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This was the guy Savannah had been in love with when she went to dinner with me? He had to be damn near twenty years younger than me. Jesus. I owed him and his tats a huge thank you. If he hadn’t been on the fringes, things might have turned out differently and I was really fucking happy with the way they had turned out.
I held out my hand. “Thanks for coming, we appreciate it. I’m Michael, by the way. You must be Maddox. It’s great to meet you.”
Maddox shook my hand. “Nice to meet you too. Congrats. Felicia’s an awesome person.”
I touched the baby’s arm. He gave me a sketched-out look. “Hey, it’s okay, buddy. You’re going home.”
He was stretching out his arms for Savannah, but she was dodging him. “This is horrible. I can’t take him. He wants to nurse and I cut him off a week ago. If I take him, he’ll face plant into my chest and cry until he passes out.”
Maddox was turning so that Sully couldn’t see his mother, cuddling and bouncing him. The baby had reached full-on screaming now, his face red, a line of snot running out of his nose onto his lip. “You can’t give in, babe, or we’ll just be teaching him he gets what he wants if he kicks up enough of a fuss. He’s not even hungry, he just ate.”
“I know, it’s just my heart hurts.” Savannah turned quickly away from the sight of her crying son. “I’ll go get our coats.”
Maddox looked at me and shrugged. He ran a reassuring hand over the baby’s head and swayed with him. “He’s a boob man. Can you blame him?”
That made me laugh. “No, not at all.”
Once Maddox had left I turned my attention back to Felicia. She was repeatedly taking deep breaths like she might get sick. “What’s wrong?”
“Babies are a lot of work, aren’t they? Oh God…”
For a second I thought she was going to faint. I grabbed her shoulders hard to keep her from going down, but she rallied. There was fifty people milling in my apartment all around us but I couldn’t stop myself from demanding, “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
Her eyes widened but she just nodded. “Can we please go in the bedroom? It’s really hot in here.”
“Of course.” I led her down the hall, my arm wrapped around her shoulders as she leaned on me.
I heard Brent say, “Dude, sneaking off to the bedroom? Wait until everyone leaves, geez.”
My cousin was an idiot. But it probably didn’t look that great from the perspective of everyone in the living room. I flipped Brent off over my shoulder. He laughed.
“Everyone thinks we’re off to shag, don’t they?” Felicia asked with a weak smile as she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Yep. Joke’s on them. We never shag.”
She laughed. “The irony is tremendous. We don’t shag and yet, I’m pregnant. But we did shag before. Quite well and more than once. ”
I pushed her hair off her forehead. She was clammy. “Do you want to lie down?”
She started to, then grabbed my arm and hauled herself back up. “No, that was worse. That made me really dizzy. Is this what being pregnant is like? Everyone always looks so damn perky posing with their bumps. I feel like complete and utter ass.”
“It’s my understanding it’s different for everyone. Even sometimes from pregnancy to pregnancy.”
She eyed me. “You don’t seem surprised by this news.”
“I am very surprised. I know you haven’t been feeling well, but I didn’t think you could actually be pregnant. But I came in here half an hour ago to get aspirin for my cousin’s wife and found the pregnancy test. I think I’m still in shock.” I stood in front of her, my hands in the pockets of my suit pants.
“Me too.” She took more small breaths and rubbed her stomach. “It’s like my innards are crawling up my throat.”
“Do you want me to help you out of your dress?”
“That’s what got us into this in the first place,” she said, dryly. “Besides, I can’t exactly mingle with our guests in my joggers and an enormous sweatshirt.”
“You don’t have to go out there if you don’t want to. I’ll tell everyone you’re sick.” It wasn’t ideal but I didn’t want her fainting at our engagement party.
“No, it’s fine. I can manage another hour. I think seeing Sully screaming just freaked me out on top of the nausea.”
“Stick by me. I’ll get you out if you need to throw up or something.”
