Deep (Stage Dive, #4)(41)

“C’mon. How have you been, really? What’s been going on with you?” he pushed. I frowned at him and he frowned right back. “Liz, please.”

I groaned in defeat. “All right, I suck.”

“Why do you suck?”

“So very many reasons.” I pushed my hair back from my face—no more hiding. “Pregnancy sucks. It’s natural, my ass. I finally stop throwing up, but I’m tired all the time. Giving up coffee was horrendous. None of my clothes fit right because of these stupid breasts, and they ache constantly. I have to pee like every thirty seconds, and then to top it off, I cry every time the Healthy Hound ad comes on. It’s ridiculous.”

Little wrinkles appeared either side of his nose. “You cry at a dog food ad?”

“Yes. The puppies jump all over each other to get to their mother and it’s just so beautiful, with their cute little tails wagging and everything.”

He just stared at me.

“I know it’s psycho, Ben. Believe me, I’m well aware of this.”

“Hey, it’s fine.” He covered a smile with his hand. Too late, the bastard.

“You try dealing with all these hormones going apeshit. Crap. Apeshoot.”

“Apeshoot?”

“I’m trying not to swear,” I explained. “You want the first word our child comes out with to be something bad?”

“No. Gotcha.” The man was incredibly bad at hiding a grin. “No swearing.”

Jerk. I narrowed my eyes on him, holding back my own smile.

“I’m taking you seriously. I am.” He flat-out lied. Though it was rather nice to see him smile and to hear his low laugh. At least the bad mood was gone.

“And my ankles are all fat and gross,” I said. “It’s ridiculous.”

“What? Show me.” A giant paw grabbed hold of my limb, dragging it onto his lap. Without preamble he pushed up the leg of my jeans and wrestled off my sandal, dropping it out onto the floor. “It looks fine. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“I’m retaining fluid. It’s disgusting.”

One-handed, he flipped back his long, dark fringe, giving me a look most dubious.

“Let go of my foot, please. I don’t want you to see it.”

He slowly shook his head. “This what you’ve been doing the last month? Talking yourself into crazy shit and crying at dog food ads?”

“My ankle is distinctly thicker, Ben. And I explained about the dog food ad. Give me my foot back.”

“No.” He tucked one leg underneath the other and rested my foot atop it before proceeding to rub my toes. Damn, that felt good. The man had incredibly strong fingers. Must have been a result of all that bass playing. Thumbs dug in deep to the arch of my foot and my spine basically melted. Heaven, nirvana—I had it all within my grasp so long as he kept doing his thing.

“God, that’s so nice,” I happy-sighed, sinking further into the tub.

He made a gruff noise. It could have almost been construed as the word good.

“Is your hand all right?” I asked eventually.

He looked up at me from beneath dark brows, lips shut. His magic fingers paused for a moment, then kept right on kneading. “I might have put a hole or two in the wall after Jim left.”

“Oh.”

“He was right. You’ve been dealing with this on your own from the start and all I’ve done is throw money at the problem, hoping it would go away.” He moved down to rubbing at my heel, taking care with the swollen ankle. “I didn’t want to know, Liz. That’s why I kept my distance. I just wanted to go on like normal, pretend none of it was happening.”

“Me too. But my body keeps messing things up for me.” I laughed, despite the topic being distinctly unfunny. “We’re not that different, Ben. This situation has thrown us both for a loop, and that’s putting it mildly.”

“Don’t make excuses for me,” he grumped.

“All right, you’re an * and you let me down. Again. Feel better?”

The smile was much wider this time. “Thought we weren’t swearing.”

“Oops.” It was amazing what a foot rub did for my mood. Right then, I pretty much loved the whole world. Real anger lay beyond my reach. He grasped my other foot, again rolling up my jeans, and tossed aside the sandal. I did not fight him—no sir, no way.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

“Shoot.”

“Why didn’t you ever want children?”

“Because this is me, Liz. What you see is what you get. I like things calm, easy. But you and me, we’ve never been easy. Minute I saw you, it’s been complicated. First with Mal, and you being a little younger, more serious, and now with the pregnancy.” He shook his head. “Some women don’t give a shit if I come and go. It’s all good. But with you and the baby, you need more from me than that. And you deserve more.”

“We’re messing with your lifestyle.”

He looked up at me from beneath drawn brows. “It’s more than that. Shit. Never tried to explain this to someone before. When you were a kid, did you ever have some game you played that just rocked your world? And you’d wake up in the morning and realize today was the day you got to do nothing but play that game all day, and it was like life could never get better? That’s what my life is like. Every day I get to get up and play music, I get to create something.”