I stared down at my favorite pink ruffle skirt, then raised my gaze to his with my mouth hanging open.
A light chuckle flitted past his lips, but it didn’t match the pinch of darkness I saw flash in his eyes. “Kidding, Petal. My dad needs me closer to home for a while anyway to help with a few things. And I thought it’d be a good opportunity to make sure you’re doing okay. Friends. We did it once, so we can do it again, right?”
I lifted a brow.
Another smirk, then his teeth sank into his lip. “Right.” He sighed. “Okay, well, I’ll be around if you need someone to help shave those lovely legs of yours.”
“Aiden.”
The door open, sunlight streaking the paint specked concrete floor, he gazed at me over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“You’re too good to be true.” I meant every word. I loved him. Boy, did I love him. But I’d spent too much of my life being in love, and I was sick of the way it seemed to cause more pain than happiness. If my goal in life was to make others happy, to fill people’s eyes and souls, and my own, with beauty, then I couldn’t keep slamming heart-first into misery.
My words had his lips tilting up, then he winked and sauntered out the door.
Aiden was back in town the following month, but I hadn’t seen him.
Our dialogue took place via text messages, and I often dodged his calls, if only to avoid the temptation to crawl inside his comfort. It was enough that it helped whenever I saw his name light up the screen of my phone.
Mom and Dad were waiting for me after class, and I hustled outside the lecture hall, my hands wrapped around my almost six-month bump as I tried to contain my excitement.
A few double glances and whispers of speculation had circulated—were still circulating—as people caught sight of my stomach, but nothing could steal this feeling from me. Not today.
It was the small things, I’d come to realize in the weeks that’d dragged by, that would help me continue when all I wanted was to stay curled beneath my duvet and shut the world out.
Though I suppose finding out the gender of my baby was no small thing at all.
“You’re still so sure it’s a boy,” Mom said next to me in the waiting room, encouraging me to drink more water.
My eyes grazed the blue gray walls, the crisp white furniture, and the receptionist desk, seeking distraction. “My bladder is about to burst.”
“Keep drinking, or we might not get a clear picture.” Mom licked her finger, turning the page of a magazine.
“It’s a boy. This will just confirm it.”
“Have you thought of any names?” Dad crossed his ankles, stretching his arms over his head.
To say he was impressed when Mom called him from my place after she’d arrived to stay with me would be a lie. But over the two weeks she was there, he gradually came around. Still, the rigidness to his jaw when his eyes met my stomach conveyed exactly how he was feeling about Everett’s disappearance.
He was mad as hell, but knowing it wouldn’t make me feel any better, he was trying not to let it show.
“No,” I said, ignoring the fact that not once had Everett and I even talked about names.
“Am I late?” Hendrix burst through the door, causing a few patrons in the room to lift their gaze.
He saw us and visibly relaxed, the door closing as he came to sit beside Dad. “Sorry.” He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling. “I sped the whole way here.”
Mom reached over to smack him with the magazine. “Idiot.”
“What? I wasn’t about to miss it.”
I smiled at him, my chest warming when he winked.
We’d had dinner together last month, where he’d sworn he had no idea Everett was leaving or where he’d gone. The taut pull of his mouth and shoulders and the dull sheen to his eyes accompanied regret-laced words over not being able to get in touch with him. To try to make this right for me.
I’d told him that wasn’t his responsibility, and that making the best album he could with what they had was.
Since then, even though he’d been swamped at the studio, he’d made a point to check in each week. Even if it was just to have some snacks delivered to my place with a card that never failed to make me laugh.