Call Her Mine (Harmony Pointe #1)- Melissa Foster Page 0,28
The kitchen overlooked Main Street, boasting stainless-steel appliances and four circle-head windows. It was separated from the living room/dining room combination by a large island with four barstools and a built-in reading nook, which cantilevered out about six feet over the sidewalk. The nook had L-shaped bookshelves that ran from floor to ceiling and were already chock-full of books and framed photographs. The books dominated the dining area like hundreds of sentinels watching over the room.
Aurelia organized her books by author, publication date, and series, which she’d been doing since she was a kid. That was just one of Aurelia’s bookish quirks. There were pictures of her and her grandparents; pictures of her mother, whom she’d never known; and pictures of Ben and his family, Remi and Aiden, and a few of her other friends. His favorite picture of all was one Aiden had taken at the opening of Remi and Zane’s movie. Ben’s entire family had gone, and they were all beaming at the camera. Aurelia had stood in front of him, his arms around her middle. Her hands were on top of his, and Aiden had caught her looking up at Ben with what he told himself was adoration and a hint of annoyance, since he’d just whispered, Let’s blow this taco stand and make out in the back of the theater. In reality, it was probably annoyance with a hint of putting up with him he saw in her eyes.
“So,” Piper said, jerking him from his memories. She was sitting on the couch with B in her arms, feeding her a bottle. “About that kiss . . .”
Aurelia was pacing, wearing black skinny jeans and a gray T-shirt he knew by heart. He didn’t have to see the print on the front to know it was the one that had a picture of a girl wearing a black floppy hat, with the words STOP THINKING & JUST LET THINGS HAPPEN written in white stacked down the center. Her Converse were black, and he also didn’t need to look further to know she’d written a literary quote on the white strip just below the inside of her ankle. She did it on all of her sneakers, the same way she used to drive her grandparents bananas by writing quotes on her jeans. She’d been wearing many of the same pairs of jeans and sneakers since she was a teenager. She gravitated toward the familiar. That and her utilitarian style were just a couple of the things Ben had always loved about her. She didn’t care about money or material things. She cared about family and friends.
She stopped pacing and looked nervously at him. Their eyes connected with the heat of a thousand suns, and there was no mistaking just how deeply she cared about him, too.
“Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” Piper asked. “The two of you lusting after each other so badly that neither one can speak? Because if you two need to hit the bedroom to get past that wickedness, I’ll take this sweet little muffin for a walk and come back in an hour. But I prefer to know what the hell is going on first, Benjamin.”
Ben huffed out a breath and said, “She might be mine.”
“So I gathered when Aurelia said you guys were calling her Baby B, for Baby Ben.”
He paced, and Aurelia sank into an armchair as he gave Piper the lowdown on what had transpired over the last two days. As he spoke, he desperately wanted time alone with Aurelia to get everything out in the open between them, but that would have to wait. Piper might be the size of a pixie, but she was his most aggressive sister, and she asked a million questions, which he had to answer, because there was no deterring her. He told her about the two women he had yet to contact—the yoga instructor and the blonde in Los Angeles, though he hated the way it felt to say it again in front of Aurelia. Then he told her about the doctor and the paternity test, and when he was done, Piper blinked several times, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard.
“Didn’t Dad ever explain the birds and the bees to you?” Piper snapped.
“Not helping,” he said stoically.
“A baby,” Piper said. “A frigging adorable baby.”
“I know,” he said, feeling such a mix of emotions, he couldn’t make heads or tails of them.