“What salon?”
“PK,” I warn.
“What? I’m not going to be a bitch or anything. I just want to get a sense of who she is.”
“Just promise me one thing.”
“Maybe,” she teases.
“Go alone. Don’t scare her off.”
And mostly, don’t take Casey and Freya, because then she’ll learn they’ve known all along and I might lose my balls.
“What did Mom and Dad say?”
“That isn’t an answer, Parker.”
“Nor is that, Everett,” she accuses, narrowing her eyes.
“You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“You need to tell them. That game was…shit, it was months ago. She’ll have had ultrasounds already and?—”
“I went.”
“What?”
“To the ultrasound.”
Her eyes light up. “Have you got a picture?”
I duck my head. “No, she has them all. I was a bit of a dick that day and?—”
“For fuck’s sake, Rett.”
“I know. I’m making it up to her, I promise.”
“By taking her on romantic dates?”
“Yeah, I guess. She makes it easy, though, you know? Everything is easier with her.”
40
BEATRICE
The door to the treatment room cracks open, and Sienna’s head pokes inside.
“Hey, you okay?” she asks, despite the fact that she can clearly see I’m not. Concern pulls at her brow.
“Yeah,” I say, forcing myself to stand from the bed. Honestly, all I want to do is curl up on top of it, fall asleep, and hope the constant nausea fades.
“If you need to go home, we can?—”
“No,” I bark. “I don’t want to go home. I want to be here; I just want to feel like me.”
Sympathy flickers through her eyes. “You will, Bea.”
Her positive words aren’t all that reassuring. While I might lose the nausea at some point—here’s hoping—the other side effects that come with growing a human don’t sound all that fun either. And then there’s the birth itself.
