“Oh.” She has the audacity to laugh. “I read about it, but I thought it was a PR gimmick. Now I understand.”
“I don’t think you do,” I say quietly.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. See you around. Summer.” She saunters off toward Jonny, and I mentally brace myself.
I knew there was a possibility that stuff like this would happen, I just hate that it had to happen now. On a night that’s been so awesome so far.
“Sorry,” I whisper to Summer.
She shrugs. “It’s fine. I imagine there are a lot of Sherrys out there on tour.”
I can’t deny it.
“There were a lot of women before you,” I say gently. “I’m sorry if that hurts you, but when I told you there’s been no one since we met, that was the truth. I never stopped thinking about you after I left New York the first time. Wishing you’d agreed to fly out and see me or whatever.”
“I thought about you a lot too,” she admits. “And I wished we’d agreed to that too. I just didn’t think we had a chance…well, I didn’t think I had a chance.”
“We had a connection from the start,” I say, pressing my forehead to hers. “Deep down, I knew I was going to see you again. I didn’t know when or how, but I knew it wasn’t completely over. I think that’s why I couldn’t sleep with anyone else.”
Her eyes flutter closed and she leans against me. “I think I knew it too.”
All the travel and sightseeing seems to have caught up to Summer, and she’s asleep before I’m even done in the bathroom. So I take a few minutes to enjoy the view and appreciate how peaceful she looks in her sleep. How relaxed. Her hair is sprawled over the pillow in soft waves, and she’s curled up with the blanket.
I strip down to my boxers and get into bed. I nestle in behind her since she’s on her side, and she immediately wiggles her butt until her body is flush with mine. But then she’s fast asleep, softly snoring, and I’m not going to wake her no matter how much my dick wants me to.
She’s growing a whole life inside her—she needs her rest. I’m just glad she’s here with me for another five days. It won’t be enough, nothing ever is, but at least we’re together. Having fun, both alone and with our friends. I hope she considers them her friends too. She and Ryleigh seem to be bonding, which is nice because I want her to become as integrated into my life as I am with hers.
And I only have five days left to convince her that this could be her life too. Our life. Even with a baby. She just has to be comfortable with it. And understand that there are going to be a lot more Sherrys out there. It won’t be easy for her to run into women I’ve slept with but she has a past too. There’s just a much lower chance that I’ll run into anyone she’s been with.
Touring with a kid won’t be easy either, but once we’re past the infant stage, it’s doable. We could wrangle a toddler, right? Lexi, the lead singer of Nobody’s Fool, just had a baby in December. This three-month European tour is literally a test to find out if touring with a baby is possible, and so far, it seems to be going well. She brought a nanny, of course, something Summer and I can’t afford yet, but we’re getting there.
Maybe I can arrange for the three of us to talk.
Beyond that, I think it’s going to boil down to how much of her life Summer wants to give up so we can be together as much as possible.
Because now that I have her, I don’t want to let her go.
But I also don’t want her to give up her dreams. The problem is that I don’t know what they are. If she could do anything, would she go back to photography? Focus on her baking? Open a bakery? Or would she be happy as a stay-at-home mom? I don’t know the answers to any of those questions but it feels like I should.
Anyone you ask will say communication is key in any relationship, and I think Summer and I have been walking on eggshells a bit. Not with everything, but certainly when it comes to conversations about the future. We’ve been so focused on her pregnancy, finding our way as not just a couple but as a married couple, and getting through the European tour, we haven’t talked about what’s next.
This is the honeymoon period, both literally and figuratively, and while I don’t want to mess that up, I don’t want to have a potentially uncomfortable conversation over the phone or text. We have to at least start considering our options now, while we’re together.
And there are only five days left in which to do it.
Chapter 32
Summer
Coming face-to-face with someone Tate slept with—a one-night stand kind of like I was—felt jarring. She was spectacularly rude but Tate handled it the best way possible without being equally impolite or making a scene.
Obviously, he’s slept with other people. There’s no doubt about that. I have too. And not just one or two. I’ve had a healthy sex life since I became active at seventeen. The difference is that there’s very little chance of running into those men, even in my hometown. Regardless, I didn’t like how it felt when she looked at my belly and said “oh.” Like the baby is the only possible reason Tate and I would be married.
Even though it’s true.
We definitely wouldn’t be married now if I wasn’t pregnant. We might be dating, but we wouldn’t have jumped right to the marriage part. And that worries me sometimes. Is our history, or lack thereof, setting us up to fail from the get-go?
“You look like a woman with a lot on her mind,” he says in the morning as we’re getting ready to meet up with the others to go for a walk along the Royal Mile.
