“He was walking out of the door as I left. I had no clue he was going to stay.” She shivered.
Jokingly, I walked to the desk with the food on it and said, “He momentarily distracted me from my patient leaving, though. So there’s that.” I paused. “You should change the man’s tip.”
She laughed and picked up her phone. “I’ll knock a dollar off for his creepiness.”
“It really is unfair that you can change the price after they deliver,” I murmured. “But I guess that’s the way it is, because of the fact that they may fuck it up somehow. Or forget to deliver…”
“Or not deliver at all,” Dutch said with wide eyes. “My order was canceled.”
I blinked. “What?”
“My order,” she turned her phone screen to me. “It was canceled.”
There was a somersault party going on in my belly, and I absently put my palm against my lower abdomen and felt the reassuring movement before saying, “Are you sure that’s not for an old order?”
“It says that our order was stolen,” she said, eyeing the food. “I don’t think we should eat this.”
I thought I should call my husband.
Which I did in the next minute.
“Hey, baby,” Bram said the moment the call connected. “You at lunch?”
I usually called him while I was eating, because he liked to hear from me once during the day to make sure I was okay. Today was no different. At least, for him at that moment in time.
“Uh.” I hesitated. “Sort of?”
There was an instant change in the tone of his voice as he said, “What happened?”
I gave him a quick rundown of the situation, starting with my morning, and ending with the lunch delivery.
“We’ll address you being in the room with a dangerous criminal later,” he murmured quietly. “But for now, tell me everything you can about this delivery guy. Does Dutch have cameras? I’m going to call Wake and…”
“Let me ask, Bram. Slow down. I’m okay right now. The guy is gone. The food is getting discarded into the trash as we speak,” I spoke over him. “Let me ask Dutch about the cameras.”
“We have them,” she said. “The only problem is they’re monitored off site. They go to a facility in Wisconsin where they’re monitored twenty-four seven. Let me call them.”
“Dutch has cameras. But she says they’re…” I trailed off when he said, “I heard. Are you really okay?”
I smiled, despite the shittiness of the situation. “I’m okay. I swear. In fact, I’m pretty sure your son is having a party in my abdomen right now. Other than being extremely hungry and unable to get lunch, which I’ll probably have to pay for later in the form of puking my guts up for hours, I’m okay. I swear.”
He cursed under his breath.
Another thing we’d found was if I stayed ‘full’ or mostly never allowed myself to get completely starving, then I would be okay. But if I allowed myself to slip past a certain point, my stomach protested everything. And loudly, for hours if I wasn’t careful.
So we’d been very careful to always have food on hand for me in case of emergency. The only problem was, I’d run out of office snacks yesterday, and hadn’t had a chance to replenish them yet.
“I’ll get Wake to bring you food,” he said. “I can’t leave. I’m literally in the water taking this call right now.”
I smiled. “Go back to work. Don’t worry about me. I’ll call Wake.”
I wouldn’t be calling Wake. Wake didn’t need to be called.
“Good,” he said. “I’m sorry, baby. I wish I knew how to find this prick.”
I wish he knew how, too.
CHAPTER 22
It’s important to get out of the house every once in a while to remind yourself why you don’t go out.
-Bram to Dory
BRAM
“I’m sorry, what?” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“She never called.” He laughed. “But I’ll go over there now if you want.”
I sighed. “I’m literally on the back of my bike now. I’m about to head that way. No need to get out now.”
“I’ll meet you at your place. Tex needs a walk anyway.”
I drove straight to Dory’s office and parked right beside her front door.
My eyes scanned the area, taking in every single thing, and noting that the only people out were the regular runners that liked to use this business park as a cut through to the main trail down the road.
Once I was sure nothing was amiss, I got off the bike and headed inside to find Dutch stuffing her face with a cupcake.
I frowned at the familiar muffin cupcake liner.
Then turned to find the familiar box that denoted my uncle’s bakery on the corner of the receptionist’s desk.
“Where is she?” I asked, figuring I’d get the information out of her.
She pointed, never stopping stuffing her face as she did.
I grinned and turned to find Dory’s office door partially closed, and a male’s voice booming with laughter.
I stalked into the room to find Dory sitting at her desk with her own half-eaten cupcake up to her mouth, and none other than my brother, Shine, and his girl, Iris, sitting in the patient chairs.
I narrowed my eyes. “I thought I told you not to come?”
Shine opened his mouth to explain when my wife stood up and said, “You did. I contradicted you by calling him back and telling him to come.”
I blinked, shocked.
“What?”
She’d called Shine?
“I called him,” she repeated herself. “Hey, did you happen to stop and get any chocolate milk?”
I snorted. “If I’d known you wanted it, I would have. But I’m not a mind reader, babe.”
She sighed, sounding totally put out at the thought that I couldn’t read her mind.
“That’s sad,” she mumbled darkly. “What do you want to do for dinner?”
I looked at her with a smile on my face as I said, “What, exactly, would you like to have? Do you even have any room left after that cupcake?”
“That’s her third, by the way.” Iris giggled. “I’m glad we stopped by and got some. It’s quite comical to see how much she’s putting away. You’d think that she wouldn’t eat so much because she’s so small.”
“You’d think wrong.” I shook my head. “I’ve seen Dory put some food away in our time together but watching her eat this… it’s amazing.”
And it was great to see her actually eating.
Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have eaten that cupcake that he’d brought her. She would’ve overthought the hell out of it.
Though my brother would never, ever in a million years hurt her, the fact that she was eating anything he brought was a sign of trust.
That, and the pregnancy had changed a lot of her eating habits for the better.
Now, she didn’t have a problem with eating anything sweet or a craving when we went out to eat. I was sure that it wouldn’t continue this way when she wasn’t pregnant anymore, but one could hope.