“I’m a cat person, you know.” McKenna hopped up on my kitchen counter and tugged the hair up off her neck. I watched as she smiled and reached down to rub the cat behind his ears. He purred against her palm and mine.
“I don’t do animals at all. Too messy and expensive,” I said.
“But what about this one?” She reached for him and lifted his body to her face, rubbing her cheek against his fur.
Tugging at my beard, I watched, completely mesmerized by the woman, as always, while she shut her eyes and giggled. Lucky cat.
“I’ll take him back where I found him once I know he’s okay.”
Her blue eyes opened, searching my face. “I think you should keep him.”
My throat clogged at the vision. The cat was rooting through her hair, snuggling on skin I was dying to get my hands on again. “No.”
“But he’s so cute.” The corners of her lips pulled down into a pout.
“Then you take him.”
Annoying thoughts started ransacking my brain as I watched her coo at the animal. McKenna working next to me at my river house, feeding the cat when I couldn’t get to it, feeding me her beautiful body all over my floors when I was feeling needy. Because with her, I’d likely be needy all the fucking time.
I shook my head, ignoring a future that was untouchable and refocusing on the here and now.
“I would, but my landlord is really adamant about pets.” She poked my thigh with her toe. “But your landlord has a tiny minion for a daughter who would absolutely love having a cat. It’s a childhood rite of passage: get an animal to torture and love.” She scrunched up her nose. “Imagine that as the Humane Society slogan.”
I chuckled, her energy contagious.
Her feet were bare, the flip-flops she’d worn now on the floor. Heels banged against the cupboard, reminding me of my heart, which was beating like a monster inside my chest.
“Seriously, St. James. You need to keep this cat. Imagine the number of women you’d score if you had one of these. A dude with a cat is an instant panty-melter.”
I dropped my used supplies into the garbage and used my towels to wipe up the wet mess. Then I leaned against the counter and said, “I don’t need a cat to get some pussy.”
She tossed her head back and laughed—the sound so loud that the cat hissed and jumped off her lap onto the floor. I watched him scurry away, not even worried about where he went. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, the thing had been growing on me for a while. I was kind of glad I’d decided to bring him home with me. But I wouldn’t be telling Kenna that.
“You, dear sir, are funny.” She jumped off the counter with a flop and patted my shoulder. Another shoulder pat.
Still, I couldn’t stop watching her. My eyes followed every move she made. When she bent over to grab her shoes, strands of her hair slipped over her face and the scoop of her shirt hung low, revealing a yellow bra. Pretty, silky, just like her hair.
“So, I take it you’ve got it from here?” she asked.
I blinked, the image locked in my mind. Because I couldn’t speak, I nodded and motioned a hand toward the living room. She smiled with a touch of something soft in her gaze. And before I could pull her back against me and beg her to co-parent this goddamn cat, she was gone from the room and out the front door.
There were no formal goodbyes. No I’ll see you tomorrow or Call me. Just two people in passing, helping when needed.
With my heart in my gut, I went in search of my new roommate. In my bedroom, something as loud as a motor sounded from under the comforter. And there on the pillow next to my spot was the cat.
“You’re a sneaky son of a bitch,” I mumbled under my breath as I headed toward the shower. I’d never admit it aloud, but I was secretly glad I wasn’t alone tonight.
Chapter 8
McKenna
I loved sex. Like, a lot. But for the first time in forever, I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it.
Don’t get me wrong; the guy I’d gone out with tonight was hot as hell. Twenty-two, played semipro baseball, and looked like he’d fallen straight out of GQ. He’d bought me a fancy dinner, opened my doors, and even told me I looked like a goddess in a halter top. I should’ve been flipping ecstatic about a sex date.
Yet all I could think about was how wrong his hand felt on my ass when he pulled me against him in the hallway outside my apartment door. And how he smelled like expensive department-store cologne. His face was baby smooth, and his hands were even smoother than my own, weirdly. Plus, during dinner, he told me he hated cats. And with cats, my mind had conjured up the image of Gavin, shirtless, cuddling that kitten in his kitchen three nights ago.
That alone had ix-nayed the sexiness of the guy.
“If you change your mind, I’ll be in town for another two weeks.”
I took the small piece of paper he offered me with his phone number on it and tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans.
“Thanks, sweetie.” I leaned up on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. His hazel eyes were hooded and hopeful when I pulled back, but he didn’t push for more.
After closing the door, I leaned against the wood, eyes to the ceiling. I could’ve at least gotten some oral out of the deal. I didn’t have to go all the way with the guy. Still, just thinking about letting a man touch me gave me a sick feeling in my gut—a twisting knot down low that felt…wrong.
“Ugh.” Annoyed with my overthinking brain, I went to my room and grabbed a pillow and blanket, ready to binge on The Walking Dead. Nothing said not sexy like flesh-eating zombies.
As the hour ticked by, though, that same knot in my stomach twisted into something feral, as if one of the walkers on TV was chewing my insides to bits. A cold sweat broke over my forehead, and a bout of chills racked my shoulders, arms, and back. When a set of brown teeth mowed down on a neck, my dinner lurched up into my throat. I stood up as fast as my body could take me, barely making it to the trash can in the kitchen. Over and over, I heaved, trying not to smell the fried food I’d dumped in there the night before.
By the time I finished puking and cleaned myself up, the Walking Dead episode had ended, leaving me on the floor with my head pressed against the tile.
“Holy shit.” I panted, somehow managing to roll over onto my back. The ache in my stomach increased, even though I’d just vomited out everything. I was having cramps that rivaled every period in the history of periods too.
When the pain got to be too much, I cried out, curling forward with my hand on my abdomen. I glanced down at my lap.
A few minutes later, when I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to pass out on the floor, I managed to grab the straps of my purse up on the kitchen counter and pull it down to my lap. I flipped through its fifty million pockets until I found my phone.
It was 11:00 p.m. on a Saturday. Addie would either be asleep or doing the unmentionable with her boyfriend. Decision made, I dialed a different number and brought the phone to my ear.
“Hey! How was the date?” Emma chomped down on something, a chip or who knows what, from the other end. I squeezed my eyes shut, cringing at the noise. The sound brought the vision of vomit back into my mind.
“Sweet Jesus, hold on.” I dropped my phone to the floor and grabbed the trash can to hurl once more. Only this time, nothing came out.
Moments later, I scooped up the phone, lowering myself back onto the cold tile. “I’m dying.”
“Jeez, you sound like it. What’s up?”
On their own, my eyes shut. Speaking burned my throat so badly that I had to whisper. “I think I’ve got food poisoning or something. Ate some bad sausage.”
“That’s what she said.” Emma giggled.
“Ugh.”
“Sorry, no more jokes. You need me to come over?”
“Fluids.” I coughed, cringing, the nurse in me thinking the wo
rst. “Need them.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
Exactly eight minutes later, Emma was inside my apartment, helping me off the floor. Never was I more grateful that she lived close—and had a spare key to my apartment.
By the time I made it to the car, with Emma holding me against her side, I was a shaking, hot mess of holy-shit-I-really-am-dying.
“No wonder you didn’t get any tonight.” With gentle hands, Emma leaned over and brushed some hair off my forehead as I finished buckling my seat belt.
“Worst. Consolation prize. Ever.”
She snorted, and I groaned in return, resting my forehead against the cool glass of the window. She pressed the gas pedal down and upped the AC. Within fifteen minutes, we were in the ER.
“Here we go, patient zero.”
Eyes narrowed, I glared at Emma from over my shoulder as I sat in a wheelchair. “Very funny.”
Her auburn brows rose in amusement, yet her freckled nose scrunched at the same time. “Love you too, stinky breath.”
Not soon enough, I was in a room, hooked up to an IV and having blood drawn. I’d called Addie on our way to the hospital. A visit to the ER was something she’d want to know about. Plus, she was like my sister.
She asked me if I needed anything. I said, Nah, I’ll be good, and she claimed she’d have lemons for my water at the ready in the morning, knowing they were the only things that settled my stomach when I was sick, oddly enough. I might have sucked at choosing men, and my parents were truly disasters, but I’d somehow managed to strike gold in the best-friend department.
The doctor walked in a good forty minutes later. He was one of the newer physicians I’d been creeping on from afar. A definite hottie, but not one I’d gotten to work with yet. Thick brown hair, tall frame, and dark eyes—Italian, maybe? Not that it mattered either way. I didn’t date the guys I worked with.
“Good evening, ladies.” He nodded at Emma, then focused on me. “I heard you had some bad food.”
“I think it was the lettuce. Maybe the sausage.” I shuddered at the thought, rubbing my hands up and down my arms.
Emma snorted. I flipped her off when the doctor wasn’t looking.
Doctor Hottie hemmed and hawed and marked something on his laptop before looking at me again. “Well, you’ve obviously eaten something that has not agreed with you. Hopefully, the bag of fluids and anti-nausea pills will help.”
Too tired to talk, I nodded and shut my eyes.
“But it also says here that you’re a little anemic. Are you taking any iron supplements or vitamins?”
I frowned, one eye opening “No. I had no idea.”
Nodding once, he said, “It could be the baby. Lots of expectant mothers suffer from anemia. I’m not too concerned, and the medications we gave you for the nausea are not going to harm the baby’s health, but when you come to the hospital, it’s always a good idea to be up front about any medical conditions you may have, and that includes pregnancy.”
“Um, excuse me?” My heart raced, and my eyes popped wide. The skin on my palms slickened with sweat as I dropped them onto the blanket. “I’m not pregnant.” I shuddered and sat up straighter, poking my finger out at him. “You’re pretty funny, Doc.” I looked at Emma, laughing louder. “He’s a damn riot, isn’t he?”
Emma’s lips were parted, yet her face was pale as she glanced over the doc’s shoulder at his laptop.
“Emma…” My smile fell.
She glanced at me and pressed a hand over her mouth.
“Were you unaware of your condition?” Doctor Hottie asked. “My apologies.”
I whipped my head back and forth between Emma and the doc again. “I am a condom freak, Doctor.” And the night Gavin and I hooked up, he was actually the one who brought up protection, while I…
Wait.
Oh shit.
Gavin?
I shook my head no. “There’s no way I’m pregnant. Can you, I don’t know, do an ultrasound? Run another test or something?”
With wide eyes, Emma came to sit by me on the bed. “Jesus,” she whispered, her lips curving into a disturbing smile. I say disturbing because she should not have been smiling. At all.
“It says right here that you are.” The doctor tapped a finger against his laptop screen. “The hormone levels are not the strongest, which indicates you’re around five weeks. Have you been taking your birth control pills on a regular basis?”
“No. It messes with my weight too much.”
“No method of birth control is ever fully effective, miss,” he continued, his brows furrowed.
“I’m not pregnant. I can’t be.”
“Yes, Kenna.” Emma settled her hand over mine. “You’re very much pregnant.”
Tears stung my eyes as I looked at Emma and then the doc. “Please tell me you’re kidding. Tell me I’m on some sort of TV show where you prank people. I’ll forgive you if that’s the case. Hell, I’ll probably laugh with you. Just…tell me you’re both lying to me.”
The doctor cleared his throat, drawing my blurry gaze back to his face. “Once your IV has run down, you’re free to go home. I’ll have the nurse come in with your discharge papers as soon as possible. An anti-nausea pill prescription as well. And if you’d like some pamphlets on pregnancy, I can—”
“No. Oh God, no.” As if my body were weighted down with lead, I fell back in the hospital bed with a thump.
Jesus. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t be pregnant.
Warm fingers grabbed mine, squeezing. “You’re going to get through this,” Emma whispered. More tears sprang to my eyes at her tone, and a sob burst from my throat.
“Oh, honey, don’t cry,” she whispered, running a hand over my forehead.
How was this possible? I mean, I knew how it was possible, but how could I have been such a damn moron to let it happen?
“Gavin…” I cried harder as I said his name. The universe was clearly against me. Someone out there was trying to torture me. I didn’t want a baby right now—if ever. I didn’t want to have a baby daddy either. Especially not a guy who was probably as messed up emotionally as I was.
“Is he the father?” Emma asked as she rubbed her hand up and down my arm.
I nodded once, no doubt in my mind. “There hasn’t been anyone else.” Not since that night. And I’d had a two-month dry spell before Gavin. He was the only possible candidate for the job.
Snot puddled inside my nose, burning like the ache in my heart. God, I knew nothing about babies, and I didn’t have a maternal bone in my body, thanks to my mother. She was cold and angry and, quite frankly, didn’t look at me as anything but a germ on her shoe. That’s why she’d shipped me off to live with my father in Macomb when I was a teenager. Not even when she remarried and adopted my stepbrother and stepsister did she ask me to move back to New Orleans. One week during the summer and an occasional weekend during holidays… That’s all I ever got from her. Instead, I lived in a house with a man who was rarely home because working was so much more important than raising a kid.
I couldn’t bring a child into the world. Especially if I’d be the same way my parents were with me. What if I wanted to give up? What if I created a kid who turned out just like me? Unable to settle, picking the wrong partners, and making the wrong, impulsive decisions? I mean, sure, I grew up and all, but that wasn’t all my parents’ doing.
Two hours later, when I was settled in my bed at home, a stack of untouched what to expect pamphlets lying on my end table, I couldn’t stop the tears—and I wasn’t a crier. My thoughts went back and forth as I wavered over my options.
Yet the question that plagued me most was How the hell am I going to tell Gavin?
Chapter 9
Gavin
“Please, take them to her. She has food poisoning and needs these lemons, but Chl
oe’s extra car seat is in Collin’s parents’ car.”
My best friend’s girl was evil—standing at my doorstep with a bag of lemons and a sad story about a sickly woman I was trying to forget.
“She was in the hospital, Gav.”
I rubbed a hand down my face, trying not to flinch at the word hospital. “Fine. I’ll take them.”
Addie wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me, her voice muffled against my shirt. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
There weren’t many people I’d do anything for. My boys and Chloe were it, for the most part. It was only within the last five months that Addison had jumped into that small circle too.
“Is she all right?” I asked.
Addie stepped back and shoved the grocery bag into my hands. “Yeah, she sounds really tired. I plan on going over there once Collin gets home from work. I’m worried about her though.”
My shoulders tensed. “What happened?”
“She had a date last night and wound up getting food poisoning.”
My gut tightened. “A date.”
With her head tipped to the side, Addie searched my face. “Yeah. A date.”
“Hmm.” Jealousy lodged in my chest. I grabbed the keys off my kitchen table to avoid letting it show.
“You okay?” Addison asked, always the observer.
We walked out the front door, and I locked it behind me.
“Perfect.” Far from perfect was more like it. Pissed. Agitated. Affected when I had no right to be. But I wasn’t willing to tell Addie that her best friend had me all messed up emotionally.
Besides, I had a date this coming Thursday—a girl Max was hooking me up with. Someone who would be perfect for me, he’d said. I was trying to move on. I had to move on.
“Collin and I are going away next weekend to visit my mom, by the way.”
“Your mom?”
Addie nodded and looked at her hands. “Yeah. She, um… She’s sick.”
Recklessly Ever After Page 6
