Boundless (Unearthly, #3)(50)

“Webster, like after the dictionary? Hmm, I like it.” I hand the picture back to her.

She looks at it for a long moment. “He was sucking his thumb.” She refolds the paper and puts it back in her pocket. The dryer beeps that it’s done, and she starts pulling clothes out and into the basket.

“I’ll take that,” I offer, and she slides the basket over to me.

When we’re back in her room, folding, she suddenly says, “I don’t know how to be a mother. I’m not very … maternal.”

I fold a shirt and lay it across her bed. “My guess is that nobody knows how to be a mother until they become one.”

“He’s going to be so special,” she says softly.

“I know.”

“Phen will know what to do,” she says, like a mantra she’s repeating to herself. “He’ll know how to protect him.”

“I’m sure he will,” I say to reassure her, but I have my doubts about Phen. I’ve seen inside him, and paternal is not a word that springs to mind.

I knock on Christian’s door. He’s sweating when he opens it, wearing a white tank top and sweat pants, a towel slung around his neck. He’s surprised to see me. He wishes I’d called first.

“But you’re not returning my calls,” I say.

His jaw tightens.

“You’re still mad at me, and I think that’s reasonable, considering. But we need to talk.”

He pushes the door open for me, and I move past him into his room. I look immediately in the direction of the TV for Charlie, but he’s not here.

“We need to discuss Angela,” I say.

He doesn’t answer. Involuntarily, it seems, his eyes move to a framed photograph on his dresser, a black-and-white snapshot of a woman swinging a small dark-haired boy up in the air. The picture’s a little blurry, since they’re both in motion, but the boy is unmistakably Christian, Christian at four or five years old, I’m guessing. Christian and his mom. Together. Happy. They’re both laughing. I can almost hear it, looking at them. I can almost feel it. Joy. And it makes me sad to think that he lost her when he was so young. And now Walter, too.

I turn to look at him. He’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest, closed off in every way. “You know, if we’re going to have a conversation, you’re going to have to speak to me. With words, and stuff,” I say.

“What do you want me to say? You ditched me, Clara.”

“I ditched you?” I repeat incredulously. “That’s what you’re mad about? You were the one who wanted to leave.”

“I don’t want to be mad at you about the other thing,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “You can’t control that.”

Sometimes he’s so understanding it bugs me.

“But then you disappeared on me,” he says, and I hear the hurt in his voice. “You left.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it.

“Where did you go?” he asks. “I came by your dorm later, to apologize for what I said, or maybe for how I said it, anyway, and Angela said you weren’t back yet.”

I stare up at him, caught.

He closes his eyes and frowns like I am causing him physical pain. “That’s what I thought.”

I wonder if it’ll make him feel any better to know that my conversation with Tucker that night didn’t go much better than my conversation with him.

He opens his eyes. “It might.”

Good grief. Men.

Moving on. “Okay, as much fun as this is, I didn’t come here to talk to you about us,” I tell him. “I came to tell you about Angela.”

“Has she had the baby?” he asks, concerned. “What is she going to do?”

“She hasn’t had the baby,” I say. “Yet. But tomorrow she’s going to talk to Phen about it.”

Christian goes rigid. “She’s going to tell him about the baby?”

“Well, she’s going to tell him that he’s the father. That’s her plan, anyway.”

“Bad idea,” he says, shaking his head like this is the worst idea ever. “She shouldn’t be telling anybody about the seventh. Especially not Phen.”

“He’s not good news,” I admit. “He’s not … happy. But I guess we’ll see. Angela is dead-set on this. I’ll call you tomorrow after I get back.”

His brows draw together. “Wait. You’re going with her?”

“She asked me to go. Well, she told me I was going, and so I am.”

His mouth twists into a disapproving line. “You should stay out of it.”

“It’s her purpose. Besides, Phen’s already met me, so it’s not like I’d be giving anything away, here. I’m going to be there for moral support.”

“No way.” His green eyes are frosty. “It’s too risky. He’s an angel. He could figure out what you are.”

“He’s not evil, technically speaking….”

Christian scoffs. “You heard what your dad said about ambivalent angels. He’s worse than the Black Wings, he said. They don’t have any allegiance to anybody.” He grabs me by the shoulders like he wants to shake some sense into me, but all he says is “We can’t go parading ourselves around in front of ambiguous angels.”