by Quinn, Taryn
“Their parents are one thing,” she said stiffly. “But you’re not in a committed—”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Luna and I are extremely committed. We aren’t seeing other people. There’s no other woman on this planet I would rather be with than her.”
At the clatter at the end of the hall, I turned my head. I wasn’t at all surprised Luna had returned. But she didn’t seem overjoyed at what I’d said. In fact, she looked…tormented.
“Can we have a moment alone?” Her voice sounded raw.
Sister glanced between us before slowly shaking her head. “Not on school grounds is all I ask, Caleb.” Her tone softened. “I’m not an ogre. I do understand young love.”
I expected a denial to leap from my lips. Even if she was my boss, love wasn’t a word I allowed to be tossed around casually in regards to me. I was always brutally honest with the women I dated—or with anyone else who made assumptions about the nature of a relationship I was in. No matter what.
But with Luna, I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t want to dismiss the possibility. And not because she was listening either.
I fucking loved her and I didn’t care who knew.
Even her.
“You’re better than me then, since I’ve never been in love before.” I swallowed hard while Luna stared at me as if she was temporarily struck mute. Ocean eyes wide, mouth trembling open. “But I’m absolutely in love with Luna.”
Sister sighed. Unless I was mistaken, the sound was slightly wistful. “Then as Beyonce said, you better put a ring on it.” It was my turn to stare as she swished down the hall in the opposite direction from Luna.
I headed toward my girl as she turned away and bowed her head. For a terrifying second, I thought she was crying, but when I reached her and gripped her shoulder to shift her toward me, she was laughing.
Damn near hysterically.
“You don’t love me. It’s too soon. But that was a convincing performance for Sister.” She wiped away the tears of mirth gathering on her cheeks. “You really had me going there, gotta say.”
I frowned. I couldn’t say I’d ever imagined telling a woman I loved her, but if I had, this would not have been the reaction I would’ve hoped for. “I wasn’t kidding.”
“No, no, seriously, you can stop now. She’s gone. Besides—”
“Luna.” My voice never wavered as I took hold of her arms and waited until she gazed at me. “I love you. For real.” I reached up to run my thumb over her lower lip as it quivered. “Realer than anything I’ve ever felt before.”
“Is realer an actual word?”
“Yes. Are you stalling so you don’t have to answer me?”
“Did you ask a question?”
She had a point. “No. Just usually when you say those words to someone, they say it back.”
Her pupils grew even larger, but she said nothing. Her silence landed a blow to my chest as acute as if she’d physically struck me.
But I still made myself smile, for my ego if nothing else. “I get that people feel stuff at different rates. Several women have been in love with me before and—”
“Oh, whoop ti do for you.”
I blinked. “I was just saying I’ve had women love me when I didn’t feel the same. So, maybe that’s the thing with you. And if so, we can still…” I trailed off and frowned as I stepped back.
What could we do if she wasn’t in love with me? Still hang out together? Still have sex? Still pretend we were building something, just as long as I ignored that pesky missing love thing?
I supposed I could wait. What choice did I have? It wasn’t as if I could turn off my feelings. Maybe she’d eventually develop some for me.
I rubbed the sudden throb in my forehead. “Karma is a bitch.”
“What?” she asked shakily.
For her part, she did not look or sound as euphoric as I would have had our positions in this conversation been reversed. But I already loved her, so hearing her say she loved me first would not send me into the throes of depression.
Which meant one thing.
She was an empathetic woman. She wouldn’t crow about having to let me down easy. But she clearly wasn’t bicycling down the same love lane I was riding in.
My tires were deflating more by the minute.
“You heard me. I just said I’ve been with women who claimed to love me, and I didn’t feel it back. Now I feel it and you don’t.”
“I never said that.”
“Do you?”
“I never said that,” she repeated.
“Now it’s so much clearer. I thought witches believed in harming none.”
She clutched her stomach. “Sorry, I’m just overwhelmed right now.”
“You’re overwhelmed? I just poured my heart out to you. I practically set my feelings to a Celine Dion ballad, and you basically said ‘that’s nice.’”
“I did nothing of the sort. Jesus, Goldilocks, stop being dramatic.”
“You have not seen drama yet.” I didn’t think I stomped my foot, but in the rush of emotions currently coursing through my bloodstream like a bad college LCD trip—not that I knew anything about those—I couldn’t be certain. “I have feelings too, Lu, and they can be crushed. I’m more than a sexual object.”
“Caleb,” she whispered, darting a glance down the hall. “You’re going to get fired. Knock it off.”
“Says the woman who stuck her tongue down my throat and gave me an erection and made me fall in love with her, all while I was at work. And then didn’t even have the decency to love me back.” My voice was perfectly low and level.
Possibly.
She rolled her eyes. “You know what? I was trying to make it easier for you.”
“Oh, right. I see that now. It always helps a guy to know his girl doesn’t love him. Next, you’ll tell me you were faking those four Os last night to spare my feelings.”
“Three. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“It was four and you know it.”
“No more than three and a quarter. Anyway, that’s irrelevant.”
“Says who? Do you want to leave me with nothing?”
“There are things you don’t know, things that may change your supposed undying love for me.”
“I never used the word undying,” I muttered.
Although I was concerned it actually was, and then what? I’d be well and truly screwed if she couldn’t even admit I’d given her four legitimate orgasms last night—no quarters here, thank you—never mind love me back.
God, love had already made me a sap.
She continued on, ignoring me entirely. “But you’re being such an ass that I’m not going to bother. It wasn’t just my doing. I didn’t get myself pregnant, dammit.”
“It wasn’t my doing either, this whole loving you thing. I didn’t ask for it. It was your own fault for being so irresistible. And for fitting against me perfectly every time I wrap my arms around you. And for always knowing the exact right thing to say when I’ve had an exhausting day at work. You’re always just exactly what I need. You have been since the very first day I laid eyes on you.”
“Caleb. Did you hear me?” she asked gently, her eyes suspiciously wet all over again.
She didn’t seem so shaky anymore. In fact, she seemed like a tower of strength standing there in front of me, so starkly beautiful with her steady gaze and her shoulders thrown back. Whatever I said, whatever I did, she would be just fine.
Damn if her rock-solid sense of self didn’t make me love her even more.
As for the rest, my mind was on hyperdrive. I didn’t think I’d hear anything but those words in my head for the next nine months. Well, less than that now.
I didn’t get myself pregnant, dammit.
Holy shit.
“I heard you.” I paced away from her to the opposite wall and back.
About ten times.
She didn’t say a word, just let me pace while my vision blurred with…sweat.
Yea
h. That was a good one.
I tipped back my head to stare at the ceiling. The ice that had formed around my heart when she hadn’t said “I love you” back cracked apart as if blasted by the sun. “It fucking worked. I wondered if it would. If it could be real.”
“What?”
I went to her and gripped her cool hands in my much larger, warmer ones. Rubbing them so that she could feel every bit of the intensity inside me. So much that I wasn’t sure I could contain it. “For almost a year, I wouldn’t sleep with anyone. I wouldn’t take the chance. The Cove, man. There’s something mystical here. Unexplainable.”
“You’re in shock. Maybe you should sit down. I’ll get you a glass of water. I need one too.” She tried to pull away from me.
But I held fast.
“You meet this beautiful, smart, funny as hell woman one day, and then the next thing you know, she goes and changes your whole world. Makes you see things you never could’ve imagined. Or could ever think might be yours.” I tried to swallow despite the fist around my throat. “First, I fell in love with you. And that wasn’t enough. Now you’re saying…” I took a breath. “Now you’re saying you’re giving me—us—someone else to love too.”
She started to speak but then frantically swiped at her cheeks and shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re probably hungry. This is a lot. Let’s go to dinner.”
“Go to dinner? We can’t do that. We have plans to make.”
“Plans? What plans?” She finally succeeded in yanking her hands out of my hold.
“You just said that you’re—” I gestured wildly at her stomach before my gaze drifted slightly north. And lingered while all the moisture in my mouth dried up. My woman was smoking hot. “That’s why your tits look so huge.”
“Do you know where you are?” She smacked my arm. “You can’t be talking about or looking at my breasts here.”
“I can when I planted that baby in you.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You are not going caveman on me.”
I crossed my arms. I could go caveman if I wanted to when my sperm had emerged victorious.
Granted, in a town like the Cove, it wasn’t as much of a feat. But my swimmers had carved a renegade path through two layers of birth control. That deserved some celebration. Maybe a small party with streamers and pointy hats.
Luna arched a brow. “Maybe I’m not.”
A bolt of ice shot down my spine. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t actually taken a test. Maybe I’m just gaining weight. What about that?”
“Just in your tits? Not likely. Besides, you have to know if there’s…a thing inside you.”
“A thing? Now you’re calling our baby a thing?”
“It’s not a thing, it’s a fetus. I’m just saying, I’d damn well know if I was carrying one around. It’s not like an extra bean burrito, for God’s sake.”
“No, right now, it’s so much smaller than that.” She rubbed at her dripping nose. “I wasn’t prepared for any of this. You’re just supposed to be a summer fling. I’m happy with my life. I didn’t want it to change.”
Some part of me wanted to demand her to admit I was the best thing to ever happen to her, as she was for me. But from somewhere down deep, a sense of calm rolled over me as I stepped forward to wrap my arms around her.
“We were meant, Lu. You know it as surely as I do.”
She sniffled against my chest, but she didn’t argue.
“And maybe this was just the universe making sure we didn’t screw it up.”
“I wouldn’t have screwed it up.” She drilled her pointy nail into my biceps. “You’re the screwer-upper.”
“No arguments there.”
“You’re the one who gets drunk on bad rum and mixes it with antibiotics and sneaks into my bed to impregnate me so I can’t even get on my freaking pole anymore without a backache.” She jabbed again. “You did that. You made me bust out of my bras, and you aren’t even sorry.”
My lips twitched as I took a long, leisurely look at the body part in question. Poetic speech or not, I wasn’t entirely sure it wouldn’t be my last one, since apparently, pregnant women were erratic and emotional.
Dear God, she was actually pregnant.
With my baby.
I was going to be a father to an actual human child I couldn’t send home with someone else while I kicked back with a cold beverage.
I wavered a bit on my feet, and this time, she gripped my arms to support me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I am. I’m just…a baby.”
“Yeah.” She bit her lip. “I can’t believe we’re discussing this here. Can we please go before Sister Tobias brands us fornicating heathens?”
“Well, we are. At least on the fornicating part. Heathen is a title I’m still working to earn.” I slung an arm around her shoulders as we made our way down the hall, stumbling like people who’d had too much to drink.
Or had engaged in way too much sex and had way too many orgasms until boom, egg meets sperm and holy eggs Benedict.
I hadn’t brought my briefcase with me, but I’d come in early tomorrow to check over the kids’ homework. My thoughts were too consumed with my kid just now.
Mine.
Ours.
How freaking amazing. Assuming I didn’t drop dead from sheer, mind-numbing terror.
“Think of it this way,” I suggested as we walked through the now mostly empty hallways.
Thank God for that, or else someone would overhear us and I’d be on the unemployment line just as we needed money for Pampers.
Back to the eternal Pampers or Huggies debate. Ivy had used cloth diapers early on, I was pretty sure. I would have to ask which she recommended.
I was officially spinning out into a mindfuck of Baby-O-Rama proportions.
“What?” Luna asked, a little wobbly herself as we finally stepped out into the sunshine.
“At least we didn’t discuss our lovechild in the actual church.” She giggled until I turned her toward me and lifted her hand to my mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Because that’s what he or she is. For real,” I said hoarsely.
“Realer?”
“The realest.” I kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
“Even now that you know?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
I forced myself to look directly into her beautiful sea-tinged eyes. “Somehow even more.”
Fourteen
The incessant ding of my text messages finally dragged me back from my faceplant on my bed.
This pregnancy thing was no joke. Dear goddess. It had been a little over a week since I’d told Caleb about the baby, and morning sickness had come to my village in a huge way.
I peeled my face off of the book I’d been reading. I’d barely gotten to page twenty before I passed out like a drunk frat boy at three in the morning.
Oh, but it was one in the afternoon here in the land of reality. And I was becoming a narcoleptic.
I reached down to the floor where my phone was and lifted it to see if anything was pressing.
Five messages from Caleb.
He’d checked in with me each hour. I’d managed to reply to one before I passed out. I quickly sent him a reply that I’d taken a nap before he sent one of our neighbors to check in on me.
Again.
Another three dings and a flood of messages made me groan. I’d expected him to move to another state after my news, not turn into Mr. Attentive from a Disney afternoon sitcom.
I glanced at the top of my phone with a groan. My calendar notification reminded me I had a client in twenty minutes.
At least I’d get a few minutes reprieve from Caleb. He was overwhelming the hell out of me, and I needed a freaking minute. Especially since this morning sickness thing was trying to take me out of commission.
I sent off a quick reply.
Have a client. My phone will be off for a bit.
How’s the nausea?
He just had to men
tion it. I closed my eyes against the first wave of cold sweats prickling my skin.
My wind chimes alert trilled from my speaker. I set up the reminder to give me time to ground and center before I interacted with a new energy.
Too bad the baby wasn’t into it.
I rolled onto my side as the wash of nausea had me covering my mouth.
Oh, no, not again.
I stumbled off the couch and ran for the bathroom, skidding on my knees to the bowl right before everything, including air from the last twenty years of my life, came up and out.
Holding on to the toilet, I prayed to every goddess I knew. Finally, the retching faded to dry heaves, and I sat back on my feet.
I didn’t even know what I had in me that could actually be thrown up at this point. I hadn’t eaten since dinner last night. Well, okay, I’d had goldfish crackers.
It was the only thing that didn’t make me immediately want to throw up. I guess that was off the menu too.
I reached up for the sink by the commode and hauled myself to my feet. I swayed a little and winced when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Dark circles and glue-white skin.
Oh, yeah, that was super cute for a video call.
Instead of looking at the horror story that was my face, I dunked my mouth under the faucet and rinsed away the sickness. After brushing my teeth and using copious amounts of mouthwash, I felt a bit better.
My hair was another story. Yikes. With very little help, I could have been an extra on The Walking Dead. If I’d had another half hour, I would have jumped in the shower. Dry shampoo wasn’t going to cut it. Not with the sweats that came before and after the dry heaves.
I padded into my bedroom and found a cute rainbow head scarf I wore in between hairdresser appointments. I was a natural blond, but with the super sunny summer we’d had, my hair had lightened to an almost platinum hue.
To Dye For would definitely be getting my business soon.
I paused as I tucked the silk behind my ear to hide my hair. Was hair dye bad for moms-to-be? I picked up my phone and made a note on my rapidly growing questions list.
