Change of Heart (Fostering Love 2)

“Shhh.” I stepped away from the bed and turned out her bedroom light, leaving the room dark except for the moonlight coming through the window.

“Thanks for turning out the light,” she said, sniffling. “I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

I nodded my head as I kicked my boots off.

“I’ll even bring coffee since I know you’re too lazy to make it yourself so you haven’t had any all week.”

“All right,” I replied as I pulled off my shirt and dropped my jeans to the floor.

She sniffled again as I rounded the bed, and sobbed once as I climbed in behind her, curving into the shape of her and wrapping my arm around her chest so I wouldn’t touch her incision.

The dam broke then.

She moaned as her sobs burst out of her mouth, and I pulled a pillow in front of her so she could press it against her belly as she curled into a ball. I didn’t know what to do for her. I thought about calling my mom, but I knew that Ani must have sent her home or she would’ve already been there hovering.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as her sobs finally seemed to calm. She hiccupped and groaned, and I placed my hand over hers on the pillow, holding her steady against me.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said softly, kissing the back of her head.

She went quiet. She didn’t say anything for so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep until she spoke again. “I can’t have babies anymore,” she said sorrowfully, her hands clenching into fists against the pillow.

I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t a bad thing. I wanted to ask why the hell it mattered. Why she was so upset about it. Why she’d even want to bring kids into our fucked-up world in the first place.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I just ran my fingers lightly over her hands until they relaxed and gripped mine. “I’m sorry,” I said simply.

She nodded, and a few minutes later, she fell asleep with her fingers threaded through mine.

Ani wasn’t a crier. She didn’t show a ton of emotion normally, preferring to mask any discomfort or sadness with a sharp tongue and a sarcastic remark. I understood that about her, because she and I were a lot alike in that respect.

I used my chin to smooth the hair at the back of her head out of my face and closed my eyes, refusing to think about why I wasn’t hopping out of bed and getting the hell out of there.

Chapter 4

Anita

I woke up around three in the morning and knew two things simultaneously.

I needed a pain pill, and Bram had stayed.

His arm was still around me but had moved up my torso, his palm resting on my collarbone and his forearm pressed between my breasts. It felt good. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent the night with someone. Sex—yes. Sleepovers—no.

But as nice as having Bram’s arm around me felt, I needed to move it so I could get out of bed and grab some pain pills from the top of my dresser across the room.

“Hey,” Bram rasped as I tried to lift his arm off me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I whispered back, suddenly feeling awkward. “I just need to take a pill.”

“Oh!” He sat up behind me, and I immediately missed his warmth at my back. “Where are they? I’ll get ’em.”

He stood from the bed as I tried to protest, but my words were cut off on a giggle as he stumbled around trying to get his balance. I’d heard about Bram’s wake-up clumsiness, but I’d never actually seen it. “Are you drunk?” I asked, watching as he braced himself against the wall.

“No,” he shot back defensively. “It just takes me a minute to wake up.”

“That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said seriously, sitting gingerly up in bed.

“Shut up.”

“No really, you’re like a newborn giraffe. It’s adorable.”

“I can’t fuck with you right now, but you know I have a good memory, right?”

“All wobbly legs and bewildered expression,” I teased, grinning as his expression became even more disgruntled.

“It’s dark in here, and I don’t know my way around,” he argued, taking a few tentative steps forward.

“It’s not that dark.”

“Then you have eyes like a fucking bat,” he mumbled. “Where are your pills?”

“Top of the dresser. I have a cup of water there too.”

He stumbled over to the dresser and grabbed my little orange bottle of pills and my cup from the hospital, but his steps became steadier as he came back to the bed.

“You found those pills pretty easy in this super-dark room,” I needled as he handed me the small bottle.

“Shut the fuck up,” he replied, handing me the water and crawling over the foot of the bed to climb back in behind me.

I snickered as he got comfortable, then took my pill, lying back down when I was finished. I wasn’t sure how to position my body. Bram was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, but I didn’t want to just assume he wanted me to snuggle into him. However, lying on my side with my back to him seemed kind of rude. Was that against bed-sharing etiquette? Whenever I saw a couple like that in a movie, it was when they were fighting—not that we were a couple or anything.