Just because I was thirty weeks pregnant and a hormonal mess didn’t mean I’d fall apart the minute he left.
Those were the lies I told myself.
“I hate leaving you here when I know reporters will be prowling,” he said as he wound up his charging cable and put it in his bag that sat beside me on his bed.
“Nick has it under control. Besides, with you off in the big cities, they’ll be less interested in me.”
“We hope,” he hedged as he pushed my hair behind my shoulder.
“I’ll do my best to be as uninteresting as possible.”
“We still don’t know who sold that photo to the magazine. Someone who probably lives on this block made a killing off of exploiting you.”
I blinked in surprise, rewinding over the past couple days. Gemma had confessed to me. I’d come home. I’d overheard Sean talking to Randy and I’d forgotten all about Gemma. “I never got to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
I took his hand in mine. “It was a coworker of mine. She wasn’t being malicious, she was just”—I sucked in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh—”desperate and opportunistic.”
He closed his eyes, digging his thumb and forefinger into his eyebrows. “I wish I could be surprised by that. But it’s just as often the people you know as the people you don’t.”
“At least I don’t have to wonder anymore.” It was true I was glad to know, but I was also exaggerating the silver lining aspect, hoping he would worry less.
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Looking at the bright side, huh?” He moved to his desk, refocusing on what he needed to pack. He must have found something or thought of something that made him pause abruptly, and my body tensed in response, bracing for impact. Then his shoulders fell. It was like his muscles melted, and all the tension drained away. He slowly picked something up before turning back to me. I expected to see something in his hands, but his fist appeared to be closed around nothing. He walked over to me, and it wasn’t until he was raising his hands over my head that I saw the necklace dangling in front of me.
My eyes stung, seeing that infinity sign swaying in the light of the sunset coming through the window.
“This is how much I love you.” His voice was husky as he said it, and my eyes darted to his as he settled the chain around my neck.
Tears clouded my eyes before one silently slipped down my cheek. “You kept it?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
“Of course. I wore it every day until I came here. Then I worried that seeing me wear it would not make you happy, so I put it away.”
I wrapped a hand around the infinity just like I had on countless occasions years ago.
His finger ran over the chain where it rested on my neck. “I hope it can give you the same comfort it did before, but maybe with a little added love from me.”
I tipped my face up to look at him. “Thank you.”
The planes of his face all softened as he looked into my eyes. “You’re welcome.” He bent and pressed a kiss to my mouth, pulling back before it could go anywhere truly earth shattering, then went about his business as if the air around us weren’t charged with tension and attraction.
I think we were both holding back, both waiting to be sure that this path ahead—the one that involved him and me together—was one we were willing to forge. While I was terrified to let him leave, I was also anxious for his departure because I had a sense—a premonition almost—that when he came back, everything would be different.
♪♫♪
The shock that rolled through me when I pulled up to my house and saw a car parked in Sean’s spot nearly took my breath away.
For some reason, I had it in my head that Sean’s half of the duplex would remain empty, awaiting his return. There wasn’t supposed to be a new person in Sean’s house. It was supposed to remain a shrine to the hope of our relationship or something equally preposterous.
Was he renting it out for the next month? Turning it into a vacation rental? I shook my head. That didn’t make sense. He didn’t need the money and he valued his privacy too much. It was probably just someone parking in the driveway because they knew he was gone or they were visiting one of my neighbors or something.
I grabbed my purse, hefted myself out of my car and waddled up to my house, where I tried to ignore the urge to check out my front door every twenty minutes to see if the car was still there. Normally I would have distracted myself by pounding out my feelings on my piano, but the little peanut demanded that I lie down instead, with a bag of chocolate-covered almonds.
After fifteen minutes, the food and downtime had almost convinced me that I had the energy to go get some real food from the kitchen. Almost. But as I was procrastinating, a knock came at the door.
Paranoid thoughts of rumor-hungry reporters posing as vacationers and staying in Sean’s house crossed my mind before I convinced myself once again that Sean wasn’t dumb enough to let anyone stay in his house. Also, Nick was watching from his apartment across the street and received alerts anytime someone came to my door. He now texted me a thumbs-up, indicating that whoever was at the door wasn’t a threat, and I got up to see who it was. Sure, I could have looked through the peephole, but since he was watching anyway, I’d asked him to give me the thumbs-up or down so that I didn’t have to haul myself to the door for no reason.
I was gobsmacked when I opened the door. “Debbie?”
“Hey, sweet girl,” she greeted, opening her arms.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as she wrapped me in a hug.
“You and Sean think alike. Just like you asked me to take care of him, he’s asked me to take care of you.”
I squeezed her tight, tears burning my eyes, thrilled to see her again. “I haven’t seen you since Daddy’s funeral.” I blinked hard to try to get rid of the tears. “Come in.” I pulled back and invited her inside.
As soon as I closed the door, she took my hands and held them out to my sides. “Let me look at you.” She did a full body scan and then pressed both hands to her mouth.“You are a maternal goddess.”
“You’re sweet,” I said with a laugh. “Come in and sit down. How long are you here for?”
“Until Sean comes back, of course.”
“The whole four weeks?”
“Yes. I’m not letting you do this on your own.”
I gave a little shake of my head, confused. “But I need to be able to do it by myself,” I protested. Wasn’t that what sending Sean away had been all about?
“Hogwash,” she declared.
My eyes widened.“Hogwash?” Who says hogwash anymore?
“If your daddy was alive, would he be letting you do this on your own?”
She pinned me with a look, but I couldn’t answer.
“If you had any siblings,” she continued, “do you think that they would let you have a baby all on your own? Or would they be here, doing all they could to love and support you?” Again she gave me the look I couldn’t argue with. “Family helps each other, sweet girl. And like it or not, Sean and I are your family. Now, I know having him here would be different. I understand you two need to work out how to balance everything. But you can’t tell me that you’d be better off if I weren’t here. So you just be gracious, say thank you, and tell me what I can do to help.”