and fates and the universe that he was right, that this was real, that this was going to work for her and him and The Bean.
Her arm wrapped around the pillow, she fell asleep. She woke to the ring of the telephone. She blinked blearily at her alarm clock before staggering from the bed in search of the phone.
“Morning,” Rhys said, his voice deep and low.
“Hi.” Stupid, but she felt a little breathless, simply because he’d called. “Is everything all right?”
“Just making sure everything is okay at your end.”
“It is.”
“You slept okay?”
“Yes. How about you?”
“I slept.”
She waited for him to tell her why he’d really called, but as they kept talking it slowly occurred to her that he’d missed her. The notion was heady, almost intoxicating.
Don’t get ahead of yourself.
She repeated the same mantra to herself hundreds of times over the following weeks, determined to give happiness a chance but also to maintain some sense of perspective.
Just in case things didn’t work out.
AFTER THE FIRST COUPLE of weeks Charlie and Rhys settled into a routine of sorts. Most nights were spent at her place, since Rhys claimed she had a lot more style than him and that his place was really a glorified walk-in closet. They double-dated with Gina and Spencer on Tuesday nights, but most of the time it was only the two of them, the way Charlie liked it. Maybe she was greedy, but she loved having Rhys all to herself, and he seemed to feel the same way about her.
The sex got better and better, even though the baby was definitely making her presence felt. Charlie quickly grew out of all her old clothes and moved beyond the point where an elastic stretched between button and hole, and a long T-shirt could help her skate by. She was in her sixteenth week and contemplating a shopping trip for maternity clothes when her breasts seemed to grow a cup size overnight—much to Rhys’s unashamed delight.
“Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?” he said when she commented on his near obsession.
Her enlarged breasts were exquisitely sensitive, too, but he was gentle and tender with her and their lovemaking took on yet another dimension. That same week, Rhys’s mother celebrated her birthday and they attended their first Walker family gathering as a couple.
Charlie had thought that she’d been nervous the first time she met Rhys’s family, but she was almost beside herself at the notion of showing up as his girlfriend. She’d spoken to Holly twice since she and Rhys had started seeing each other, but both times she’d been unable to find a way to reveal their new relationship to his mother. She suspected that Holly would be thrilled, but Charlie wasn’t sure and she didn’t want to lose the sense of connection that had been growing between them.
“Relax, Charlie. They already love you. Make a few cracks about what a money-grubbing capitalist pig I am and you’ll have them eating out of both hands,” Rhys said as they walked up the front path.
“This is so stupid. Why am I so nervous?” she asked herself out loud.
Rhys hooked an arm around her neck and drew her close. “Because you have no idea how lovable you are,” he said easily, pressing a kiss to her mouth. “That’s why.”
She was still blinking in confusion when the door opened and his father ushered them inside to join “the rest of the horde.”
“No lasagna tonight, Charlie,” Holly announced as they entered the kitchen. “Oh, my, haven’t you popped!” Her gaze went from Charlie’s belly to the arm Rhys had draped around her shoulders.
Charlie was very aware of Rhys’s siblings doing the same, but no one said anything, and pretty soon she was being pressed into a chair and handed a drink and a handful of crackers.
“Actually, the nausea stopped a couple of weeks ago,” Charlie explained when Meg made a big deal about moving the dip platter out from under Charlie’s nose in case it upset her stomach.
“Oh, good. I had a salad for you, just in case, but this is much better,” Holly said. She rested her hand on Charlie’s shoulder for a few seconds and her eyes were warm as they met Charlie’s.
The tension inside Charlie unraveled as she saw the unquestioning acceptance in the other woman’s eyes. As she’d hoped, Holly was pleased. One less thing to worry about.
Later, after a dinner of roast beef and vegetables and lemon meringue pie for dessert, Kim, Becky and