I nodded because that was fine with me. I didn’t really feel like sharing her or this or anything yet. “So, just to clarify…my mom knows nothing?”
“Your mom knows nothing,” she confirmed.
“And yours?”
She stiffened a little before shaking her head.
“Nothing.”
“When you told them you were coming home, what did you say?”
“Nothing, really.” She shrugged and looked away, making me wonder if her mom even knew she was home. “When I stayed with your mom, she didn’t pry much, either.”
“That’s a miracle,” I snorted.
Ellie looked shy, a little sheepish all of a sudden, as her eyes moved back to me. “I think she was hoping that there was a reason I wasn’t telling her, and that reason involved you.”
“Well, therewasa reason you weren’t telling her, and itdidinvolve me.”
She laughed and then looked over her shoulder as though she expected my mom to appear out of nowhere in front of the house, ready to collect gossip, steaming loon mug in hand. “Yeah, but I doubt she suspects I’mpregnant.”
“Mm.” I smiled. And then I just stared at her like an absolute goon. Because Eleanor Summers was pregnant, and I was going to be a dad, and for a single split second, everything was right in the world. She was home, and she was gorgeous, and she was—well, not mine. Not quite, but something like mine. Because she was growing a child that was mine, and I?—
“Sully?”
I shook myself out of it. “Hm?”
“You’re looking at me funny. Do you think your mom suspects I’m pregnant?”
I blew out a breath. Fuck me, I was going to haveto figure out how to do a better job acting neutral and not stare at her like I wanted to eat her alive.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” I said. “Annie is wise beyond reason.”
It did make me feel a little better, though. I’d assumed my mom had known more things about Ellie that she wasn’t telling me, but it didn’t seem like that was the case. And while I doubted she actually suspected the pregnancy, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d known that Ellie had needed her and needed family, support, and she’d stepped up. She’d made sure Ellie had somewhere to go when she’d landed back in Minnesota, and she’d taken care of her. And for that, honestly, I owed her a thank-you.
Eventually.
Because I didn’t hate the idea of keeping this to ourselves for a bit. It was a lot to process without involving my family on top of it, and didn’t most parents wait to tell others? Even parents who had been expecting this, who’d been planning for it?
Most importantly, if that was what Ellie wanted, I couldn’t ever say no. I didn’t ever know how to say no to Ellie, which was the reason for everything anyway.
I’d carried Ellie into her hotel room that night, thrown her on the bed, and when she’d looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said so very clearly, “I want you to fuck me,” I hadn’t been able to do anything but that.
I hadn’twantedto do anything but that.
And now…well, now she was using the wordcoworkerswhile I sat here wondering what that all entailed. I wondered what would happen when more hormones flooded her system, and if it would make her more sensitive and needy—even needier than in Boston—and if she was going to need someone to take care of her over the coming months, to satisfy all her cravings, to help her get through this. Was that something a coworker would help with? Because I would be employee of the fucking month?—
“Sully?”
Shit, had she said something, and I’d missed it?
“Yeah?”
“Meet you over in Rosewood?” she asked, and I nodded.
“I’ll meet you there,” I said and then tried to discreetly adjust myself before getting in my car.
Get. Your. Shit. Together. Sullivan.
