A knot loosened in my chest, making it a bit easier to breathe. We could get through this. We could make it work.
When she got out of the truck, I told her I would be a few more minutes, which I was sure she took as me saying I was going to smoke—which I did—but I also made a phone call.
“What do you want?” Mia said as her greeting.
“So nice to talk to you, too,” I said, blowing a puff of smoke out.
“Yeah. It’s great.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm. I wondered what had happened to put her in such a foul mood and had second thoughts on whether she was the right person to call. “I just saw you like four days ago. What could you possibly need to talk to me about?”
“Pierce still gone?”
“No comment.”
“That’s a yes, then. Why’s he been gone so much?” I wondered aloud. I knew he had investigations that took him away for a bit, but this time seemed much longer than usual.
“He had to do some undercover thing. I can’t even know where he is right now.” The acid in her voice was palpable. I had no idea Pierce was taking shit like that on. But I was sure he had his reasons. Who am I to talk anyway? I was about to leave the woman carrying my babies for who knew how long.
“Sorry, Mia. I’m sorry that’s so hard on you.”
“Yeah. It sucks. But Mom checking on me every two hours sucks even worse. I’m not going to kill myself or something just because my fiancé is out of town or whatever.”
“Yeah, I know. She just worries. Just like she does with the rest of us.”
“Sure. So you gonna tell me why you called? Because if you say it was just to check on me, I won’t be talking to you for a while.”
There was my snarky sister. Ava may have been Kate’s roommate, but Mia seemed to connect with her a bit better, and she wouldn’t take any bullshit from Kate if she was doing more than she should. It also might help Mia out if Pierce was having to be gone for a while to have something to do, have a purpose. Or it might just screw with her life and all her wedding planning and whatnot. I would only know if I asked.
“I need a favor.”
“Which is?”
I explained the situation with Kate and preterm labor. Me leaving, what I was worried about happening while I was gone. She listened in silence.
“So I was wondering if you’d think about coming and staying with her. Until the babies came.”
There was complete silence on her end. “You want me to come all the way to Tennessee to babysit your baby mama?”
The way she worded it and her incredulous tone made me chuckle. She felt like it was babysitting, because that was what was being done to her. “It isn’t babysitting. She can do her own shit and whatever. I just need to know someone is here in case she goes into labor early or something.”
“Why didn’t you ask your sister who lives in the same fucking state as her?”
“Because Kate likes my snarky asshole sister more.”
“That’s such a sweet compliment. But the answer is no.”
“Mia. Please. I know you have a lot going on with the wedding and your school starting in the fall, but please at least think about it.”
There was another silence where I let her think without any more commentary from me. She finally sighed, saying, “I’ll talk to Pierce about it the next time I hear from him. Getting out of this fucking state without our parents may actually do me some good. Besides, I can plan a wedding from anywhere.”
It sounded like an almost-yes, making that knot in my chest loosen even more. I was sure Ava would have a lot to say about me going to Mia instead of her, but I already had an excuse for that.
“Tell me one thing though,” she added, interrupting my thoughts. “Did you ask Kate before you called me?”
“No. But I’ll talk to her about it. She seems to like you for some reason.”
“I won’t do it unless she’s okay with it.”
“Fine. Let me know what Pierce thinks.”
With that, we disconnected. I already knew what Kate would think of the idea, but I also knew that Mia really wouldn’t do it unless Kate was okay with it. Everything on the path in front of me was looking more and more daunting.
14
Kate
“How are we out of peanut butter?” I demanded, standing in the kitchen with a spoon and no freaking peanut butter. How am I supposed to function without my peanut butter?
Kai looked over the back of the couch from where he sat with a somewhat terrified look. He should have been terrified. He had asked his sister to come all the way to Tennessee just to stay with me during the last few months of my pregnancy. Something I’d thought she wouldn’t even be up for because of how much she hated being babysat herself. But apparently she and Pierce thought it would be good for her to get out of there for a little while he was working on this undercover case.
She’d called Kai two days after he made the request to let him know she’d be flying over the week after he went to Ohio. Instead of being a stubborn bitch about it, I’d agreed, saying if it put his mind at ease, it was worth it. Truth be told, it was going to put my mind at ease as well. I was terrified these babies might come early and I’d be stuck at home birthing them all by myself.
That would give me an entire week to myself. And I wasn’t sure whether I was excited about that or not. He was moving to Ohio. We’d had our fair share of fights since we started this whole relationship thing, but I was falling for him so quickly and so hard, he had no idea. But he was moving, and I was scared of what that would be like with him gone.
Mia would be good company. At least neither of us was very heartfelt in the feelings area. Which was the same as Kai. Probably why I liked him in the first place.
“We were going to go shopping when we got back from Ohio on Saturday,” Kai told me, pulling me from my thoughts.
Right. We were going to Ohio in two days to look at some houses for him to live in. We would spend a day there, then come back, and then he would drive back a few days after that. We had so little time together. And now I was out of peanut butter.
I wasn’t sure what my facial expression revealed, but he got up from the couch and approached me with raised eyebrows, a smirk tugging at his lips. “If it’s going to make you cry, I can go get you some peanut butter.”
“I’m not crying,” I snarled, slamming my spoon on the counter. His smirk morphed into a full-on grin, and I bared my teeth at him. My hormones had gone 100 percent haywire since that doctor’s visit. Poor Kai was probably excited to be rid of me for a while.
Instead of looking perturbed or hurt by my rudeness, he laughed, then grasped my arms, those steely grays holding me hostage. “I’ll go get you some peanut butter, toots.” He kissed my forehead, lingering there. The scent of him did some crazy things to said hormones. Which I couldn’t even act on, because somebody had researched and found that having sex during pregnancy could induce labor. He wouldn’t even talk about it.
“I want to go, too,” I demanded when he moved to grab his keys from the table. He looked back at me, his gaze showing that he was fighting suggesting I didn’t go.