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If not, August would be there to be my balance. As he’d been today. As he was so often lately without even realizing it.
Just don’t get too used to depending on him. He said he wanted to be involved in the kid’s life, but the baby hasn’t arrived yet.
The baby wasn’t even confirmed. I was late, but I hadn’t taken a test. Not quite yet.
“I can drive you back. Kinleigh can take my truck.”
Ivy waved him off. “You guys have done enough. Surely you have a better way to spend the evening, right?” She looked between us, her expression probing.
What was she getting at?
“I called August when I didn’t know what to do with the baby. He has more experience with her,” I said quickly.
“Right.”
“He does. He’s her uncle, isn’t he?”
“And you’re basically her aunt.”
I crossed my arms. “He babysits more often.”
August remained stoically silent. Funny how I didn’t appreciate that quality in him as much right now.
“Just saying I’m sure you guys want some privacy. I mean, to be alone.” Ivy’s voice was even, but her eyebrows were on the verge of waggling.
“I’ll call Mom and see if she can meet you at the house.” August withdrew his phone from his jeans. “Just until Rory gets there.”
So August wasn’t even making a pretense of going back with his sister. He let her make statements that somehow sounded pretty freaking incriminating and just rolled with it.
Sounded like Ivy’s brother in a nutshell.
“I’ll go get Rhiannon’s carrier.” Before anyone could argue, I snagged Ivy’s keys dangling from her jacket pocket and rushed out of the waiting room and down the hallway to the double doors that led outside.
We’d gone into the hospital without the carrier, newbie parents that we were. We weren’t even that yet technically.
Despite my desire to run a hand over my belly and to give in to the urge to buy another one of those pee sticks, I had no concrete reason to suspect anything. Sure, my breasts seemed heavy in my bra. My nipples were almost sore. I was so tired, on the edge of cranky.
My body was sending out signals. Some of them might’ve been due to the stress of hiding far too much from too many people I lo—
Cared about.
Some might’ve been wishful thinking. But if not, if August and I having sex at truly Olympic levels had worked this quickly, everything was going to change.
Maybe even me.
I crossed the lot to Ivy’s car and unlocked it. I was getting the carrier out of the back when a cool, purportedly friendly voice made my whole body turn cold.
“Kinleigh, is that you?”
I jerked so hard I hit my head on the ceiling before hurriedly backing out of the backseat. Just as that nightmare upper crust voice had confirmed, in front of me stood Percy Maitland. Tall, lean, impossibly rigid in every way with his shock of dark hair that dipped into brown eyes and lips that curled too easily into a sneer. But he wasn’t doing that now. He was far too interested in the item I’d been wrestling with.
“Hello, Percy. How are you?”
“Doing quite well, thank you. And yourself?” He smoothed a hand down his already impeccably placed tie as he cast a glance into the still open backseat of Ivy’s car.
“Fine.” I was pretty sure I stuttered on the reply and I hated myself for it. For feeling about five inches tall with the hole in the sole of my shoe as I’d been the day Percy had glided into the shop I’d been stocking shelves in so many years ago. His suit then had been top of the line, just as it was today. He’d worn Italian loafers then and now and expensive cologne followed him like a signature.
The same. Always the same.
