“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Dani. She left about twenty minutes ago for her doctor’s appointment,” she said flatly, gaze already drifting back to the book in her hands.
What the actual fuck?
A sharp pang landed in my chest, unexpected and unwelcome. “She didn’t tell me she had one today.”
The brunette shrugged. “Sorry.”
I just stood there for a second, my brain trying to process the onslaught of emotions—fear, anger, hurt. I thought we were past this. I thought we had finally found our footing. We had texted nearly every day for weeks now, and not just about her cravings or potential baby names—which, surprisingly, we mostly agreedon—but about random, normal couple shit. Like we were a random, normal couple rather than . . . whatever we were.
We had even shared a meal together a few times when our schedules had aligned. Just last night, she had invited me in for dinner when I’d dropped off some of the parenting books I had finished reading. One minute, we’d been swapping books, and the next we’d been eating meatless chili on her couch while watching game highlights.
It wasn’t perfect, but it had felt like progress. So, what the hell had changed between then and now? Why was she pushing me away again?
It didn’t make sense.
Hell, it didn’t even sit right.
I’d bent over backwards this past month, partly because I’d wanted to, but mostly because I couldn’t stand the idea of her thinking she had to go through any of this alone. And sure, maybe I overdid it sometimes with the questions or the care packages, but damn it, I thought we were over this stage where she shut me out.
Now, it just felt like I’d been benched without warning.
“Do you know what time her appointment is?” I asked the woman with the book, trying to keep my voice casual.
She nodded. “In ten minutes. Dr. Kong’s office.”
The knot in my chest pulled tighter. If I left now, there was still a chance I could catch her while she was still sitting in the waiting room, flipping through outdated parenting magazines.
Calls could be dodged. Texts could be ignored. But a face-to-face confrontation in the gynecologist’s office? That would be harder to walk away from. If she thought I was just going to shrug this off and let her keep me in the dark, she was wrong.
“Thank you—”
“Bella. Jared’s sister.”
“Jared Pink?”
Bella rolled her eyes. “The man, the myth, the asshole.”
I liked her better than her brother already.
“I appreciate your help.”
I shifted the package under one arm and took off for my truck without waiting for her response. One thing was for sure: I was going to make it to that appointment whether she wanted me there or not.
And then, we were going to have a conversation about what she and this baby meant to me—one she couldn’t sidestep, one that needed to happen before this turned into a pattern.
The receptionist barely got out a, “Room seven—” before I was halfway down the hall, scanning the frosted-glass placards until I saw her name.
I didn’t bother knocking.
The door swung open to reveal Dani on the exam table, swaddled in one of those flimsy paper gowns that did absolutely nothing to hide how vulnerable she looked. Her hair was pulled into two messy knots and her bare legs—minus the purple-and-black striped skeleton socks thatshould nothave been a turn-on—dangled off the edge.
Her eyes went wide. “Brooks, what are you doing here?”
“What amIdoing here?” I shut the door behind me, tempering my voice but not my irritation. “How about why didn’tyoutell me about your appointment?”
She swallowed audibly. “I promise, it wasn’t like that.”
