Apparently on Wednesdays, she falls asleepbeforedinner. We’ll have to see if she does the same next Wednesday.
Fine by me. She didn’t think I was a creep for watching her sleep, and she was more grateful than she should’ve been that I could do something as simple as ordering dinner for us.
My bathroom gets finished.
And then I crutch into the kitchen Friday morning and find her eating mashed potatoes while looking at apartments on her phone.
Apartments.
“No house?” I ask.
She gets up from the table and pulls eggs, cheese and butter from the fridge. “If I like it, it needs too much work. If my mother likes it, it’s too expensive. If we both like it, the owner decides last minute to pull it off the market instead of taking my offer. So looking for something I can get month-to-month makes sense.”
“You can stay longer.” The words leave my mouth before I realize I’ve opened it.
She pauses with her arms full of ingredients, hope flashing over her face so briefly that I think I’m imagining it.
Wanting it.
“You’re nice. I’m nice. You’re gone most of the day. I still can’t get around easily for another few weeks. You don’t need to waste money on rent when this is working out. Unless you want a place of your own. I get it. Been there.”
She sets everything on the counter. “No, I don’t mind not being alone. I just—I don’t need to be in your hair if you’d rather be alone.”
“Can’t cook for myself,” I remind her. “Stick around. Savethe rent money. You’ll find the right house for you and Tater Tot soon.”
She blinks at me.
Shit.
Fuck.
I just said that out loud.
“Tater Tot?”
My face gets hot. “What else do you call a baby fed exclusively by potatoes?”
Her lips part, and then she smiles.
She’s so goddamn pretty when she smiles.
She glows. Her eyes light up. Her cheeks take on a rosy hue. And those lips—fucking gorgeous.
Which is irrelevant.
She’s here until she finds a house of her own. I’m just helping out a fellow human being going through a rough patch.
“Tater Tot,” she repeats. She looks down at her belly and rubs it. “What do you think? Is that your name?”
She’s barely showing. The average person walking by her would have no idea she’s pregnant.
But I know.
I know, and she’s smiling as she moves about the kitchen again. “Well, I didn’t throw up, so that’s a good sign baby likes it.”
Baby likes it.
Jesus.
