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“But what if she isn’t? What if she kicks me out?”
“Then you can come to stay with me.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “In fact, why don’t you do it right now? It’ll be easier to hide things from her that way, and you can just tell her you finally found your own place.”
I shook my head, feeling as if I was about to cry. There were a million reasons why I couldn’t do that. And on top of that, there was no way that I could tell him any of them.
If my feelings for him continued to grow, I worried that I would ruin our friendship for good.
6
Lucas
Bernadette looked as if she was about to cry, but for what reason? I couldn’t place my finger on at all. Had I done something wrong? Said something wrong?
“Bernadette, you know there is more than enough room, right? Besides, you’re going to need someplace to stay once you have the baby, and I’m more than happy to support both of you.”
This seemed to be the wrong thing to say, for Bernadette immediately looked even more like she was about to cry.
“Bella, what’s wrong?” I asked, leaning forward and grabbing her hand. I saw a multitude of emotions cross her face and then, finally, an expression of acceptance.
“See, Lucas, this is hard to say,” she said, withdrawing her hand and looking away from me. “I can’t stay with you right now because there’s something I haven’t told you, and I worry that telling you will rip our friendship apart.”
That was certainly interesting, and something I hadn’t been expecting. But I doubted that anything that she could say could tear our friendship apart. I loved her, after all, in more ways than just one.
“Bella, you know you can tell me anything. Look at me.” She did. “Whatever you have to say, I promise that I won’t let it come between us, no matter what. Now, feel like telling me what is going on?”
She sighed and took a deep breath. “The truth is, Lucas, I have feelings for you. I’ve had them for a while now, but I’ve usually been able to control them. With the pregnancy, everything just feels that much stronger. I don’t know if I would be able to survive living with you knowing that you didn’t feel the same way.”
My heart leapt in my chest. So, she felt that way too? That was the best-case scenario, really. I thought she was prepared to tell me she was a convicted murderer or something along those lines instead.
But an attraction to me? Attraction that I also felt? That I could definitely deal with.
I smiled at her, reaching across to grab and squeeze her hand and she looked confused for a second.
“You don’t have to worry about that being a problem, Bella. I’m so glad that you were brave enough to tell me, because the fact is that I feel the same way, and I’ve been hiding it from you for a while too.”
I would have given everything to capture the look on her face in that moment. It was pure joy, pure bliss, everything that I wanted her to feel for as long as the two of us lasted.
Because I had no doubt now in my mind that the two of us would be together, at last, and it would be joyous and wonderful and everything that I had ever dreamed it to be.
“Are you for real?” she asked, but the expression in her face said she already believed me.
“Of course. Would I joke with you about something like this?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. You’ve joked about some pretty stupid things before.”
I shrugged. “While that may be true, I’d rather you didn’t hold that against me.”
“Is that so?” she giggled. “All right, I guess I can do that.”
“Then let me ask you this, will you stay over tonight? Think of it as a test run in the eventuality that you decide to come live with me, or if unfortunate circumstances come to pass.”
She nodded, and I wished then that there wasn’t a table between us so that I might lean over and kiss her, full on the lips, show her exactly what she meant to me in that moment.
I had no doubt from the expression on her face that she was thinking the same thing or would at least readily accept my kisses if I were to bestow them upon her. I made a mental note to give her lots of extra kisses this evening to make up for the ones that I couldn’t give her now.
“I can promise you that tonight will be wonderful,” I said instead. “We can watch a movie if you want, or just go straight to bed.”
“Straight to bed?” She raised her eyebrows.
