Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(20)

I sat at the island in the kitchen across from the three of them, hands clammy and clasped in my lap.

“It’s just a little bean,” Rin cooed. “So cute.”

“It doesn’t even have a face,” I noted.

They gave me simultaneous flat looks.

“What? It doesn’t.”

“But it will,” Amelia said.

I sniffed rather than respond.

“How did it go? How’d Theo take it all?” Val asked.

“Better than I did. I blame the hormones. I felt very…emotional. Sentimental.” I said it like they were filthy words.

Rin chuckled. “Well, you are having a baby.”

“I know. My hormones are unstable.”

“I mean, that’s one explanation,” Val joked.

“It’s the only explanation,” I corrected. “Afterward, I almost kissed him.”

They shared a look, which I ignored.

“I’m uncomfortable with the lack of control over my emotions at present. In fact, I’m reconsidering my decision to move in with him. If it wasn’t for his equal stake in the embryo, I would probably change my mind.”

They spoke all at once, echoing their dissent.

I held up a hand to stop them. Partly because the sudden noise combined with the stress of the day and the fact that I’d run out of purse crackers had me feeling woozy.

“I didn’t say I was going to. I just need to remind myself why I’m doing this. I’m sacrificing so much. My body. My emotions. My privacy. I’m opening my life, my self, to another person. Two, I suppose, including the embryo.”

Val frowned. “Okay. Unload it, Katherine. What are you afraid of?”

There was an emotion under layers of emotion, one that had been whispering and gurgling beneath the bedrock of my will. And, with her question, it bubbled up and sprang into my veins in a cold rush.

It was panic, I realized distantly.

I drew a deep breath. “I don’t know how to live with anyone other than you. I don’t even know how to talk to anyone other than you. And now, I’m moving in with a man I barely know, one who I want to kiss me again. And he absolutely cannot kiss me again. I’ve lost enough control without giving in to that.”

Rin’s face was tight with worry. “But why not? You clearly like each other very much.”

“Because I don’t trust myself to make decisions about things like that right now. It’s too complex. I don’t like complex in anything except puzzles. Things are already…messy. And messy makes me feel crazy. I feel crazy. Am I crazy?”

Amelia reached for my hand. “You’re not crazy, Katherine,” she assured me. “This is just going to be hard on you. I think we all knew it would be.”

Tears stung my eyes, and I fumed, sniffling and swallowing and choking them down. “It all feels like a mistake,” I admitted with a shaky voice.

“Do you really feel that way?” Rin asked.

I sighed, my breath trembling. “I don’t know. And I hate that I don’t know.”

Val watched me for a moment. “Let me pose a scenario. What would have happened if you hadn’t found a heartbeat today at the doctor? Would you feel better or worse?”

I flipped back to that moment just before we’d heard the sound that affected me so. The fear. The worry. It was as fresh as it had been then. And the elation on hearing the thrumming pulse was undeniably my answer.

“Worse. Much worse.”

Val nodded, though her lips smiled small. “Then you know this is the right thing. It’s just not going to be easy.”

My shoulders fell, my body curling in on itself. My hand shifted absently to my belly. “There has to be a way to make it more bearable.”

“Of course there is,” Rin said with a smile of her own. “With rules. Lists. Research. Planning.”

The mention of my favorite things lifted my spirits marginally. “What about the unpredictable? What about him?”

“Well, you have rules with him, right?” Val asked.

“Yes, but today I wanted to betray them. We were sitting there in the doctor’s office with my naked ass stuck to the exam table, and I wanted him to kiss me. I thought he was going to, too. But then…well, he didn’t, and that was somehow infinitely worse than if he had.”

“Maybe you need to bone him out of your system,” Val offered.

My jaw clenched, lips flattening. “That will only make things worse.”

One of her brows climbed. “Oh, really? Because I seem to remember you offering us that advice at one point or another.”

My brows knitted together so tight, they almost touched. “That was different.”

“How so?” she countered. “Seems to me that your body knows something your brain hasn’t figured out yet. So give in to those hormones and pheromones and whatever other mones you’re a slave to. Put rules on it if you’re afraid of getting attached. Give in and get control.”

The sense she made annoyed me. “Well, for starters, none of you were pregnant and living with the father. Who, might I add, is a veritable stranger. There are too many red flags to count.”

“I’m just saying, I think you should consider it. You’re into him. So, scratch the itch. Put rules on the whole thing to make yourself feel better. You’re having a baby. You’re moving in with him. Do you really think you can resist?”