“You should move in here,” Brock tells me as we lie next to one another, trying to catch our breath. “You and the baby should come and live here with me, don’t you think? I mean, I have enough space . . .”
I prop myself up on one elbow and give him a curious look. “Do you really think so? That’s a bit quick, isn’t it?”
“Is it, though? We both know that we want to be together, and we won’t be cramped here. You don’t have enough space in your place for a nursery, and you said you can’t really afford it anyway. Let me take care of you. And before you say it, I know you’re an independent woman, but you can accept help, can’t you?”
I can’t help but smile at his words. He’s put across my argument already. He knows me too well!
“I suppose we could give it a try, see how it goes.”
“Exactly.” The excitement in him grows, and I find it infectious. “And we can go baby shopping together. You can decide all you want to get. Do you have any ideas yet?”
“I actually work in a baby store now, believe it or not, so I know everything we do and don’t need. I know what’s essential and what’s just needless junk, so yeah, I suppose you could say I know what I want.”
“I can’t see that at all. That feels so strange! Do you really work in a baby store?”
“I do, and I actually love it. When it doesn’t totally drain me, that is. It’s different from anything I thought I’d end up doing, but it’s surprised me. Maybe I’ll stick with it when our baby is born. We’ll see.”
“So you’re kinda leaving me hanging here about the whole moving in thing? Is that a yes or no?”
I laugh and nod, loving his demand. “It’s a yes. I would love to.”
He scoops me up into his arms and kisses me hard, sealing the deal. I just hope this is the start of our happily ever after rather than another mistake, although it doesn’t really feel like anything else can go wrong now.
23
Brock
“Wow, you really don’t have a lot of stuff, do you?” I laugh as I look at the few boxes. “Like nothing. I thought you were going to fill my whole house up, but there’s nothing here. It’ll be like you’re not even here.”
“I know, but you saw my apartment. It was pretty much empty. I really don’t have a lot of stuff.”
“Well, that’s okay.” I pull her in toward me for a kiss. I honestly can’t stop kissing her, I love the taste of her lips. “We can always get you more stuff now that you’re here. Make you feel at home.”
“I don’t need anything, but our baby does. Any money you want to spend, that’s where you do it. We still need lots of stuff. The nursery is amazing, but now we need to put some stuff in it.”
Ring, ring . . . ring, ring . . . ring, ring . . .
Her body stiffens like crazy as her phone rings, and I wonder if it’s going to be him again.
“Lucas isn’t still in touch with you, is he?” I ask in a tone that might be a little too demanding.
> “He can’t be. I changed my number, remember? The call from the jail when he asked me to bail him out is the last time I spoke to him. I really don’t think it’ll be him calling me.”
She grabs her phone and stares at the screen, visibly relaxing as she does. Even if Lucas can’t get hold of her, there’s a tension there. I didn’t see that before, but now that I think about it, it was also there on that night when she was furiously texting him, before she raced outside to try and stop him from killing me.
How did I ever think there was anything between them? He makes her freaking scared.
“Oh, it’s Millie. I’m just going to take this quickly. I’ll be right back.”
As she scurries into the other room, I start unpacking some of the stuff for her. She’s doing too much at the moment, and I want her to relax more. Of course, as always, she won’t listen to me. She does what she thinks is right, and unfortunately, because I haven’t always been around, I can’t tell her what to do. But I can help.
“Right, yeah, I’ll see you later. Okay, Millie. I hope everything is okay.” As she hangs up the phone, Jodi knots her eyebrows together in confusion. “Hmm, that was weird. Millie sounded all upset.”
“She did?” I struggle to keep the smile inside as my plan begins to unfold. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. She just said that she needs to meet me for a bit today. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, of course not. It isn’t like you have anything to do here. I’m almost unpacked for you already.”