That was news to me. I’d thought, when she left for college, that she’d left everything behind. Including me.
It was surprising to me that she still had the apartment.
Not only because my dad had given it to her, and she’d left anything Windsor-related behind. But because having an apartment here meant that she felt like she might come back.
“No,” I decided. “You’re not going home. You’re coming to my place.”
She sneered at me. “And run into your mother? No thank you.”
“I haven’t lived with my mother for years, and you know it.”
She sniffed and looked away.
Then started to hiccup.
It was just cute enough that I forgot what a bad idea it was to be taking her to my place.
I should be staying as far away from her as possible.
I should be getting ready for work tomorrow. Or possibly checking on my patients that were staying overnight.
I should be dropping her off and never looking back.
Yet, I did none of those things.
I further dug my own grave by drinking a beer with her when I got home.
Then taking a shot.
Followed shortly by another, and another, and another.
By the time we got to the worst decision of the night, neither one of us was in the position to say no.
And, like always, that decision changed the course of our lives.
I just wouldn’t know it for quite some time.
Two
Don’t judge me by my grocery cart. You have no idea what kind of emotions I’m trying to eat away.
—Nettie to Eddy
Nettie
Four months later
I walked up the length of his walk, nerves attacking my belly, with an entire plan.
I was going to march in there and tell him that I was pregnant.
I was going to tell him what my plan was for the foreseeable future.
I was going to…
My phone dinged with the sound that I reserved for the urgent emails from the Miami Sunrays, and I wondered if it was another hostile email from my team manager or the team owner.
The door opened and Boone came out in a pair of worn blue jeans, a white t-shirt that fit him like a glove, work boots that had seen better days, and a black ball cap that I’d given to him the day we’d found out that he was going to be a father.
