I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
“Nathaniel is cooking breakfast. He’s asked me to tell you two to join him in the sunroom in thirty minutes.”
I can’t help the smile that comes over my face at the mention of Nate.
Janelle looks skeptical. “Nate’s out of bed? Before nine in the morning?”
“It appears so,” Jamaal says. He looks at me pointedly. “Someone appears to be a good influence on your brother.”
“It has nothing to do with me,” I protest. “He’s probably still on Eastern time.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Jamaal says. Then he turns and leaves the library.
When I look back to Janelle, she’s staring at me.
“What?”
“You know what I think is hilarious?” she asks. “All these women who throw themselves at my brother—the groupies and shit? They all think Nate’s this bad-boy rocker, when the truth is, half the time he’d rather hang with his comic books and his Blu-ray edition of Firefly than party with them. They have no idea who he really is or what he really likes. And he lets them believe what they do because he has no interest in letting a single one of them close to him. But then there’s you…”
“What about me?”
“You don’t think he’s some bad boy.”
I raise a brow. “He doesn’t exactly hide his inner nerd.”
She nods slowly and purses her lips.
“People see what they want to see,” I say. “If those other women think he’s a badass rocker, maybe that’s the fantasy for them.”
“Or maybe he’s just letting you close the way he’s never let anyone else.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about this. Nate and I know where we stand with each other, and that’s all that matters. I don’t want to try explaining it to Janelle.
“Nate doesn’t bring women here,” she says carefully. “You know that, right?”
I frown. “The tabloids are always talking about crazy parties at his house.”
“Out back—on the patio and sometimes in the pool house. But you’re the first woman I’ve ever known him to allow inside.”
“Oh.” I’m not sure what to make of that. Nate, with his aversion to commitment and his refusal to take my virginity. “Well, maybe I’m the first woman who didn’t want anything from him.”
“Nothing but sex, I hope,” Nate says from the entrance to the library. He narrows his eyes at his sister as he crosses to us then turns his attention to me. “Don’t believe anything she says about me. It’s all lies. Except the good stuff. The good stuff is totally true.” He takes my hand and pulls me to my feet before kissing me soundly right in front of Janelle. “Come to the kitchen. I want to feed you.”
I’M NOT the kind of guy who dreamed about becoming a father. I guess I figured I would someday, but it wasn’t something I thought much about. I definitely wasn’t in a hurry, and I certainly never thought it would happen like this.
Even after I fell for Hanna, when I knew I wanted to marry her and could see what an amazing mom she was going to make, I wasn’t in any hurry.
If I had to put money on whether or not this baby is mine, I’d feel safe wagering a good chunk on Meredith being a fucking liar. I mean, the timing makes sense—we screwed around at precisely the time she was telling Will she bought sperm—but she’s just that level of evil that I can’t take her word for it.
Fuck. It’s not her fault. She’s evil because she had to be. She had to be tough to survive. And once upon a time, that’s why I was drawn to her. We understood each other.
I tense when I hear the bell ring. It’s Meredith. I told her we could talk, and now I’m regretting doing it here and not somewhere public.
I open the door and find myself faced with a bundle of pink sitting in a floral stroller.
“Meet Claire,” Meredith whispers.