“Oh.” Her face paled. “About us?”
I couldn’t lie to her. I just couldn’t. So, I answered honestly. “Yeah.”
Her body visibly stiffened. Her arms crossed protectively over her chest. “I see.”
An icy shiver ran over me. I did not want to hurt her. I sighed, running a hand through my hair, unsure of what I should say or do. “Will you call me once you make a doctor’s appointment? Let me know when and where? I want to drive you. I want to go with you.”
“Sure,” she responded but it was hardly convincing.
“Promise me, Juniper.”
“I said sure already,” she snapped, not meeting my eyes.
Oh, fuck. I’d really pissed her off. I hadn’t meant to. My heart squeezed and cracked. Apparently seeing her in any sort of pain did awful, terrible things to my insides. It felt like millions of tiny knives were jabbing at me. “Juniper,” I whispered, begging. I couldn’t have her mad at me. “It’s not like that. It’s just—”
“Just go,” she said, cutting me off. “Just go ahead and go if you need to.”
Ouch. I didn't want to dig myself into a deeper hole than the one I was already standing in, so I simply said, “Okay,” and slipped on my shoes. I left her room and softly closed the door behind me.
Blindly, I walked down the hall, through the living room, and out toward the kitchen. Was it better, at the risk of hurting us both, to just take myself out of the equation? It felt as if piranhas were snacking on my stomach, so I'd have to say the answer to that question was no. Still, I didn't know what the right move was.
“Oh, hey, Ben. I didn't know you were here.”
It was Rhett. I was so caught up in my own head, I hadn't noticed him standing—shirtless—in the kitchen. At the sink, he appeared to be attempting to get a giant red stain out of his Chancy Claw t-shirt.
“Damn, cocktail sauce again,” he said as he scrubbed. “Sometimes I think women purposely spill stuff on me, trying to get me to take off my shirt.” He chuckled, just as full of himself as always.
“You brought Juniper food,” I commented. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, your girl is craving meat like a caveman.” He abandoned his shirt in the sink and cracked open the oven, showing me the proof. “We should enter her into a buffalo wing eating contest. That's two dozen there. That's like a snack for her.”
I couldn't help but smile. And part of me kind of liked how Rhett kept referring to her as my girl. “I didn't know she was craving stuff.”
“More like she's adverse to stuff. Meat is one of the few things she's tolerating. You'd know more about this if you were around more.”
I glared at him.
“Just saying. You could forgive her for the Lilly Davenport thing and move on. That girl is under your skin and you know it. Stop being a pussy and just go with it.” His eyes drifted up to my forehead. “And what the fuck happened to your head? You get in fight? Quinton didn't show up, did he?”
Before I had a chance to respond, Juniper answered. “No, I did that.”
I froze. I hadn’t heard her come into the kitchen, but I now knew she stood behind me. Her presence made my heart start to beat a little too fast.
“No, shit,” Rhett said to her.
“Ben startled me,” she explained. “I swung before looking. He says he's fine.”
“I'm fine,” I confirmed.
“You look fine,” Rhett mumbled sarcastically. He opened the freezer, grabbed a frozen bag of veggies and tossed it in my direction.
I caught the bag. “Thanks,” I said, and pressed the bag to the spot above my eye.
It still felt tender.
So did my chest. Especially as Juniper moved around me as if I weren’t there, getting her lunch out of the oven. She sat down to eat at one of the bar stools, paying no attention to my presence.
Rhett went back to cleaning, or attempting to clean, his shirt. “Its days like this I really miss Noah living with me,” he mumbled as he scrubbed. It was a reference to Noah's OCD. Everyone knew the guy was a neat freak.
That girl is under your skin and you know it.
I thought over Rhett’s words. He’d spoke them carelessly, but he had a point. Juniper was under my skin. So much so that my feet were fucking frozen to the floor. Now would probably be a good time to leave, I’d already told her I needed to go, but I couldn’t seem to leave Rhett’s house. And then, much to my own surprise, I moved and sat down at the barstool beside Juniper.
We both said nothing. Complete silence. She ate her lunch. I held the frozen veggies to my head. While Rhett started going on and on about cocktail sauce and how disgusting it was. Eventually Ellie showed up. Then later Noah and Georgina. Then Sydney. Everyone was over because they all had plans to hangout tonight. And suddenly both Juniper and I were part of those plans.
The rest of the evening was loud—full of laughter, alcohol, and card games. Juniper fit in flawlessly, conversing with the others as if they were old friends. I did my best to appear at least semi-social. Group situations weren't really my thing these days. But since Juniper was there, I was there. We weren’t really speaking, at least not to one another. But we’d stayed in close proximity to one other all evening. I took that as a good sign. I took that to mean that I hadn’t ruined everything with her.
“Ben, bud, you know it’s almost seven fifty, right?” Ellie reminded me as it was getting closer to my curfew time.
Jesus, that damn curfew.
I was counting down the days until I was a free man again.
“Yep.” I stood, beyond disappointed that I had to leave Juniper behind now. “Goodnight, everyone,” I said to the group as I moved toward the door. “Goodnight, Juniper,” I said just to her from across the room.
“Goodnight, Ben.”
She didn’t leave the couch or walk me to door. I wasn’t sure what to make of it and my heart ached the entire drive home because of it. I knew I wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
Shit. I was such an asshole. I’d done this to myself.
* * *
Three days slipped by. Three days where I didn’t hear a word from Juniper. I knew she was okay because I’d been keeping in touch with Rhett, but not being able to see her was pure agony. Finally, at nine in the morning on day four, she sent me a text.
Juniper: My doctor’s appointment is today at 10:15 if you’re still interested in going. Rhett already said he can drive me. So, either way.
Fuck Rhett taking her.
And she’d purposely waited until the last minute on this.
Me: I’ll be there at 9:45 to pick you up.
Juniper: I probably need to leave at 9:30 since I have to fill out forms.
Me: 9:30 then. See you soon.
Good thing I’d already taken the day off.
Rhett had given me a head’s up on this. I already knew today was the day of her doctor's appointment. I found it very decent of Rhett to let me know and all. It was in a long line of super decent things he'd been doing for me recently. I really owed him.
I finished getting ready for the day and headed over to pick up Juniper. I was antsy and jittery, as if this were a first date rather than a doctor's appointment.
Once outside the house, I waited in my car for her. I debated about going to the door, but thought it best to wait. Finally, she came outside and my heart jumped at the sight of her. She had her purse slung over her shoulder, and she wore her beautiful hair down around her shoulders. Instead of her usual sweatshirt, today she had on a black tank top. Her belly had really started to grow and the tank top seemed to accentuate it. She hopped in my car, huffing as if she were annoyed as she slammed the door and put on her seatbelt.
For the hell of it, because I had nothing to lose, I simply said, “Truce,” as the first word out of my mouth.
I didn't expect her to respond to the word, especially if she was annoyed with me, but immediately she unbuckled her seatbelt, leaned across the middle console and pressed a quick, firm kiss t
o my lips. I couldn’t help but grin in amazement. Then she sat back down, and rebuckled her seatbelt as if nothing had just happened.
“Truce,” I repeated again, just to see if she'd do it again.
She groaned and unbuckled for a second time. And once more she leaned over to give me a kiss. This time, better prepared for it, I caught her face in my hands as her lips pressed against mine. Gently refusing to let her go, I held her close. She resisted me for a small moment, offering no more than her swift kiss, but as I held her she quickly gave in and deepened the kiss with me. Urgency, electricity, and a need I was becoming accustomed to fueled my desire.
As we broke apart I whispered, “I missed you.” Because I really had. Emotion was rubbing me a little raw and I think she felt it too.
“I missed you too,” she muttered back. She sat back in her seat.
“Truce,” I said one more time. Because, really, I could fucking kiss her all day long.
“Stop it, you're abusing the Truce,” she scolded, but she gave me one more quick kiss.
I laughed as she settled back in her seat. She waited with questioning eyes, her hand hovering over her seatbelt, probably in case I was about to say truce again.
“You can buckle,” I told her. But now that I knew its effectiveness, I planned on abusing the hell out of the Truce today.
Her doctor's office was about fifteen minutes away. She remained silent the whole drive. Even as she filled out the paperwork in the waiting area, she didn't say much. Then it was her turn to go back with the nurse.
“Want me to wait out here or go back with you?” I had no idea what she was in store for, and from the pale look on her face I could tell she probably didn't, either.
“Come with, please?” Her voice cracked a little as she asked.
“Sure. That's what I'm here for.”
I followed Juniper and the nurse back to a room where more waiting followed.
The entire appointment ended up taking almost two hours. After a light scolding from the doctor, because Juniper had waited so long to make this first appointment, everything began. First, she had to answer about a billion questions. They wanted to know everything from her last period to her entire medical history. Then they gave her a pelvic exam, which was entirely too awkward for me. After that, they drew eight vials of blood. Eight! I counted. And then finally, the exciting part, they did an ultrasound.
“This will help us determine how far along you actually are,” the ultrasound technician said. She rolled Juniper's shirt up, squirted some gel on her belly, and then the lady pressed her little wand on top of the gel. Immediately a swishing sound filled the room and the ultrasound picture popped up on the screen.
“If you’re far along enough to tell, do you want to know the sex of the—” The nurse paused midsentence as something had caught her attention on the monitor.
Oh shit.
I could see what had distracted the nurse.
“Congratulations,” the nurse said, smiling. “You’re having twins.”
CHAPTER 16:
JUNIPER
Twins. Twins. Twins.
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. How? Why? God, what must Ben be thinking now? I wasn’t even paying attention to the nurse anymore. I heard the word ‘twins’ and nothing else mattered. Tears were silently rolling down my cheeks. I kept brushing them away, playing them off as happy tears, but in actuality they were ‘I’m-freaking-the-fuck-out’ tears. I’d been preparing myself for one baby, not two.
Finally the ultrasound was over. The doctor came in one more time to talk about everything. I pulled myself together long enough to get through the rest of the appointment.
“So, I’m going to want to see you every two weeks. You’re healthy and your babies are healthy, but since you’re carrying twins we consider the pregnancy ‘high-risk’ and will want to take extra precautions. We want you in here every two weeks until you’re in your third trimester, and then I’ll want to see you weekly.”
Blah. Blah. Blah. Really, I was just counting down the seconds until I could get the fuck out of this room. The doctor finally finished talking by asking, “Any questions?”
“No,” I said politely. “Not really.”
“Yes,” Ben jumped in to say. Then he proceeded to ask a million and one questions. He wanted to know about my morning sickness and if that was normal, about the foods I should be eating, about how much exercise was safe, about which pre-natal pills I should take, about pre-term birth, etc. All his rapid-fire questions were both surprising, and frankly, overwhelming.
When his questions finally ceased and we could leave, I rushed out of there like someone had lit my ass on fire. “Juniper, slow down,” he tried to tell me, but I ignored him and ran. By the time I hit open air and sunlight, tears were cascading down my face. I started hurrying down the sidewalk, rushing in no particular direction. I only needed to get away.
Ben wasn’t far behind me. He caught my arm. “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” I cried, still walking.
“Yes, I do,” he said softly.
“No, you don’t. I don’t even know what you’re still doing here. Because you can go.” My feet slowed. We’d run out of sidewalk and there was nowhere left to go but straight into the middle of the street. “You can run for the hills, and I won’t even blame you. You said it yourself, that you weren’t even sure about us. Me having twins just makes this—” I gestured between us. “—that much more impossible.” I inhaled a few times, barely able to meet his eyes, in full blown panic mode now. “Don't worry about me. I'll figure all of this out on my own.”
“I don't want you to figure it out on your own.” Ben's intense blue eyes stared down at me, strain on his face. “I want to figure it out together.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. But I can’t really fight what I’m feeling for you.”
What? He couldn’t fight what he was feeling for me! I swallowed, the rest of the world ceased to exist. The traffic on the street, the baking humidity, the perspiration trickling down my spine—all of it suddenly faded into the background. Even the twins, for a small moment, disappeared from my mind.
“There’s stuff you still don’t know about me,” he went on. “And I’m sure likewise with you. But I want to try this. Us. I think it deserves a chance. Don’t you?” He spoke so confidently, like nothing else mattered.
“I’m going to be a whale,” I reminded him. “Seriously. Huge.” Hell, my stomach already seemed to be growing by the second. With twins, I'd be twice as big.
“I don’t care.”
I huffed. “I’m going to get even more moody and hormonal than I am now.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
Sighing, I tried another angle. “I’m way too old for you.”
“Okay.” He laughed. “Now you’re being ridiculous. Five years isn’t that big of a difference. There really isn't anything you can say that's going to change my mind.”
There was one more obvious thing. I had to put it out there because it was the most important thing of all. “They're not you're babies. And everyone is always going to know that.” I felt my cheeks grow hot as I said it. I almost felt guilty saying it. As if the reminder was cruel. Because Ben had been here for me from the start. Quinton didn't even know they existed. In some ways, Ben was already more of a father to the twins than Quinton.
“Does that matter to you?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Then I don't care what anyone else thinks. I don't care that they're not mine.”
I felt more hot tears slip down my face. I'd run out of arguments and reasons why we shouldn't be together. Not gonna lie, having twins still freaked me out, but as Ben waited on me to answer his original question, it didn't seem quite as scary. The love that I’d already started to feel for him multiplied and expanded.
“Okay,” I told him, yielding.
“Okay?” The look on face, l
ike pure happiness, was something I’d remember for the rest of my life. “Did you just agree to be my girlfriend?” he asked, his mood instantly becoming more playful.
“Yes.”
With the pads of his thumbs he brushed the tears off my face. Then he pulled me in against his chest for a hug. He felt warm and safe, his smell and his touch becoming this comfortable, familiar thing. Could Ben be the one? A dad for my kids? A man to spend my life with? These questions suddenly popped into my head. These questions were things I’d never even considered for myself. Even on the day Quinton proposed I hadn’t consider them—which, in itself, should have been a red flag. But I couldn’t help these questions from formulating in my mind. And now that they were up there, they were stuck there.
“I don't want you living with Rhett,” Ben said against my shoulder.
I groaned, pulling out of his arms. What the hell. We were back to his issues with Rhett again. I still didn't understand. “Seriously.” I glared up at him.
“I have two more weeks until my probation period is over and then I'm free. I don't know where I'm going to live, but it won’t be with my parents. I want to live with you.”
My heart thumped. My mouth went a little dry. I could barely contain the excitement I felt.
“We could get an apartment. We could rent month-to-month rather than signing a lease if you’d like. You know, test out how it goes, see if living together works. I’m tired of learning everything about you through Rhett. I’m tired of him taking care of you. It has been beyond decent of Rhett to do everything he's done so far, but I want to be the one there for you. What do you say?”
I said the only word that would formulate on my lips. “Yes.”
* * *
Over the next two weeks, Ben and I saw each other only in the evenings. He was working all the time, but he'd bring me dinner each night before he had to hurry home in time to make his curfew. Often Rhett was there or we'd be rushed because I had band practice to get to. It seemed there was always something that interrupted or cut our time short. And I didn’t know why, but I'd developed a shyness with Ben. When we were only friends I never felt so breathless and out of words around him. Even when he saw me naked I never felt this way. But I felt it now.
Kill Devil Hills: A Complete Beach Romance Series (4-Book Box Set) Page 68
