Delectable (Neighbor from Hell 9)

“Can you go back to bed?” she countered.

“Probably not,” Mikey admitted, making her laugh weakly.

“Go to bed, Mikey. I’ll be fine.”

“That’s what you said last night,” Mikey pointed out, making her sigh, because it was only a matter of time before she was going to have to sit down and discuss a few things with her daughter.

For now she just wanted to wait for

Reese, but since they were having the worst winter in ten years and it didn’t look like she was going to get a chance to see him before spring, she might have to rethink holding off on telling him. Granted, she’d had her chance to tell him a few weeks ago during his last visit, but with Mikey with them every waking minute and the fact that he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her when they were alone, she hadn’t really had much of a chance to tell him anything. As she lay there, curled up on her bathroom floor, sick to her stomach, she couldn’t help but laugh, because she’d once again screwed up her life.

Honestly, she should have learned her lesson when she found herself pregnant at fifteen, but here she was, three months pregnant with her second and third child, unmarried, dealing with morning sickness that left her begging for death every night, and she hadn’t even told the father that she loved him yet.

Yup, she was really doing a great job.

Now when she told Reese that she loved him, he was going to think that she was only doing it to get him to marry her and that was the last thing that she wanted. After what that bitch had put him through, there was no way that he wasn’t going to think that she was playing him, too. Whether she told him that she loved him or not, this probably wasn’t going to end well for her.

“Mom?”

“Go to bed. You have school in the morning,” she said, moving to lie down on her back until a fresh wave of nausea told her that wasn’t a very good idea.

“No, I don’t.”

Frowning, she returned to her side, pretty sure that it was Tuesday. “What do you mean you don’t have school tomorrow?” she asked, wondering if she should risk trying to roll over onto her stomach.

“There’s like two feet of snow outside. They canceled school hours ago,” Mikey said, trying the door again.

“When?” she asked, because she was pretty sure that she would have remembered that since it meant that she could stay curled up in her bed for most of the day tomorrow.

“Midnight,” her ten-year-old, who should have had her butt in bed at that hour, said.

“What time is it now?” she asked before adding, “And why are you still up?”

“It’s after two.”

“And you’re up, because…” she said, prompting her child to give her a good reason not to ground her little butt.

“Because you’re sick again,” Mikey said, trying the door, again.

Closing her eyes, she sighed heavily. “Go to bed. Everything’s fine.”

Or, at least it would be in a few hours when the morning sickness that should rightfully be dubbed “Evening Hell,” went away and in its place came the insatiable hunger that she couldn’t seem to satisfy no matter how much food she managed to consume. She couldn’t remember it ever being this bad with Mikey, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that she hadn’t been carrying twins then.

“Then you should have no problem with opening the door,” Mikey said stubbornly, earning a weak smile as Kasey decided to see if laying on her stomach so that the cool tile could help only to once again roll back onto her side as she tried to survive another wave of nausea.

“I’m not opening the door,” she said, deciding that it might be for the best if she tried to get in that tub after all.

“Then I’m not going to bed,” the little stubborn pain in the butt shot back.

“Mikey,” she said in warning as she moved to pull off her shirt, but quickly reconsidered it and decided to leave it on when she couldn’t get her trembling arms to cooperate.

“What’s going on, mom?” Mikey demanded, trying to sound firm, but that slight quiver in her voice told her exactly how scared she was and Kasey couldn’t have that.

“Hold on,” she said, slowly pushing up on trembling arms until she found herself sitting up, dizzy, and on the verge of collapsing.

“Okay,” Mikey said, as Kasey closed her eyes and slowly exhaled as she willed her head to stop spinning.

When a few minutes passed and the dizziness and nausea didn’t subside, she found herself falling back onto her side with a groan. She closed her eyes as her world spun out of control, barely aware of the click of the bathroom door opening or the strong arms wrapping around her, picking her up and-

Gasped when she found herself in the tub with ice-cold water hitting her from three different angles. Sputtering in outrage, she opened her eyes to find the traitorous bastard shaking his head with an annoying tsk.

“I leave you alone for one minute and look what happens,” Eric said with a sad shake of his head as he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, weakly swatting his hand away.

“Mikey called me,” he said, adjusting the water temperature so that comforting wet heat was now permeating every inch of her body.

“Traitor,” she mumbled with a relieved sigh, thankful that her daughter was too damn stubborn to listen to her.

“She told me that you’ve been sick every night for the past three weeks,” he said, standing up to kick off his shoes and toss his wallet and keys on the counter before climbing into the tub with his clothes on and shifting her out of the way so that he could sit down and pull her into his arms.

“Give or take a week,” she mumbled as she curled into him, grabbed hold of his wet shirt and held on as the nausea continued to assault her.

“Aunt Sara’s on the way, too,” Mikey announced as she hurried into the bathroom and quickly joined them in the tub so that she was sitting by Eric’s side and holding her hand.

“This is a really big tub,” Eric noted as he leaned down so that he could make sure that she was okay.

“It’s an awesome tub,” she mumbled with a sniffle, surprised at how happy she was to see him even as she decided that she would throttle the bastard if he tried leaving again.

“Reese let me help with the tiles,” Mikey bragged as she gave Kasey’s hand a squeeze.

“Whatever,” Eric said with a sniff that had her smiling.

“You could have helped too if you hadn’t thrown a hissy fit,” she pointed out, shifting to get comfortable and although she was happy that he was at least talking to her at the moment, she really wished that it was Reese holding her.

“I didn’t throw a hissy fit,” Eric argued with a heavy sigh.

“Then what would you call it?” she couldn’t help but ask as she lost herself to the hot water slowly making her world right again.

“Getting out of the way so that you had a chance,” Eric explained as he petted her on the head. “You’re welcome.”

“Getting out of the way for what?” Mikey asked, making her smile.

“To give her a chance to get over me,” he said with a heartfelt sigh and a reassuring squeeze. “It had to be done.”

Opening her eyes, she tilted her head back and out of the way of the hot water spraying down at them to look at him. Letting her bottom lip tremble just a little, she said, “You knew?”

Nodding solemnly, he said, “Yes.”

“You knew my secret shame?” she asked, adding a little more tremble to her lip and a sniffle.

“That you were madly in love with me? It was really hard to miss, Kasey,” he said with a smile as he tweaked her nose.

“Wait,” Mikey said with a frown, “I thought you were in love with Reese.”

“So did I,” came the rather angry growl, drawing their attention as one to the man standing in the doorway, looking incredibly pissed.

Before she could say anything, and she really wasn’t sure how to explain this one, Eric, the traitorous bastard beat her to it.

“Oh, thank god you’re here! She won’t leave me alone! I’ve never felt so used in my life!” he cried hysterically, which wouldn’t have been so bad if Mikey hadn’t felt the need to come to her defense.

“We’re helping mom with the morning sickness,” Mikey said, nodding solemnly and making Kasey close her eyes with a groan as she came to the realization that her daughter was a world-

class eavesdropper and that there was definitely no way in hell that Reese was going to trust her now.

Chapter 52

“I’m going to bed now,” Mikey said, nodding as she shifted a worried glance towards her mother, who was still curled up in the tub, but at least she wasn’t in Eric’s arms anymore.

“Me, too,” Eric said, wiping his face with a towel.