up his laugh.

  “Now, a lot of clinics will just take anyone,” Dr. Johnson said. “But we have a very selective screening process. People will try and pad their resumes, so to speak, in order to become a donor, especially at a clinic like ours because we pay so well. But we run extensive background checks to ensure that everything our donors tell us about their education and employment history i
s accurate.”

  I nodded, putting on my best I’m a good student face. Ted rolled his eyes at me and mouthed teacher’s pet. I winked at him.

  “So,” I asked, trying to show that I was paying attention, “how do you find your donors? You don’t just rely on people googling for sperm banks in the area to donate to, do you?”

  “We actually do recruit from universities nearby,” Dr. Johnson confirmed. “The maximum age that a donor can be is 39, so we set ours at 38, and men in university are in the prime of their health and their lives. We can also more easily check out their credentials if they’re at university—it’s easy to look up and see if they really are on the football team or the Dean’s List.”

  “Fascinating,” I said.

  Ted leaned into me once Dr. Johnson wasn’t looking - she was showing us a room where they conducted interviews with the potential donors. “They also recruit from the local Renaissance Faire volunteers for people who want their kid to be a pirate or a Shakespeare enthusiast. You have no idea how popular those people are.”

  I almost choked on my own spit struggling to hold in my laugh. I hadn’t… forgotten, exactly, how much fun Ted could be, but I was now remembering why I had forbidden us from sitting next to each other in public events etc. All right, part of it had been that I had been a snob who hadn’t wanted to be too obvious about hanging out with him all the time, and I was ashamed of that. But the other part of it was that he’d just kept making me laugh all through and I hadn’t been able to keep it together.

  “All of our donors have to go through a three to six months screening process to make sure that they meet our basic requirements. They have to be able to provide genetic and medical information on themselves and their family members - siblings, parents, grandparents - and submit to a physical examination here at our clinic from one of our doctors.”

  “They’re also questioned on which Hogwarts house they belong to,” I added in a whisper. “All Hufflepuffs are immediately banned from donation.”

  Ted quickly turned his laugh into a cough, and I grinned triumphantly. I had always been able to make him laugh, back in the day, and it appeared I still had that magic touch.

  “Only one percent of all the donors who apply make it through our selective screening process,” Dr. Johnson went on, apparently oblivious. “So you can’t really go wrong with whatever donor you choose to go with. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed, we do have a consultation where you provide us with a list of characteristics that you want in a donor, not just the physical, although if there’s a particular celebrity you have in mind you’re welcome to send a picture of them, and we look through our donors to find someone who would best match that.

  “Or, if you’re struggling between a few different donors, we can look at your list and pick one for you that we think would be best. We want this to be a fun and easy process for you and not something that stresses you out. Oh!” Dr. Johnson paused. “And this is our therapy room, we have our psychiatric evaluations here for the donors.”

  “They try to weed out the serial killers,” Ted whispered. “If you’ve killed more than two people you’re disqualified.”

  I nearly choked laughing.

  Dr. Johnson turned back to give us a suspicious look. Ted and I gave her equally innocent stares, although Ted’s nearly sent me into another fit of giggles. “You seem prepared to help clients with multiple children,” I noted, struggling to think of something to say that would show I’d been listening and definitely hadn’t been goofing off.

  “It’s important, we feel, that our clients choose more than just what they’ll need for the one child. Having extra sperm stored means that if the process doesn’t take and you’ve used up all of your sperm, you have more that you can work with, or if later down the line you’d like a sibling for your child, you can give them the same father.”

  “Completely understandable,” Ted said, sounding every inch the serious doctor. Then he whispered to me, “Y’know in case the first one doesn’t work out and they don’t get the concert violinist they were hoping for.”

  I cleared my throat to hide my chuckle. “And how private are the identities of the donors kept?” I asked. This was a serious question that I had actually prepared.

  “We do have open donations.” Dr. Johnson paused. “Some children want to know who their biological parent is, and want to exchange an email or have a phone interview, something like that. Some donors pick the anonymous option, which means that you can try and contact them, but they’re under no obligation to respond. We reach out for you as a mediation service.

  “If, however, they choose an open donation, this means that they have agreed ahead of time to one instance of personal contact - whether that’s in person or over a video chat, or some other way. They can agree to more but they’re only obligated to do the once.”

  “I don’t think I’ll care either way,” I admitted. “They might have donated the DNA but they’re not raising the child, I am. If my child grows up and is curious then they can do whatever searching they want, I won’t hide anything from them, but I don’t see… why it would matter, really. I’ll be raising them, loving them, and that’s what really matters at the end of the day, isn’t it?”

  It was a serious moment in an otherwise lighthearted time with Ted. He didn’t say anything, just nodded shortly, but I knew what he was thinking about: his mother, who ran off and abandoned him, leaving Ted to be raised with his abusive, alcoholic father.

  That woman might have given birth to him, but she wasn’t his mother.

  I wanted to reach out and squeeze Ted’s hand, like I used to when we were dating, but I wasn’t sure now if I could. Offering comfort was something a friend would do, I didn’t have to be a romantic partner for that, but… would he even want it, just platonically?

  It was all so confusing, what we were to each other now. And my wild attraction to him certainly didn’t help.

  “And that is completely understandable,” Dr. Johnson said. This seemed to be an answer that she heard a lot here, or at least enough that it didn’t faze her. She gestured to another door. “Here we are! This is the room where you’ll be able to look at all of our donor archives. There’s a water cooler but if you need anything please don’t hesitate to ring the bell. We have several patient rooms with copies of our donor profiles so you can stay as long as you’d like, no rush at all.”

  I thanked her, and then stepped inside, realizing with a hot shiver down my spine that now, I’d be alone with Ted. And not alone just in one of his patient rooms, or in his office. But alone out of his office, out of his clinic, in a room where nobody would disturb us for hours.

  That thought really should not have been as tempting to me as it was, shouldn’t have made me think all the naughty thoughts that I did, but… I couldn’t help it. I could so easily see myself climbing into his lap and wrapping my arms around him. I wondered if he still kissed the same way, softly at first, then putting his entire body into it - if he still tugged on my bottom lip as he pulled away.

  Stop it, I told myself sternly.

  But that didn’t stop the thoughts from coming.

  It didn’t stop my desire.

  7

  Ted

  I could barely keep a straight face as I thanked Melody for the tour. The poor woman had been donating her time to us and we’d been acting like teenagers.

  If she noticed anything, of course, she was polite enough not to say it as she shook hands with us and left us in the parent room so we could go through the archives. Using the word ‘archives’ made it sound like some kind of massive library when really it was just a reception room that had comfortable couches and several photo albums filled with the profiles of the various anonymous donors.

  “You can take all the time you need,” Melody promised Veronica. “Just look through the binders and you can mark a few that you like so that you can think about them. You can’t take pictures of the profiles but you’re free to make notes. Once you m
ake your selection we can set the process in motion.”

  Veronica smiled and politely thanked her, and Dr. Johnson nodded at me, exiting.

  Once the door closed behind us I started laughing properly, and Veronica did the same. “Oh my God, that felt like high school all over again,” she laughed.

  “Hey, you weren’t the one getting us into trouble in high school.”

  “True, true, maybe I picked up a few things from you,” she teased.

  It had been forever since I’d been that silly. I had always been causing trouble in class growing up, and it seemed Veronica had brought out that more fun and childish side of me, in a good way, though. Veronica had always been so serious, always telling me to cut it out and stop goofing off. Now she was letting herself let her hair down, so to speak. It was delightful.

  It definitely didn’t help with my plan to stop thinking about kissing her. Or doing other things to her.

  Veronica sat down on the couch and grabbed a binder, starting to flip through. I walked over, peering over her shoulder as she began to take a look.

  There weren’t any pictures of the donors, but there was a physical description listed for each of them. Height, weight, eye color, hair color, that kind of thing. There was a list of physical activities they took like football, rock climbing, hiking, and areas where they excelled academically. Their college careers and medical history… their entire lives, distilled down to a few quick words and descriptors, clinical lists, without that personal touch that I’d want if I was the person making this decision.

  Then again, if it were me, I wouldn’t be going with a donor. I’d want to do things the old-fashioned way. I do want to do things the old-fashioned way, when I eventually have a kid.