“Are you afraid I’ll compare you and Elijah? Rate each of you on a scale from one to ten?” Fatigue was scrawled over her face. “Do you want to know the results?”
“It’s not like that.”
She flung her arms out. “All of this is like that. He got a zero out of ten for loyalty. You get a ten out of ten for cleaning up his mess. He gets a six for how he treated me before he fucked another woman, but so far, you’re at a ten. I’ll keep you at a ten if you don’t want to pick pumpkins because I don’t blame you for how you reacted about the kiss, and you don’t make me feel like shit about myself otherwise. When it comes to this baby, I’m sure Elijah’ll be at zero, and I know you will be too, but again, I don’t blame you. But he really should be in the negative. As for the kiss, his were a seven, but yours was an eleven out of ten. There? Better?”
The numbers banged through my head, and each time I came out ahead, even when I was at a zero with him when it came to the baby. My throat was closing up. I never beat Elijah at anything, but she just rattled off a list from the top of her head. No one had made me feel so seen. No one had so thoroughly stripped me down either.
“You shouldn’t give me a ten for how I treat you,” I said thickly. “That should be the base. It should be zero. And I should be in the negatives for how I’ve acted since the kiss.”
She sighed and gathered her blanket. “No, I get it. I’m your brother’s ex. I didn’t even have the good sense to break up with him. He ran off on me. Now I’m pregnant with his kid, and you’re stuck with me. I’m sure the kiss was a solid minus eight for you.”
“No, Clover.” She shouldn’t be brushing herself off like that. Of all the people in the world, I should understand. “You were a hundred out of ten.”
She scoffed and hugged the material tighter to her. “You don’t have to make me feel better. I’m a big girl, and you’ve been honest with me from the beginning.”
“I’m still being honest. Why do you think that is? Because I want to keep finding out where else you score an infinity.”
Her lower lip puffed out, but the vulnerability shining in her eyes gutted me. “You don’t mean that.”
“I haven’t lied to you yet. Except about my shoulder. It doesn’t hurt, and it’s not why I was on the couch, though you’re smart enough to guess that. I’ll sleep in the bed tonight. And I’m going to go pick goddamn pumpkins with you.”
A small smile played over her lips. “That’s the name of his patch. GD Pumpkins.”
I chuckled. Evander looked like a guy who’d say that.
A loud silence fell between us. I was glad we could reach this point. We were talking, but it didn’t make up for how I behaved. I was better than Elijah when it mattered, and that was because of how I treated Clover. “I have a lot of baggage when it comes to my brother.”
She barked out a laugh. “I don’t want to turn it into a competition, but yeah. I might have more.”
I didn’t smile. I wasn’t digging into the weeds about me and Elijah, but I wasn’t going to tell her everything. A guy had his pride, and Elijah had smashed it enough.
She poked her thumb over her shoulder. “I should get to sleep anyway. I have my appointment in the morning, and then I’ll work a little later than normal.”
Her first prenatal appointment, and she was going alone. It was unfair. If it was my baby, I wouldn’t miss a thing. “Do you, uh…need any help?”
Sadness streaked across her face. “No,” she said quietly. “I know any of my siblings would show if I said something, but I need to get used to doing all this alone. Thank you, though.”
“I’m not going to be a zero.” That rating had bothered me. It wasn’t about the competition with my brother. It was about her and a little bean who was my family. “With the baby. I won’t be a zero.”
“I appreciate that.” Her tone said she’d believe it when I lived up to my word. So I would make sure of it. She lifted her chin to the kitchen. “There’s some spaghetti and meatballs left over.”
My stomach clenched. “Sounds good.”
“It was, if I do say so. A solid eight out of ten.” She continued to the hallway. “Good night, Van.”
It would be now that I could sleep in the bed next to her.
Clover
* * *
I put my jeans on and winced. These were getting snug. I took them off and tossed them in a pile of clothing that I wouldn’t be able to wear for a while, if ever again.
I stepped into my loose shorts from the summer. Well, looser. Those were getting snugger too. My stomach wasn’t any more rounded than before, but my body was already changing and shifting.
Time for my first prenatal visit. Alone.
It was just another doctor’s appointment. If I kept telling myself that, maybe I’d feel it too. Anxiety, trepidation, and a large dollop of excitement swirled in a small tornado in my gut. This appointment was the most major one I’d ever had, but that also meant I was fortunate. I’d get to learn about this baby and my pregnancy. I could do this. It’d be fine.
