The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(50)

I nod. “That’s legit. Lighting effects the mood.”

She nods, her gaze warm on my face, and all at once I have to swallow and remind myself to breathe.

“Do you still write?” I ask.

Her face shutters as her lips press into a thin line. “No.” I watch her breasts heave as she inhales. “I took a class at Northwestern, and it screwed me up. Poetry,” she says, looking mournful. “I couldn’t hack it in a class, so I guess it threw me off. I didn’t write for years, and now I only rarely do.”

She looks unhappy, so I say, “I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “I needed something I could be passionate about, so that’s actually how I got into pre-med.”

“You like it?”

She strokes a hair back through her hair. “It’s a calling more than a passion, I think. I’m not sure it’s really meant to be enjoyable, you know? But it’s fulfilling. Mostly. Seeing babies was a struggle for a while. Kind of still is.”

“I’m sorry.” Surely those are the two most inadequate words.

She looks down at the bedding. “Thanks.” She looks back up at me. “You never know what you’re getting into as a younger person, do you? Shit gets real…”

I chuckle at the truth of that, even though it’s not funny. As I get up to pull my clothes on, I feel more like eighty-three than thirty-three. It feels like it’s been a long, long time since I married young Marley on the Vegas Strip.

She sits up, watching me as I step into my pants. I notice I don’t feel a sense of awkwardness with her—ever, anymore.

“So hey,” she says, softly. I glance up. “I’m kinda out of that time period now. You know, like…it’s waiting time. To see if anything happened. It’s too late now to conceive if I didn’t already. For about a week, it’s useless. We don’t even need to do it once a day. Just every other day…or even not at all. Unless you want to.”

I blink. “How long is the waiting time?”

“About a week.”

I’m grateful for the moment I get, slipping on my shirt, before I need to look at her with a not-disappointed face. I shrug. “You want a break? To…let it take or whatever?”

She shrugs. “I guess that’s logical enough. If that’s okay with you.”

I shrug. “Sure.”

She tucks the sheet around herself and follows me into the den. “I’ll let you know when we can test. I won’t do it without you.”

I nod. “Cool. Thanks.”

She looks so strange there in the doorway between hall and kitchen, wide-eyed with a sheet around her chest, as if I’ve never seen what’s underneath.





2





Marley





It’s strange not to see him. Not to shave and slather on my favorite lotion for him. Not to spray my sheets with “lavender dream” linen spray for him. The house feels so empty when I get off work. I make tacos for myself and think of taking some downstairs. But that would be weird…right?

The two-week wait has never been my strong suit, even without this loneliness. After ovulation, it’s two weeks before a woman gets her period. I counted on Gabe not to know a lot about it, so I kept having him over the first week. But this week, when there’s no chance of me getting pregnant—none at all—it felt dishonest not to tell him.

I eat my tacos by myself and then go for a bike ride, swinging by Mom’s house to check on her. She’s got some chicken soup on the stove, even though she’s not supposed to be up cooking.

“Stay and have some with me,” she says, sounding tired.

I do—and it’s not so bad. We watch ESPN to satisfy Mom’s later-in-life sports obsession, and she only acts disparaging and gossipy once: a story about poor Mr. Morrison next door, whom she feels positive has gotten hair plugs.

Then I stand to go, and she holds her hand up. “Wait, I do have one more thing.”

I raise my brows, expecting her to pass me something she ordered from QVC. Instead she shakes her head, her face gone grim.

“What?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you—how dare you not tell me you’re living with that Gabriel McKellan?”

“What?” I frown, acting surprised to buy myself a few seconds. “I’m not living with him.”

“Well, you are so! That Ms. Emery across the street told me he’s on the first floor. Says he’s up your back stairs all the time.”

Up my back stairs…

For some reason, that makes me laugh so hard I throw my head back, glimpsing the long crack in Mama’s ceiling.

“Mama. Give me a break.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on, at least stay up on all the gossip.”

“Nothing is.” The lie is knee-jerk. As soon as it leaves my mouth, I start to question keeping it from her.

“You aren’t in bed with him?”

My jaw drops. “Mama! I can’t believe that you would even ask that.”

“Well he’s good-looking. And rich.”

“You’re giving me whiplash! I thought he was overrated and his books were boring. Or he’s a jerk.” Since I failed to return home from the class trip, Mama has hated on Gabe when the mood suits her. I think, for the years after all of that, it was her way of trying to support me. “And wasn’t it you saying a few weeks back that you heard he was involved in some kind of scandal?”