“Is that so?” a deep, highly familiar voice says from behind, and I’m right back to cringing. That wasn’t for Seth’s ears, not yet anyway. I wanted to rip into him, make him suffer in my presence for at least ten hellish minutes before I let him off thehook.
Seth steps up, that sheepish grin blooming on his lips, and my insides explode with heat, my heart blooms ten times insize.
Seth looks at me with those mesmerizing granite blue eyes. “Would you mind if I stole you for amoment?”
I look to my brothers. “I think I’ll take a rain check on dinner.” I hug Nolan first and whisper into his ear, “Thank you for being such a great big brother. I know you’re going to make a fantastic dad.” I head over and embrace Rush as well. “I love you so much it hurts. Thank you for being there for me. I promise I won’t hold back everagain.”
Trixie tousles my hair. “Hold your own, girl. Make sure you give him a little hell. Do it for me,too.”
“You bet.” I take a step out toward Seth, and we walk out of the Black Beartogether.
Neither of us says aword.
* * *
Spring givesway to summer as Hollow Brook gleams under the light of a full rising moon. A balmy breeze wraps its arms around us as soon as we step out of the Black Bear. I can’t believe it’s finally happening—this long, long overdue conversation with Seth and me. Just having him next to me makes me shake. I’m dying to pick up his hand, wrap myself around him, and inhale the warmth of his cologne from the base of his neck. As confused and frustrated as I am over everything that’s transpired, I’m far more addicted to his touch, to him in general, to let it override my true feelings forhim.
Seth reaches over and picks up my hand. His steel blue gaze falls over me as he presses out a sad smile. “I love you, Sunday.” He wraps his arms tight around my body as if he were a mind reader, and my chest bucks as those ever-present tears that are always on the surface rain down like a river. “You want to head to my place—you know, totalk?”
I shake my head at him. Once I get to Seth’s apartment, I won’t want to leave, not anytime soon at least, and there’s one more place I need to be tonight. His face is quickly shadowed with disappointment, and he offers an understandingnod.
“I know just the place.” I lead us wordlessly across the street, to the woods adjacent to Founder’s Square, where there are benches strewn throughout the periphery of the campus forest. I’ve seen students hanging out here all year reading, making out, and everything in between. But at this late hour, in the black of night, the woods are all butabandoned.
Seth and I settle on a flat wooden bench with our back to campus, a curtain of evergreens draping us from the public eye. For a moment, I think how fun it would have been to sneak behind my brothers’ backs all these years. Instead, I fed into their anxieties by staying away from Seth, and along the way created an entire slew of new anxieties. But that’s the old me. The new me thinks for herself and her child. I’m determined to let my own good senses be my guide in life. I’ve learned the hard way that you should never let someone’s conclusions about your life ruleyou.
I glance down at my belly as Seth leans in close, our bodies facing one another, just a couple of breaths away from akiss.
“Sunday, there’s so much I’ve been dying to say to you over these past few days.I—”
“No, please, let me go first.” I marvel at how the blue wash of moonlight makes him look aggressively handsome, and those darn viral hormones of mine take ahold of me once again. “Seth, I don’t want you to ask for my forgiveness.” His eyes round out in horror, and a tingle of twisted delight bounces through me. “You held my hand when I found out I was having a baby. You were kind enough to care for me when I thought I was outright dying with nausea and fatigue. You have come to every doctor’s appointment I’ve had. There were so many chances you had to tell me that you were the father of my baby. There were so many chances you had to delude the idea that Eli was, in fact, the father, but you didn’t take them.” I watch as his body slumps. His affect hardens because he’s thinking the knife is to his neck. “And I know why. I understand it, and I can’t judge you for it. As confused as you were, I was ten times so. I get it. You were just trying to process everything. If you were a true coward, you would have stayed away from me altogether. But you didn’t. You offered to help me raise the baby.” I reach up and rub the scruff on his cheek. “You told me you lovedme.”
“And I do.” A lone tear rides down his cheek. “Thank you. And you’re right. Everything that’s happened since December has been a blur. That night I was just as wasted as you were. And I take full responsibility for getting us in that position to begin with. I never should have let it get that far.” Seth tightens his grip around me, and my thigh brushes against his. “But I couldn’t get my head around the fact the girl I’d pined over, worshipped from afar from the moment I met her, was paying me anyattention.”
Our eyes hook into one another, and my mouth falls open. “You felt that way aboutme?”
“Only every day. So that next morning when I deduced what had happened, I thought you’d probably hate me if you knew the truth. You figured it was Eli, and I stepped back from that one. I opted to let you believe what you wanted and I’m sorry about that. Initially, I thought the truth would shut the door on what was fast becoming a good thing between us.” Seth takes up my hands and brings them to his lips. “I still think we’re a good thing, Sunday.” Grief pours from him as he says those words. “It seemed every time I tried to tell you the truth, something came up. And once I was determined to tell you, it quickly became too late. Please, Sunday, I am begging your forgiveness.” His glossy eyes bear hard into mine, assuring me every word istrue.
“No.” I swallow hard. “There’s nothing to forgive. We have the truth now. And I believe you. I really do think you were about to tell me because, much like you, I was about to tell my family. Everything happened so quickly, so unexpectedly.” My body shakes as I try to hold back from wailing the way my emotions demand. Seth buries his face in my neck, my hair, before brushing my cheek with akiss.
“I love you, Sunday. I want nothing more than to spend my life loving you and our baby.” An electrical jolt jumps from his eyes to mine as he says those finalwords.
“Our baby.” A tiny laugh bubbles from me as my arms collapse around him. “You don’t know how good it feels knowing it’s you, Seth. As nice as Eli is, a part of me would have still felt very alone. But with you—I feel like I share theload.”
“You will never be alone. I promise you that.” A smile bounces on his lips, and yet his brows dip as if he were hurting. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you these last few days—the both of you. It was hell, and I never want to end up without youagain.”
“Then you’d better mind your P’s and Q’s.” I’m only half-teasing. After all, I am under strict orders from Trixie to give himhell.
“If we had minded our P’s and Q’s to begin with, we wouldn’t behere.”
“Ha!” I belt out a laugh. “I get it, pints and quarts. They should have a K forkegs.”
“That they should.” His chest expands with his very next breath. “I also want you to know that I’m sort of glad we didn’t mind them. I’m extremely happy that you’re in my life, and even though we’ve yet to meet Little Fish, I already feel like he or she is a part of our team. I’m madly in love with him or her, and I know you are,too.”
Tears pour from me as if someone turned on a faucet. It’s all I can do to give a little nod. Instead of reassuring him with words, I lean in and reassure him with kisses, molten hot, drenched with happy tears, chest bucking, moaning for morekisses.
Seth loves me with his mouth as proficiently as he’s done in the past with his body. I’ve never been kissed the way Seth kisses me. I’ve never been loved the way he’s loved mebefore.
Before too long, I ask Seth to drive us out to Hollow Brook General. I stop by the gift shop and buy a stuffed white teddy bear with a yellow bow around its neck as we make our way to the maternity ward, and it’s not nearly as cold and sterile as I had envisioned up here. Shockingly, there’s not a single woman screaming for someone to clobber her into unconsciousness. Instead, the ward is filled with families running around, and there’s a palpable excitement in the air that lets you know you’re a part of somethingspecial.
