Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,94

her to the hospital for her 20-week scan—you know, since she’d never been to their local hospital before. Norfolk was a treacherous place, what with all the aggressive good cheer and suspiciously polite old folks. She could get lost, or be kidnapped by a band of holidaying children. These things happened.

One week since she, after six straight days of blushing and lip-biting and squinting and Ummms, had said yes.

And it would probably take several hundred years for his best friend to stop teasing him about the whole thing.

He couldn’t pretend he minded, though. Samir hadn’t had many friends as a kid—it wasn’t easy to bond with people when he was busy trying to survive his parents’ reign of emotional terror. So the good-natured mockery was… nice. He just didn’t want Laura to hear the guys in the kitchen calling him Dad or asking him about the baby, because she’d probably overthink it and die of embarrassment.

She met him outside, even though she’d been sitting in the cafe five minutes ago. She hadn’t said it, but he got the impression that she didn’t want the townspeople to think they were together in any way. Which they obviously weren’t.

A couple of weeks ago, he’d overheard one of the town’s unrepentantly nosy old women ask Laura, “Are you married, dear?” As if it wasn’t pretty clear, by this point, that she wasn’t married. Laura had glanced at her own bare ring finger before saying, “I’m divorced.” Her voice had been strange. Off. As if she was lying. So now he had this suspicion that she’d never been married at all, but she didn’t want people to know. And he wanted to tell her that it really didn’t matter, but she hadn’t told him, so acting like he knew would be rude, wouldn’t it?

“Hey,” she said, her voice snatching him out of his thoughts. “You ready?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” He opened the car door for her, and she smiled. It was a small smile, contained, and she lowered her gaze as she slid into the car. There must be something wrong with him, because he snatched up that hint of pleasure like a dog taking crumbs from the table.

Ah, well. If he had to be pathetic over someone, it might as well be someone as beautiful as Laura.

He got into the driver’s seat and said, “My car sucks.”

“Does it? I wouldn’t know.”

“I thought you might be a car girl. You know, cuz you drive that monster.” He pulled out onto the main road, feeling like he’d never driven before. Laura was in his car—in his care—which meant he sure as shit better look both ways.

“Oh, it’s not mine. It’s my—it’s Bump’s grandpa’s.” She put a hand to her stomach. She’d been doing that a lot more, these past weeks, maybe because she’d suddenly gotten a hell of a lot bigger. And, of course, she’d started calling the baby Bump. All of these things, independently, were adorable, but put them together and Samir frequently struggled not to melt in her presence.

Right now, though, what caught his attention was the guarded edge in her voice. It didn’t sound like she wanted to pursue the Bump’s grandpa thing, even if the words—and her slight hesitation—had piqued his curiosity. He was always curious where Laura was concerned. He felt like a bloodhound, sometimes, picking up every scent, hunting down all the little things she didn’t say.

But he wouldn’t push her. He knew that she loved to swim, and that she was kind of anal about her hair. He knew she’d studied Politics and IR, and that she loved profiteroles more than life itself. He didn’t need all of her secrets when he knew how to make her smile, did he? Friends didn’t tell each other everything.

So instead of asking about Bump’s grandpa, he said, “Speaking of Bump. You have any name ideas?”

“Of course I do!”

“You do?”

“Oh, yeah. The problem is…” She trailed off, but he could almost feel her laughter, bubbling beneath the surface. “The problem is, my ideas are awful.”

He raised a brow. “You think of names you don’t like?”

“Oh, no, I like them. It’s just… Okay, so I have this friend—well, I don’t know. We weren’t friends at all, which was my fault. I was kind of awful to her, actually.” The cheer in her voice had evaporated into empty nothingness. He didn’t like that. He wanted the happiness back.

So he said, “But you’re friends now?”

“Well, yes. I think so. You can never be too sure with Ruth.