Floored - Karla Sorensen Page 0,51

want you to only plant your thoughts on the past when you should be able to look straight to your future."

My future. My future was one giant foggy question mark.

And there was time to wave those clouds away.

I stood, and I saw the regret in her eyes. "I have to go," I told her.

"We still need to talk about your draft." Her chin lifted. "I apologize if I overstepped."

"I, uh, I can email you about your openings next week." I slid my backpack straps over my shoulders. "Besides, I have a doctor’s appointment in London."

In three hours, but she hardly needed to know that.

She raised her eyebrows. "You're going to London for that? They couldn't get you into a doctor here?"

Atwood still had no idea who the father was, and explaining that he paid for the friggin’ fanciest doctor in the universe to stick a gel-covered wand up my hoo-hah did not sound like a fun time, given what she'd just said to me.

"Yeah, it's a long story." I tucked my hair behind my ear. "Thank you for your advice."

She smiled gently. "I hope your appointment goes well."

She knew, probably just as well I did, that we were both being fake AF with our polite goodbyes. I wasn't feeling all that thankful over what she said. I felt attacked. I felt ... vulnerable.

The Tube ride to London felt too long.

And it felt too short.

Jude was meeting me at the doctor's office for this appointment because we were going to try to listen for the heartbeat, and for some reason, it was the first time in a long time when I didn't know if I wanted to face him.

If I was fixating on the past to avoid my own future, wouldn't I be doing that with my own past? I had a laundry list of items to choose from, if that were the case.

-Father dying when I was young: check.

-Mother bailing when it wasn't so super fun to be a parent anymore: check.

-Brother becoming Dad, which made for a very confusing family tree when we had school assignments: check.

But none of those were even remotely things I wanted to fixate on. Because they were done. Over. Nothing about them could be changed.

I got off, minded the gap and all that jazz, and let the ebb and flow of the crowd leaving the station guide me up onto the street. The trees were devoid of leaves by this point in the fall, and it felt appropriately barren.

There was no lush, pretty scenery to distract me from what Atwood said, and even the grandeur of the buildings didn't adequately hold my attention.

Always looking for a distraction.

The thought drew me up short, only a block away from the doctor.

Were Jude and I both guilty of what she'd said?

I rubbed my belly, wondering if the little strawberry could sense my unease. "Sorry, lil fruit," I murmured. "I'll try to slow the mental anguish."

Rounding the corner, I spied Jude's tall form against one of the white colonial columns propping up the ornate entryway to the office. He was wearing a black knit hat and aviator glasses that covered half his face. All that was visible was his dark scruff along his jaw and the stern line of his mouth.

Maybe what we were doing was a distraction and nothing more, this refusal to address what was waiting for us, but when he looked up and saw me, I could not help the way I reacted to that slow, sensual curve of his mouth.

I knew what that mouth was capable of.

"Hello," he murmured, sliding a hand over my hip when I approached. Quite naturally, my hands slid up the marble-hard planes of his chest, and I lifted my chin. He took the hint, smart boy that he was. Jude gave me a soft kiss but didn't deepen it. "Good meeting with your advisor?"

A buzzing sound went off in my head, like a game show contestant had hit the wrong button.

Not the topic I wanted to touch on.

"Fine," I told him. "You're early."

He grinned. "I wanted to scope out the building and see if you were exaggerating about how posh it was."

Lifting one eyebrow, I pinched his nipple, smiling in satisfaction when he yelped.

"And you weren't," he finished.

What I thought about saying next was not what came out of my mouth. What I thought about saying was, Of course, I wasn't exaggerating. But what came out of my mouth was, "Have you told your parents about the baby yet?"

Jude