Waiting Room
A few days passed and Taylor saw no more of Shiloh than just her waddling figure going to and from her car in the mornings and afternoons. He wasn’t sure if she was deliberately avoiding him or if she was just too busy, and he didn’t dare try to find out.
By the third day, he had given up even watching for her at the window. He didn’t sleep well alone, but he still stayed in bed as late as he wanted before finally dragging himself to the shower and then downing several cups of coffee as though he had actually slept enough to need it. Instead of going to the window, he turned on the television and tried to find a program that didn’t have some stupid celebrity news portion that might mention Zac. He really didn’t think he could handle that.
Taylor had just started on his third cup of coffee when his phone began to ring. A quick check of the caller id revealed that it was his mother, and while part of him dreaded what she might have to say, he knew that the call was coming eventually. He couldn’t avoid the news about Zac forever.
“Hello?”
“Taylor, honey, I wasn’t sure if you would be awake yet.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, the sentence punctuated by a perfectly timed yawn.
“I don’t think any of us are sleeping well these days,” she replied, ever the diplomat. There was no real hidden meaning there, just an acknowledgment that things were tough on everyone. Taylor liked his mother’s ability to be so calm and collected all the time, but it did leave him wondering why she had called.
“So, umm, what’s up? Have the police called or something?”
“Oh, no,” she said, laughing softly. “Not yet. We’re all waiting to hear… well, anything, really. No, I was just going to see if you felt up to having dinner with the family in a few days. I just want to get us all together on, say, Thursday? It’s just… well, you’re almost all here again and I miss you.”
That wasn’t quite as diplomatic as she usually was, but Taylor understood what she meant. She was trying, just a little bit, to play on his guilt for leaving, and it worked.
“Yeah,” Taylor replied. “I’ve got nothing else to do but sit at home all day. Plus, I’m running out of all that food you gave me.”
She laughed softly again. “Okay, good. Five o’clock on Thursday, then. You can bring something if you want… you know it takes a lot to feed all of us. I wouldn’t mind having to do a little less of the cooking.”
That was another subtle hint; she had relied on Taylor to do a good share of the cooking for years. He had taken to it pretty early on, far more than Isaac had before him, and it truly did take a lot to feed their family. Having someone else around who enjoyed cooking almost as much as eating made things a lot easier.
“Sure, I’ll throw something together,” he replied, realizing that meant he would need to actually go shopping soon. Taylor supposed he could manage that; he would have to leave the house again someday, after all.
“Alright, sweetie. I’ll see you, then.”
“Bye, mom,” Taylor replied.
No sooner had he hung up the phone than a knock came at the door. Taylor briefly wondered when he had become so popular, then trudged to the door to see who was bothering him before noon. It must have been important, judging by their insistent knock. When he reached the door and flung it open, he found himself face to face with a very flustered looking Shiloh.
“Shy? What’s up?” He asked, leaning against the door frame.
“My car won’t start.”
“You do realize I’m not a mechanic?” Taylor asked, smirking a little.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do. I also realize that you have a car. And I have a doctor’s appointment in less than an hour. So, I need you.”
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” Taylor didn’t even care that that earned him a look which could have killed. It was totally worth it.
“I need you. To take me to the doctor,” Shiloh replied through gritted teeth. “Are you going to be a smug bastard about it or are you going to do it?”
“Both, probably,” Taylor replied. “Let me go get dressed. Won’t take five minutes. You can wait inside.”
“Yeah, okay,” Shiloh replied, loosening her scarf slightly as she stepped into Taylor’s house.
He could tell she was nervous and impatient, so he hurried back to his bedroom and threw on the first vaguely presentable looking outfit he could find. The pants were a little wrinkled, but with his shirt tucked in and a belt added, he thought he looked alright. At least he had bothered to shower that day, he decided, then grabbed a pair of shoes and hurried back the hallway to find Shiloh again.
“Alright,” Taylor said, wiggling into his shoes and grabbing his keys, cell phone and wallet. “Let’s go.”
Shiloh nodded and lead the way out of the house. Taylor locked the door as quickly as possible, then rushed to unlock and open the passenger door to his car before Shiloh could. He only smiled when she rolled her eyes at his display of chivalry. Someday, he thought, she would get tired of giving her eyes such a workout around him and just let him be nice to her without commenting on it every single time. That day had apparently not come yet.
Taylor turned the radio down as soon as they were out of the driveway and allowed Shiloh to give him directions to her doctor. It was a little ways from his house, but Taylor had a lead foot, so it didn’t really matter; they still arrived in plenty of time for the appointment.
Shiloh gave Taylor a sideways glance when he stepped out of the car and followed her into the building, but she didn’t say anything until they were directly outside a door that bore the letters OBGYN.
“Taylor,” Shiloh said, gripping his arm tightly. “You don’t need to come inside, okay? It’s just going to be awkward and kind of… well, personal. You can stay in the waiting room.”
He frowned.
“Please,” Shiloh said. “I know, she’s your baby, but… I’m just not ready for this. Maybe I’ll feel differently next week. We’ll see.”
It wasn’t a complete concession, but it was enough for him. He gave her a small nod, then held the door open for her. Shiloh, surprisingly, didn’t roll her eyes that time, but her mouth was set in a frown, so again, Taylor couldn’t really call it a total win.
He trailed closely behind Shiloh as she made her way to the front desk and scribbled her name onto the sign in sheet. That didn’t earn him another glare, at least. He stayed behind her again as she walked to one of the few empty seats in the waiting room, and he sat down in the one next to her. Again, no glare. At least, nothing worse than the grim look she had adopted as soon as he held the door open for her. As long as it wasn’t getting worse, Taylor was happy enough.
Shiloh thumbed through an old copy of People while she waited, and Taylor tried to find a magazine to amuse himself with. He wasn’t surprised to see that the only ones that weren’t fashion magazines were focused on celebrities. He really didn’t care to read any of that; right then, he wanted to be as far from his semi-celebrity status as possible. If he had been in a better mood and not fearing Shiloh’s wrath, he might have asked the nurse at the front desk why they didn’t seem to have any reading material for the husbands and boyfriends.
Although, he supposed, he was neither of those. Still, he was the father of Shiloh’s baby and he was there with her. That ought to have counted for more than she seemed to think it did.
Taylor didn’t have long to explore that particular train of thought before he was jarred back to the world by a voice on the PA system calling out Shiloh’s name. He gave her a tiny smile, which he thought for a moment she might return, but it didn’t seem to make it past her eyes to the rest of her face.
“I’ll be back soon. Try not to flirt with any single mothers while I’m gone.”
At that, he couldn’t resist taking a page out of her book and rolling his eyes as hard as they would possibly roll.
To his surprise, he began to feel sleepy only seconds after Shiloh disappeared behind the door where a nurse had stood to greet her. It shouldn’t have been surprising, considering how little sleep he had gotten the night before, but the amount of coffee he had consumed and his general inability to sleep made it seem a little strange. Taylor didn’t try to fight it, and it wasn’t long before he drifted off into a surprisingly easy and restful sleep.
He didn’t know how long he had slept when he felt someone nudging his shoulder. He blinked a few times to readjust to the light of the room and found Shiloh staring down at him, a smirk on her face.
“Alright, sleeping beauty,” she said. “You can take me home now.”
“That’s it?” He asked, feeling rested but still a bit groggy and not totally himself again.
Shiloh nodded. “That’s it. It’s just a routine thing now that this bun’s almost done baking.”
Taylor rolled his eyes at her metaphor, then wondered when the two of them had switched roles. He didn’t much care for being the unamused one, but he did like that Shiloh seemed to be in a slightly better mood. How a doctor’s appointment could have that effect on her, he wasn’t quite sure, but he was happy for it.
Standing up, he risked offering his hand to her, and to his surprise, she accepted it. The two of them walked hand in hand out of the office. Taylor waited until they were alone in the building’s hallway before speaking.
“So, what do they do in these routine things anyway?”
Shiloh shrugged. “Not much. It’s basically just a checkup. Lots of questions about how I’m feeling, if the baby’s moving a lot. Incidentally, she’s kicking up a storm today. Little girly here is fidgety like her dad, I guess.”
“Oh, is she?” Taylor asked, grinning. Like her dad. He liked hearing those three simple words.
“I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be the one glowing right now, not you,” Shiloh replied, smirking. “Anyway, so after the basic checkup and all the questions, we talked about labor and delivery. All that fun stuff.”
“You’ve got to have a birth plan put together, right? Whether you want drugs or not and all that stuff?”
“Yeah,” Shiloh replied, then tilted her head to the side. “How are you so smart about babies?”
“One of seven, remember?” Taylor chuckled.
“Right,” Shiloh said. “So yeah, I’m working on the plan. I’m thinking drugs. All the drugs they’ll give me. And just… the standard stuff, I guess.”
Taylor nodded. “You’re tough, though. You’ll be alright.”
“I guess,” Shiloh said, sighing and leaning against the side of Taylor’s car. She looked like she was considering something, and Taylor thought it best not to press her. Finally, she glanced up at him again. “Look, they asked about… well, the father, and I was thinking… if you’re determined to be involved, I guess you should be there.”
“Be there?” Taylor repeated.
“You know, when I give birth?”
“Oh,” he replied, letting her words sink in. “Oh. Yeah, that would be… yeah. Really.”
“Very eloquently put,” Shiloh said with a smirk and a tiny roll of her eyes.
That time, Taylor didn’t even mind the eye roll. He just gave her a smirk of his own and said, “I have one condition, though.”
“I’m not naming her Jordan Taylor, even if both of those are girl’s names.”
“I’m going to ignore the fact that you just called the father of your child a girl,” Taylor replied. “The condition is that you come to a family dinner with me on Thursday. If you’ll be home by five, anyway. It’s fine if you can’t, I guess.”
“I can,” she replied, giving him a little nod. “It’s a deal.”