Willow placed her hand on her stomach, which, while still pretty flat, had a firmness to it. Her book said it would be a few more weeks at least before she popped.
Luke sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say that to upset you, Will.”
Hormonal tears stung and threatened to fall. She bit down on her tongue. Hard. “I know.”
“But it did, right?” Luke’s blue eyes studied her carefully. Like he had that night. When he’d been concerned about the way her father had spoken to her. She’d assumed that caring good nature extended a lot further into his life than it appeared to.
“Yeah. It did. It’s weird that online, a place that doesn’t really exist, is the only place I feel like I actually belong or where people actually want me. Anyway,” she said with a sigh as she stood, “I’m going to make some dinner. What do you fancy? There’s some chicken and salmon and I could—”
“People want you, Will. You belong.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Your mum?”
Willow scoffed. “The one who knew my dad spent my money to provide their house and lifestyle.”
“Siblings?”
“Don’t have any.”
“Best friend.”
“One. Riley. But she isn’t here, and we keep missing each other’s texts and calls because of the eight-hour time difference.”
“Other friends?”
“The ones who want screen time and collaborations and me to share their profiles for likes. Yeah, they really want me.”
“Willow . . .”
Under his scrutiny, she could feel the walls she’d worked hard to build begin to crack. “So, salmon or chicken. I think I’ll make salmon. Quicker, then I can get on with some work.”
Luke didn’t say another word.
Luke quietly pulled the sofa into the middle of the living room and draped a large drop cloth over everything he’d assembled in the centre. When he’d gone to bed the previous evening, Willow was in her bedroom, light flooding from beneath the door. She’d disappeared into it after she’d cooked dinner, telling him she had work to do, editing the footage from their painting trips and thinking through the announcement of their relationship.
But he’d seen the hurt in her eyes when he’d knocked on the door to say good night.
She was alone. While a part of him cried out to fix it, he wasn’t sure where to begin.
And as he’d lain in bed, he’d thought about the baby. If the baby stayed in Manchester, it would have aunts and uncles and grandparents who would love it. Even Matt and Jase’s nan, or Ben and Alex’s mum, Pat.
Who did Willow and the baby have when they returned to Malibu twelve months from now?
Her hurt-filled answers about the people who wanted her echoed through him.
He’d slept, fitfully, with all the pieces colliding. He’d been unable to follow his own advice, to not worry about the future. To not borrow trouble, as Matt’s nan would say. Twelve months was a really long time. Plus, he’d gone thirty-six hours without any coke, and the fact that he knew that in hours and minutes illustrated just how out of hand his use had become.
Which was why he’d conceded defeat to sleeping in, decided on a distraction, and pulled on an old pair of jeans and a polo shirt from his old job at Matt’s Uncle Allan’s decorating firm. Then, he’d driven over to Allan’s house to catch him before he headed out on jobs for the day and to borrow two paint roller extension poles, a couple of paint trays and brushes, a ladder, and a stack of drop cloths.
The plastic tarp he’d laid down on the wooden living area floor crinkled beneath his work boots. He’d already pulled all the LED lights out of the ceiling and cut in around the walls and windows.
With the roller loaded with paint, he created a large W shape on the ceiling before going back over to fill the spaces in between. The crisp white paint made the old ceiling look a dirty yellow. Guessed that’s what two years of smoking in a place would do.
Not that he could do that anymore, either. And he was already sick of popping outside every time he needed a nicotine hit. He wouldn’t tell Willow how he’d stuck his head out of his bedroom window, blowing the smoke into the wind, before wafting it away like a fourteen-year-old hiding it from his mum. There was no way he could give up coke, booze, and cigs all at the same time.
Mindlessly, he rolled all the way across the ceiling in front of the windows.
Occasionally, he glanced over to Willow’s room, looking for signs of life. He hadn’t exactly rolled out the red carpet. He’d left every single detail of her living here to her. Was she entitled to healthcare on the NHS? Did she have the right visa? How would she make friends? He’d not even introduced her to his sister, as if Willow were some dirty secret.
Not that Willow had seemed to be in any rush to leave the apartment.
He was a shit.
He put the roller down and fired off a text message to the band.
“You’ve been busy.” Willow appeared bundled up in an oversized hoodie, her eyes heavy with sleep, her lips irresistibly soft. “Want a coffee?”
“Would love one. No sickness?”
Willow sighed and smiled as she started making their drinks. “None. It’s a wonderful thing.”
“I’ve invited the band over. It’s time they knew. I don’t want to keep lying, and I don’t want you to feel like a dirty secret, because you’re not. They know it wouldn’t be my first choice, so to suddenly seem that I’m madly in love and happy about this would be just too weird. It’ll mean we can be ourselves around them, and you can get to know them, so it won’t be quite so isolating for you being here. Matt’s bringing Izabel, Iz, my sister. Jase is bringing Cerys. And Ben is bringing Chaya.”
She handed him his coffee. “I think that’s a good idea. Are the women their girlfriends?”
“Thanks. Cerys and Iz, yes. Ben and Chaya are complicated. Either way, she hangs out with us as much as the others. And she’s a doctor. I figured she could help you figure your questions out. They’ll be here in an hour.”
“Thank you.”
“Sorry it’s taken me so long to pull my finger out. I just . . . I didn’t know how to explain this.”
Willow placed her hand on his arm. “I wish it was all under different circumstances too. I’ll need to shower.”
Luke took her hand and squeezed it. “Then go get started. I’ll keep going on the ceiling.”
“It looks so much better already.”
They both looked up. Side by side. Their arms barely touching each other. And he felt the pull he always felt around her. “Yeah. It does.”
An hour later, Luke saw the worry in Willow’s eyes. Makeup hid the circles he’d seen earlier.
Shit, he felt a tightening in his own stomach. Because when it had just been the two of them in his apartment, he could compartmentalise. There was a world where Willow was here and pregnant, and a world where he was still a drummer with his mates in a band and had the freedom to do whatever the fuck he wanted.
A knock at the door burst through the apartment. “They’ll roll with whatever we tell them,” Luke said.
He opened the door and let Matt and Izabel in. His sister threw her arms around him in a quick hug. “I just heard you’d had a guest hidden in here for five days. Five days, Luke. What the hell?”