“You’re so quiet,” Parker remarked as she crossed to the fridge.
I bent to close the now-empty dishwasher, then faced her as she pulled a bottle of water from the shelf in the door.
“Just used to living alone, I guess.” I leaned back against the counter, placing my palms against the edge. But that was false, because up until four months ago, I’d been mostly living with my best friend. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah.” She took a slow sip of water, a crease forming in the center of her forehead. “Did you?”
I ignored the question, focusing on her pinched expression. “Are you feeling okay?”
She nodded, averting her gaze and capping the bottle. “I get nauseous sometimes. In the mornings. It usually goes away after I’ve eaten something.”
Guilt trickled in past the numbness. “I should’ve made you something.”
Her eyes snapped to mine, lids narrowing. “No. That’s not your responsibility.”
I crossed my arms, slinging one ankle over the other as I waited for her to remember our conversation from yesterday.
“I appreciate what you’re doing. I really do. But I promise I can feed myself. I’m not inept at taking care of my body.”
This time, shame knocked on the unstable walls of my mind. “I didn’t mean?—”
“I know.” She dipped her head to look at her bare feet. “This is weird, isn’t it?”
My brows pulled together. “Why do you say that?”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Really?”
I didn’t move, waiting for her to go on.
“I’m here. In Bell Buckle.” She pointed to the floor. “In your house.” She set a hand on her belly. “Pregnant. It’s like a weird sense of déjà vu, and yet…”
Yet I wasn’t the one who got her pregnant.
The unspoken words hung between us like radiation after a nuclear bomb. Our catastrophe was the last ten years and how they’d nonchalantly blown up in our faces, and we weren’t willing to acknowledge them aloud. She’d changed.I’dchanged.
There was no more eighteen-year-old Beckham and Parker.
I shoved off the counter, tearing a piece of paper towel from the roll. I opened the plastic case of blueberry muffins I’d bought at the store and placed one on the towel. After closing the case, I crossed the kitchen and held the muffin out to her like an offering.
“Nothing’s weird about this, Parker.”
She looked at the muffin, then at me. Warring thoughts brewed behind her captivating gaze, and I wished I could put them all to rest. She had nothing to worry about. Having her in my house was the one thing I knew for certain that I wanted right now.
“It’s just like before,” I continued. “You, me, against the world. Only difference is we’ve got a baby that has to finish growing before he can join our little duo. Though I guess then we’ll be a trio.”
Confusion crossed her features. “‘We’?”
I dipped my chin in a nod. “We.”
Hesitantly, she took the muffin from my outstretched hand. That look in her eyes, the one I’d seen so many times growing up, nearly pulled me under. It was like home and belonging looped into one dewy-eyed look. I’d fall right back into it if I could. Hell, I wanted to. But that was our past. Things were…different now. But for some reason, the more I looked at her, the more it felt like not much had changed in the last ten years.
If I didn’t leave now, I’d start saying shit I probably shouldn’t, and all that would likely do is scare her away.
“I was planning to go to Wyatt’s shop this morning.”
Like a rubber band snapping, her sense of hope vanished.
She cleared her throat. Nodded. “Yeah. I, uh—” She blinked, focusing on the muffin as she picked at the paper it was wrapped in. “I was going to look for a job anyway. I want to put some money aside for after the baby comes.”
