When he kisses me, a simple, soft, chaste kiss, I don’t know whether to melt or glare at him for kissing me in front of Kayla. No reason to give her more reasons to hate me.
“Hot chocolate, hon?” he asks quietly.
Melt. I’ll definitely melt. “Yes, please,” I whisper.
“Hey, Kayla,” Gregory says, disrupting our moment and causing us to go about setting the table. “Did you know you were conceived at a party?”
I groan. “Come on, Gregory. I thought we decided we didn’t need to know that.”
He laughs. “Yeah, but that means we definitely need to tell Kayla.”
“How would you even know that?” Kayla asks with a frown.
“Dad was giving me a warning about parties.”
“Do we even want to know where you were conceived?” she snaps back.
They both look at Brent as he sits down next to me, placing a mug of hot chocolate in my hands. “Oh, come on, y’all. Last night was about making a point.” They continue staring and waiting for an answer. Brent sighs. “Pretty sure it was a place where babies are normally made. In a bed at home. Happy?” Brent slides his eyes over to me. “Can we end the baby conceiving discussion now?”
The air deflates in my lungs. I was really hoping Brent wouldn’t treat me any different because I can’t have kids and what he just did makes me think that he worries I might be uncomfortable right now. I’m not. At all. I wasn’t uncomfortable until he gave me that look and asked if we could stop talking about it. If he hadn’t looked at me first, it’d be okay. Because then, I’d know he wasn’t thinking about my reaction to this topic while asking to end it.
I’m not fragile. At least, not where this is concerned. I thought Brent knew and understood that. Maybe he doesn’t. And that bothers me more than I expected.
Jamie has been awfully quiet since breakfast. Even now, we’ve been in the car for thirty minutes and she’s yet to say a word. Something must be bothering her. It’s probably the fact that we’ll soon be in the same house as her parents. I should make sure, though. I reach over, grab her hand, kiss her knuckles, and then rest them on the center console.
“Ev
erything okay? Are you nervous?” I ask. “You’re extra quiet.”
She turns slightly in her seat. “I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“When you tried to end the conversation about conceiving babies, was that because you wanted it to end or because of me?”
Okay, so the visit to her parents isn’t what’s on her mind. After a quick breath, I answer, “It was both.”
Jamie sighs. “Brent, did you not listen to anything I said when my mom called me about my sister’s pregnancy and I told you about my situation? I was not bothered by the conversation until you looked at me and obviously tried to end it because of me. There’s no need to do that.” Her voice softens as she says, “I thought you understood that.”
“Honey, I do,” I insist. “It was more of a gut reaction than anything else. Kind of like when after you told me and Kayla came over. She mentioned something about how we might have a family. That made me snap and put an end to her rant. I didn’t mean to upset you, Jamie. I figured if we stopped talking about babies then Kayla couldn’t say anything out of the way and put you on the spot where you might feel the need to tell her.”
Jamie’s quiet for a moment. “All right.”
“Do you forgive me?”
She smiles. “Yes.”
“Good. Then lean over here and kiss me since I can’t exactly kiss you while I’m driving.”
She uses her arm on the console to anchor her weight as she leans over and presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. With that out of the way, we make small talk about everything but our upcoming dinner. I’m praying it goes well for both our sakes.
We finally arrive and walk up to the door of a nice, large house. Jamie grabs my hand before I can ring the doorbell.
“Just give me a moment.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. And then another and another. “Okay. Ring the doorbell.”
I do and within seconds, the door swings open. A woman dressed to the nines smiles, but her eyes judge me.
“Jamie! I’m so glad you decided to come home. Come in, come in.” She ushers us inside, hugs Jamie, and turns to me with narrowed eyes. “And who is this? I thought you were bringing your boyfriend.”