"You sold your place in Brooklyn," he murmured. "Now what? Buying something new?"
"That would be a smart investment," I said, pacing the length of his living room. "Generally speaking, real estate is the most stable, low-risk investment most people will ever make." I turned back toward him, my hand on my belly as it had been all day. "I'm not a stable, low-risk investment. I'm a high-risk investment."
He stared at my torso for a second. Then, he tipped his chin up. "How do you figure?"
"I'm-I'm not going to pretend my head isn't a mess," I said. "I've been dragging a little red wagon's worth of issues around since forever. I'm still fucked up over losing my mother the way I did plus everything I went through with my father. I don't think any of that is going away right now." I shook my head, willing him to understand. "I am a high-risk investment, the kind of risk on which I'd never gamble. And I'm proof that babies don't make people happy. They don't make anyone fall back in love and they don't solve relationship problems. Babies can't fix their parents."
"I know, Brooke. I know that."
His gaze skated over me from head to toe as he stood silent. Eventually, he reached out, grabbed a handful of my dress, and yanked me up against him. Butterscotch protested with a series of yips and barks, wiggling her body between us.
"She wants to protect you," he whispered against my neck. "Can't say I find any fault there."
"I shouldn't have left the way I did. I shouldn't have said the things I did. I was wrong, although I had to go. Had to drive to Portland in the dark, wait for my flight there, wait on the ground at Teterboro, crawl through traffic in Manhattan and over the bridge, all to find out I couldn't go back to the place I'd thought was my home. I had to figure this out, Jed."
"I could've gone with you," he replied. "You could've figured it out with me right there beside you."
"Maybe that's true," I conceded. "But I don't think you would've let me sit on the grass at John Street Park and cry for an hour. You would've insisted I tell you how to fix it and I would've told you I wanted to fix it myself. We would've argued under the Brooklyn Bridge and solved nothing."
"That's where we don't agree. I want to fight with you. Every damn day of my life. I don't want a day to go by without feeling your fire. But understand this, Brooke. I don't want to fight you. I want to stand on the same side as you."
"I don't know how to do that, Jed. I don't know how to do any of this." I layered both hands over my belly, my eyes wide and pleading as I stood there, the farthest thing in the world from perfect. I was exposed and vulnerable, and terrified he wouldn't understand. "I am telling you I don't have the answers and I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't think I've ever been so—"
He pressed his lips to mine. "Beautiful." Another kiss. "Open." Another. "Real." And another."Mine."
"But Jed, I'm—"
"Are you staying?" he asked. "Or am I going with you?"
"Staying. I'm working on getting used to that idea but I sold my townhouse so I'm running short on options at the moment."
"Are we still in this thing together?" he asked as he steered me down the hall.
I nodded. "Yes."
He tugged the dress up, over my head. "Are we still having a baby together?"
Another nod, a terrified gulp, a hand to my bare belly, and— "Yes."
He wrapped his arms around me, brought my head to his shoulder. "There's nothing to forgive. We'll argue, probably every damn day. We'll walk away, cool off, come back. We're in this."
I tapped my index finger against his sternum. "About the distillery—"
"Handled," he replied.
"Yeah? The meeting went well?"
His body shook as he barked out a laugh. "The meeting was a train wreck," he said. "But Cole McClish came into the tavern tonight and we started talking about gin. He sampled the beach rose batch and funded the entire launch on the spot." He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head, my temple. "You can blame Cole for robbing you of that bargaining chip."
"So, that's it?" I asked, glancing up at him. "Cole saved the day and you've accepted my apologies? It's that…simple?"
He dropped his hands to my ass, squeezing and grinding me against him. "If you really want to make amends and apologize for putting me through hell today, you're welcome to suck my cock."
I sighed. "I'm going to be someone'smother, Jedediah. Mothers don't suck cocks."
"And yet the termmotherfuckerexists," he mused as he relieved me of my bra.
"It's only available to those up to the task," I replied.
