She was too hot. Was she too hot? I walked to the couch and laid her down, pulling her out of the sling, only to find that she was a completely normal temperature. Good.
“I’m out,” Bram muttered, sliding his T-shirt back on and grabbing his flannel off the back of the couch. “She likes the vibration in your chest when you hum, try that.”
Then he walked out the front door, locking it behind him.
I sat down heavily on the couch after he was gone, sighing in disgust. I hadn’t even said thank you.
A part of me felt like such a bitch for that, but the other part—the dominant part? It kept repeating the same phrase in my head over and over.
Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, shame on me.
I couldn’t afford to get pulled into some anti-relationship with Bram again.
* * *
My phone rang a couple hours later as I was climbing out of the shower.
“Hello?” I answered, out of breath.
“I hear Bram was at your house for hours earlier,” Kate sang into the phone, making me curse.
“Jesus, this family is such a bunch of gossip queens,” I griped, trying to dry off my hair as I held the phone with my shoulder.
“Well, he left work at like eight and didn’t get back until lunch,” Kate said innocently. “Trev was just wondering if I’d heard anything.”
“You live in San Diego,” I scoffed, awkwardly pulling on my clothes.
“Semantics,” Kate replied. “So what happened?”
“Well.” I drew the word out, imagining the huge smile on her face as she waited for some fairy-tale story to come bursting out of my mouth. “He got here, and I was topless, walking around the living room.” My voice grew quiet. “And then he started stripping.”
Kate was completely silent on the other end of the connection.
“As soon as he was bare chested, he came to me…and took Arielle so I could have a nap while he did the skin-on-skin shit that calms her down.”
“Oh, thank God. I was trying to be a good friend but I was totally skeeved out,” she blurted.
“You’re such an ass,” I laughed.
“It sucks being so far away.”
“I thought you loved it down there?” I asked in surprise.
“I do,” she said cheerily. “But I miss you guys and I want to meet Arielle.”
“You should come visit.”
“Yeah, I talked to Shane about it last night. We can’t really afford to send all of us up there, so I’m thinking I’ll just fly up for the weekend or something.”
“That would be awesome,” I said, checking on Arielle, who was asleep in her little bassinet.
“What’s happening with you and Bram?” Kate needled. “You never tell me anything!”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I replied, going out to the couch so I wouldn’t wake the baby. Or should I try and wake her so she wasn’t up all night? None of the baby books I had gave me a straight answer. It was annoying as hell.
“Well, he was at your house—”
“Trev was here yesterday, Ellie the day before that, your mom comes over every day at some point, and I’ve even seen your dad a few times,” I said flatly.
“But still—”
“But still, nothing,” I said in exasperation. “He made his decision very fucking clear, Katie. Can you just drop it?”
Kate was quiet for a few seconds. “Okay,” she said on a sigh. “For now.”
“Have you always been this annoying?”
“Oh, please,” Kate replied. “You told Mom I was pregnant before I could—you’re way worse than me.”
“I was worried!”
“Likely story.”
* * *
Two weeks later, Kate came home to Oregon and met Arielle for the first time.
“Oh my God, she’s gorgeous!” my foster sister said, stealing Arielle from me the minute she walked through the door. “Iris was a pretty baby, but Gavin and Keller looked like little gremlins.”
I snorted as she passed me, pushing her way into the house.
“Good to see you, too.”
“I’m not here to see you,” she joked back as Trevor carried her suitcase inside.
“Are you staying here?” I asked in surprise.
“Obviously.”
“I bet Liz is really happy about that,” I said flatly as I shut the front door.
“She’ll be here in a little bit,” Kate replied with a shrug of her shoulders. “She said she didn’t care since I didn’t bring the kids with me.”
Trevor and I laughed as we followed her into the living room.
“How you doing?” he asked, throwing an arm around my shoulders.
“I’m good,” I said, giving him a big smile. “Hey, have you heard from Hen? He hasn’t called in a few days.”
I’d been talking to Alex, Henry, and Kate almost every day since I’d brought Arielle home. They also made me send photos and videos of Arielle so they could see her. I could tell they were feeling pretty homesick, but they’d all come to visit recently so only Kate was able to come back home to meet her.