“You’ve seen me puke. It’s all good.” He grabbed the grape electrolyte drink from behind him, popped the seal on the lid, and handed it to me. I sat back against the wall and took a sip. Like it or not, Silas made sure I guzzled at least one every morning.
“You threw up one time,” I said, once I was sure I could keep the liquid down. “Not every day for weeks.” After the rampage my stomach had been on lately, I didn’t have to worry about whether Silas wanted to kiss me. He absolutely didn’t. There was nothing attractive about a hormonal, puking, sweaty, pregnant woman.
His knees folded up, and he leaned against the wall next tome like he had all the time in the world. “Not every day. There was that one Monday, remember?” His head turned, rolling along the wall. His gorgeous gray eyes went grave. “Hey, something’s gotta change. You can’t keep this up or you’re going to end up in the hospital. When’s your first appointment again?”
“Two weeks from tomorrow.”
“And you told them how sick you are?”
I nodded, my ponytail rubbing the wall. “They said they’ll prescribe anti-nausea medicine at the first checkup. This is nothing new. They see it all the time.”
“Yeah. Well. Sometimes doctors get jaded. If it gets any worse, I’m calling them. You need a break from this.”
I put a hand on his shoulder, trying to stand. “What I need is to get my butt off this floor and go teach my barre class.” My legs wobbled, and I fell back down.
“Yeah. You’re not teaching anything this morning. I’ll see if Peyton can fill in.” A few weeks ago, he’d taken over finding a sub for my morning classes. Peyton usually covered. Sometimes Crystal would switch her four-thirty p.m. for my nine a.m., which worked. This was true morning sickness, and by one in the afternoon, I felt like a new woman. So far, we hadn’t had to cancel a single class.
I closed my eyes while he texted Peyton.
“She’s not responding,” he said after a minute.
“Just cancel.”
He grunted. “We’re trying to build your business, not kill it. No worries. I’ll figure something out.”
I opened one eye and scowled. “Are you going to teach barre?”
He shrugged. “If I have to.”
The thought of Silas holding onto the barre and showing the ladies how to plié made me giggle. “I’d like to see that. There’s a lot of squeezing your butt cheeks and tightening your thighs around an exercise ball.”
His smile went a little crooked. “I bet you would.”
I almost swooned—like actually passed out from his hotness. Or possibly from my current state of dehydration. Probably a combination of both. I closed my eyes and simply breathed. My entire body jerked, and I realized I’d fallen asleep for a few seconds. “I need to lie down.”
Silas hooked an arm around my waist and lifted until he’d set me on my feet. Funny how my mouth could taste disgusting, I could be drenched in clammy sweat, and yet his touch left me tingling and wanting him.
As the morning sickness had intensified, so had my internal reactions to him. Every look, every touch, caused some kind of electric jolt. I was on emotional and physical high alert constantly. No ebbs and flows. Just consistently, deeply attracted to this man living in my house. I couldn’t even close my eyes and get away from it. His baritone voice made my stomach twist and yet calmed my nerves in a way nothing else ever had. Not even yoga. It was addicting and euphoric. And ever since he’d stopped spending every waking moment texting or FaceTiming Christy, it had only amped up. I didn’t know if they’d broken up or what. But I found myself hoping, wishing, praying that they had.
“Hey,” he said, too close to my ear, sending shivers down my neck. “Anna’s supposed to go shopping with my mom this morning to get a new swimsuit for beach week.”
“But it's still weeks away.” I’d been to beach week with the Duprees every year since I turned eight. But never without Sophie and never as Anna’s guardian. The fact that Jenny was in preparation mode put a knot in my already strung-out stomach.
So far, Silas had managed to swat away her constant invitations to dinner. Yeah, he and Anna went over to visit often, but he was keeping me out of it. He didn’t say he was outright protecting me from his mom, but some things don’t have tobe said. The thought of being in close quarters with her for a week left me jittery. If Sophie’s proposal wasn’t so specific about us sleeping under the same roof, I would’ve bowed out this year.
“You know Jenny. Couldn’t squelch that Type A personality if we tried.” He shifted his arm, his strong fingers gripping my waist. “I really think we should take you up to sit with your mom. I’m not comfortable leaving you here alone.”
I tried to speak, but my nerves were a tangled mess with him so close. “Y-yeah. Okay.” It took major effort to force those words through my windpipe.
He’d worn me down on telling Momma. I hadn’t done it yet, but I knew it needed to be soon or she’d be hurt. The thought of Momma taking care of me at that moment sounded like heaven.
He gave me a sideways glance. “Maybe today’s the day?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
His mouth split into a grin. “Miss Lisa’s about to have her world changed forever.” The words barely registered. I was so delirious by the way his lips framed his perfectly white teeth. “Clem?”
I shook my head to clear the cache of my weak-willed brain. “Yeah. Mhmm. World changed. Forever.”
