by Amy Star
And when Lorraine showed up in the morning, as she typically did shortly before it was time for Harry to leave for work, she offered Cheyenne the same practiced, placid smile that she offered her every other day, as if absolutely nothing had happened. As if nothing had changed.
As if Cheyenne really did just have a bad dream. But…she supposed that really was the more likely answer. Because really, what were the odds of Lorraine strolling into her room to blatantly threaten her when Harry was right down the hall?
(She very stubbornly buried the part of her that tried to point out that Harry most likely wouldn’t have noticed if Lorraine decided to throw a party in the hallway at 3:00 in the morning.)
She broke her doctor’s rules and had an extra cup of coffee that day. She was going to need it if she was going to be any degree of ‘functional’ to make it through work, and fudging the rules a little bit just once wasn’t going to hurt her.
It was a very long day after that, and she looked forward to when it would end.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cheyenne had left the ‘four months pregnant’ point behind her. It was a strange thought. Not because Cheyenne expected her pregnancy to just pause itself and go into stasis or something like that, of course. But just to think that she was past the halfway point—that she was nearly five months pregnant—was more than a little bit surreal.
She had never envisioned herself as a mother. She certainly hadn’t imagined having more than one kid, and definitely not all at once. And even if she and Harry had never really taken any precautions for it, it had always seemed like the sort of thing that always happened to someone else. Granted, she supposed she was ‘someone else’ to everyone else in the world.
And…there she was, nearly five months along and with a bump that was finally very noticeable in place of her belly, and it was only going to get more and more noticeable. She supposed she would need to break the news to Harry that there would be more than one baby before she became too gravid, and it became apparent that she was carrying more than one passenger.
Considering she had never really imagined herself getting pregnant, she certainly hadn’t ever paused to contemplate what sort of attention it might draw towards her. And it was…a lot. She had mixed feelings, to say the least.
Harry was, somewhat ironically, one of the least annoying about it. He would put a hand on Cheyenne’s belly every so often, and he wouldn’t even speak to it or babble like an idiot like so many people were prone to. He would just smile, small and content. It was honestly a little endearing, though Cheyenne tried not to let herself think about that too strongly.
Daphne was only minimally annoying, thankfully. She was rather hands-off, but she fussed over Cheyenne’s health more than the doctor did. She fussed over Cheyenne’s health more than Harry did, and Harry was a professional fussbudget in that regard. Cheyenne was honestly surprised that a motion alarm hadn’t been hooked up to the coffee pot to go off if Cheyenne ever tried to take more than her daily allotment.
On the whole, it was other people who were the most annoying. Her coworkers at work were all much more helpful, but they were helpful to the point of patronization, and she found herself looking forward to going on leave when the time came.
(Predictably, Gregg became more than just a little bit awkward once it became truly apparent that Cheyenne was, indeed, pregnant. She didn’t blame him, but it would have been nice if he hadn’t started avoiding her like the plague.)
Any time she went somewhere crowded—the grocery store, the mall, the park, it didn’t matter where—then there were an equal number of people looking at her like she was some sort of contagious plague carrier, cooing at her like she was a newly born kitten, and squealing in excitement and trying to touch her belly, as if that was something someone was just allowed to do without even asking.
(On one such occasion, as she and Harry walked through the park after a doctor’s visit to try to walk off the smell of the sterile clinic, Cheyenne threatened to break the arm off of one such overly grabby bystander and slap her with it if she came any closer to Cheyenne’s middle, and as the stranger had sulked away, Cheyenne had been reasonably sure that Harry was going to suffocate on his own laughter.)
But of all the unwanted attention, even if it made Cheyenne uncomfortable, very little of it left her feeling like she was in danger.
Lorraine fixed that discrepancy, of course. It had probably looked innocuous enough, as she met Cheyenne at the bottom of the stairs one morning, set a hand on her stomach, and assured her, “Just let me know if you need anything. We all know what a toll pregnancy can take on a woman’s body,” and she had pressed her fingers inwards, so that Cheyenne could feel her impeccably manicured nails beginning to dig in.
And then Harry had breezed through the room, dressed and with his briefcase in hand, and Lorraine had turned on her heel and trotted after him as he left the house, leaving Cheyenne to stare after them, her hands curled protectively in front of her belly.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” Daphne stated as she wandered towards the door a few moments later.
Cheyenne had simply shaken her head and ushered Daphne on her way. Her hours had been considerably reduced recently, but she was very glad she didn’t have work at all that day. Being on her own for most of the day was starting to sound like a vacation.
She mentioned the incident to Harry when he got back from work that evening, while Lorraine was in a different room. Predictably, Harry rolled his eyes, though he seemed less offended than he had been before and more like he had simply decided to consider the entire vendetta funny.
“One of these days,” he assured her, “you’re going to realize that she’s a great person and that she’s never had anything against you. Eventually, you two can be friends, and some day all of this is going to be funny when you look back at it.”
Cheyenne shook her head in exasperation and threw her hands up as she left the room. Trying to get him to see what was going on right in front of him was like trying to demolish a house purely by smacking her head against it: slow and inefficient, and she would probably have brain damage long before she managed to see any sort of progress.
*
Cheyenne let the matter drop, for the time being. She vented to Daphne on a nearly daily basis still, but until something dangerous truly happened or until they found proof of some sort of fire-able offense, there wasn’t really anything they could do about the situation.
She decided, instead, to simply try to stay out of Lorraine’s way and to enjoy herself while she was staying in such a luxurious house. She wasn’t going to be going anywhere for a few months yet, so where was the sense in forcing herself to be miserable?
It was inevitable that she kept talking to Harry each day, but even so, it managed to take her by surprise when he asked her out to dinner. He didn’t call it a date, though, instead insisting that it would just be nice for both of them to get out of the house at the same time without a clinic being their primary destination. They had to both be getting a little stir crazy, after all, and Cheyenne was content to agree with that line of thinking.
It was at a small café just a few blocks from the house, and they walked there on a quiet evening. Though a few green stragglers remained, most of the leaves had long since changed to various shades of brown and gold and orange and red, and most of those had dropped to the ground. Autumn crispness was making way for winter chill, though it still didn’t necessitate more than a leather jacket on Cheyenne’s part.
It was a calm walk, and though they didn’t talk about particularly much on the way there, it was comfortable all the same. Harry pulled the door open for her once they reached the cafe and ushered her inside ahead of him and towards a table. When he asked her what she wanted to drink, he couldn’t quite hold back a snort of laughter when she sighed and very reluctantly asked for a decaf latte. “Or else Daphne will spiritually manifest in the café to yell at me. She’ll just know.”
Cheyenne watc
hed out the window while Harry walked up to the counter to make their orders. It was a quiet evening. The sky was clear, and the breeze was slow and gentle, sending fallen leaves scurrying across the road and the sidewalk like mice. It was one of the quieter streets, so cars only breezed by on occasion. Cheyenne caught herself thinking that it was almost romantic, before she mentally scolded herself.
(If anyone were to ask her later on down the line whether or not it was a date, she would very stridently deny even the possibility of it being a date. They had agreed that they weren’t good together, after all. They were alright as friends—or whatever they were—but that was as far as it was going to go. It only made sense.)
When Harry returned, he was carrying two mugs, and a cheerful barista was trotting behind him, carrying two small plates. As Harry sat down and passed Cheyenne her mug, the barista set a plate with a chocolate croissant in front of Harry and one with an apple turnover in front of Cheyenne, before she chirped, “Enjoy!” and scampered her way back to the counter.
They sipped their coffee in silence at first, and Cheyenne quietly mourned the lack of the bitter bite of caffeine’s aftertaste, but she supposed the café had to be worth its salt if even a decaf latte still tasted pretty good.
It was Cheyenne who eventually broke the silence, observing quietly, “It’s good to get out of the house without it being for work. Just the two of us, I mean.”
Harry hummed in quiet agreement. “Seems a bit ridiculous that it took this long, now that I think about it.”
Cheyenne shrugged one shoulder and picked up the apple turnover to nibble at one corner of it. “We’ve had a bit of baggage to work through,” she pointed out.
For a moment, it looked as if Harry was going to protest, before he slowly closed his mouth once again and cleared his throat. “I suppose we have,” he agreed mildly, instead. Ah, tact. It seemed like he could learn a few new tricks every so often.
*
Cheyenne’s latte was gone, and her turnover had been reduced to just a few scattered crumbs on the plate, but still they were sitting there. The café wouldn’t close for a couple hours yet, and there were only a few other people there. It wasn’t as if they felt particularly pressured to hurry themselves along.
“You know,” Harry began slowly, “once the baby’s older and you’re ready to get back into work, I know a few people who have been looking for a good PA. I could put in a good word for you.”
Cheyenne arched one eyebrow at him and folded her arms on the table, leaning on her forearms so she could give him a proper suspicious scowl. “Don’t think I can get a job on my own?” she wondered slowly.
Harry rolled his eyes. “Of course, you can,” he replied, gesturing vaguely with one hand in a way that could maybe be in the direction of the building she worked at. “You already did. But that’s no reason not to have a better one, and no reason not to accept an offer when it’s being handed to you.”
She eyed him for a moment longer, before she sat back in her seat once again. It was a valid point, she supposed. There was nothing wrong with her job, and it didn’t even pay her badly, but she was over-qualified for it, and she was bored more often than not. She couldn’t deny that she missed being busy. And she knew that eventually she would be able to find a better job on her own merits—she had done so in the past, clearly—so she supposed there was nothing wrong with expediting the process. Besides, she had time to think it over and back out if she decided she really wanted to.
“Alright,” she agreed slowly, still turning the idea over in her head. “I’d appreciate that.”
The evening had taken a bit of an unexpected turn, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
*
Strange things happening in Harry’s house were not entirely unheard of, given the occupants living in it. Honestly, strange things couldn’t even be called unexpected anymore.
It seemed late when Cheyenne heard the door open, accompanied by the very clear sounds of footsteps leaving the house, and a glance at her clock revealed that it was nearly midnight. Bemused, she stepped into the shoes nearest to the bed and jogged down the hall and down the stairs. By the time she was outside on the porch, she could hear the garage door opening, and she broke into a lope, following the path to the driveway.
“Hey!” she called as she watched Harry tug open the driver’s side door of his car, and she had to clap a hand over her mouth when he nearly leapt out of his skin and smacked the back of his head against the top of the car. “Sorry,” she added as she approached the garage, her volume lower but her tone remarkably unapologetic. “Where are you headed this late?”
Harry grumbled for a moment before he answered, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. Cheyenne still felt remarkably unapologetic.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “Sometimes it’s nice to get out of the city so I’ve got some space to stretch my legs.”
For a moment, Cheyenne was confused. After all, it was a big city. It should have been plenty of space. And then it hit her: he meant as a bear. It seemed like the sort of detail that should have been apparent from the get-go, but she hadn’t seen him transform once since that first time in his office building. It was always in the back of her mind that he wasn’t as human as most other people she knew, but it was always a distant sort of knowledge, easy to overlook.
Considering that, she supposed an enormous bear wandering around the city would be pretty noticeable, and he would probably get shot as a matter of public safety. Not the best idea, really.
“Where are you going?” she asked slowly, shaking her head slightly and dragging herself back to the moment.
“Little rural town about ninety minutes out of the city,” he answered, sounding slightly distracted as he climbed into the car.
Just as he was about to close the door, Cheyenne asked, “Can I come?” and for a moment, she felt just as surprised as Harry looked. She hadn’t really intended on asking, and she wasn’t even sure why she did, though she supposed it was probably a good thing. It was a part of life she was going to need to get accustomed to, after all, considering the little trio growing inside her.
She was still dressed from earlier in the day, the outline of her phone visible in her pocket. She could get in the car right then. There was no real reason for him to tell her no. Even so, he pondered the question for a very long moment before he nodded once, with a quiet, “If you really want to, I don’t see why not.”
With a grin, Cheyenne rounded the car and climbed into the passenger seat, slamming the door closed once she was seated. Harry watched her pointedly until she rolled her eyes and buckled herself in, and only then did he begin backing the car out of the driveway, tapping the remote to close the garage door again as an afterthought.
Given the hour, the roads were quiet. Not deserted—no city was ever completely asleep, and people kept all kinds of schedules—but quiet nonetheless. The car, too, was quiet, as Harry focused on the road ahead and Cheyenne watched the world pass by out her window, as buildings gradually gave way to trees and scattered houses.
She supposed it was lucky that she didn’t need to work the next day. If just driving there and back was going to take up three hours, she couldn’t really imagine that Harry was just planning on a brief jaunt to…wherever it was that he was going.
“Any particular reason you want to come along?”
When Harry finally spoke, Cheyenne nearly leapt out of her skin, and she was pretty sure her heart stuttered in her chest for a few seconds. She slid Harry a slightly sullen scowl, and though he was still looking ahead out the windshield, Cheyenne swore he looked sort of amused at the reaction.
She cleared her throat. “I want to see what it’s like,” she stated once she was sure that she wasn’t going to sound like she was sulking. “I mean, it’s going to be part of my life in a few months. I need to have some firsthand experience with it, don’t you think?”
Harry tipped his head towards her slightly in someth
ing like a nod, acknowledging her point. “Fair enough. I sort of expected you to wait until after the birth, rather than gallivanting around while pregnant, though.”
Cheyenne’s eyebrows rose slightly, her expression settling somewhere in the realm of ‘unimpressed.’ “I am going to give birth,” she explained slowly, “to a real, living creature. One that is going to be dependent upon me. I would rather not have to flounder to catch up with any of their needs or any sort of information if I could just get it beforehand.” She snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Besides, you aren’t going to hurt me. You’re not going to let anything else hurt me. And you said we were going to a rural town, not the middle of the Ozark mountains, so I really doubt we’re going to run into anything too terrible.” Her expression turned thoughtful for a moment as she mused, “Maybe an owl or a coyote. I could get pictures.”
