And when her eyes meet mine, I let myself imagine, just for a second, that she’s not here watching me because she’s the mother of my child.
She’s here because she’s mine.
19
SAGE
As Brady pullshis car into the parking lot of the very same grocery store where we first ran into each other, my hand reflexively touches my stomach. I've been doing that a lot lately, touching the bump that seems to grow more and more each day. It grounds me, which I sorely need right now. I’ve yet to find somewhere else to live, and am therefore stuck in Brady’s apartment while trying to convince myself not to act on the attraction I feel for him.
Which is infinitely harder to do after watching him play yesterday.
Good lord, the way that man fills out a baseball uniform is painfully sexy. Those tight pants hugging his muscular ass and thighs. The way his shoulders and arms bunch under the sleeves of his jersey.
And the fierce concentration when he was pitching? That reminded me of the way he looked at me when we were together in January.
Intense, zeroed in on what was in front of him, determined not to lose.
Seeing him in his element, surrounded by his teammates, being cheered on by an entire town, made it clear that Brady belongs here.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt a pang of jealousy.
What would that feel like, to belong somewhere?
“You have the list, right?” Brady asks as he expertly maneuvers his car into a parking spot near the front door.
“Yep,” I reply. We get out of the car and start walking toward the door before he speaks again.
“Any new cravings that we need to buy?” he teases, gently nudging me with his shoulder. “Pickle flavoured everything or spicy peppers?”
I roll my eyes. “Definitely not. And could you be more cliché?”
He just laughs. “Hey, how should I know if it’s a cliché? I’m not the pregnant one, all I have to go on are books and movies.”
“What have you been reading lately? Aside from something that says all women need to crave pickles.” I shudder. “Not that I would ever be like that, I think they're disgusting.”
Brady’s head bobs up and down emphatically. “Same here, pickles are gross. But if you were craving them, I would put up with it.”
I scrunch my brows up at him, shaking my head in amusement. “That’s kind of you, but I'm good.”
Not that Brady being kind and considerate is asurprise anymore. The man even dealt with my soaking wet laundry for me when I crashed after the flood at the hotel.
I’ll blame the fact that I burst into tears over him separating my delicates on pregnancy hormones.
Everything he does seems to be about what everyone around him needs or what will make them happy. If you opened the Urban Dictionary to “green flag,” it would have a picture of him instead of a definition.
“I don’t think I have any cravings, really.”
“If you say so.” He smirks as we enter the store. He grabs a shopping cart and heads straight for the produce section. Picking up a bunch of bananas, he places them in the cart.
“Gotta make sure the baby gets their potassium,” he says.
“You do realize the baby isn’t eating anything quite yet,” I tease, pointing to my stomach. “Kind of hard to do from inside.”
Lifting one finger, he counters, “That's not entirely true. This one article I read said that the baby absorbs all the necessary nutrients from you. Kind of like a parasite. So, doesn't it make sense that if you eat bananas, in a way, the baby is eating bananas?”
I stare at him, trying to figure out if he's serious or not. When his shoulders start to shake with laughter, I roll my eyes and push past him toward a display of avocados.
“Okay, genius. Sure. Call our kid a parasite, why don’t you.”
