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The kitchen table has been pushed off to the side. In the place it usually sits is a ladder and on that ladder is… Titan.
“There’s my girl. How are you feeling?” Ida Sue asks.
My mouth goes dry. My blood is strumming a loud, wild song in my ears. It’s not just the shock of seeing Titan.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my mouth falling open after I manage to get the words out. Titan is on a ladder working on the chandelier—or rather where it was. He’s wearing those tight Levis again, only now he doesn’t have a shirt on. He’s sweating—because again, it’s hotter than hell in here—and the perspiration is running down the sides of his neck. I follow one slow dripping trail as it glides down his shoulder, over his pecs, making a path that leaves me feeling flushed in a way that has nothing to do with the heat in the room. It slinks lower, moving over the indention of each ab so lovingly I wish I could follow it with my tongue.
“Quite a show, ain’t it, Blossom?” Ida Sue says with a lecherous grin, elbowing me gently in the side.
I’m really starting to hate the nickname Blossom.
I watch my aunt watch Titan and I know her face mimics what mine was doing just a minute before. It wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t start drooling.
“Your aunt’s AC broke down and she had a ceiling fan she wanted installed in the kitchen,” Titan answers. He looks down at me and gives me a smile that makes butterflies take flight in my stomach, those beautiful eyes of his sparkling, his face almost tender. “You look really good tonight, Faith.”
“I… uh… thanks. I meant, what are you doing here?”
“He’s staying with me while he finds a place in town,” my aunt answers—ever helpful.
“He’s… Titan?”
“Didn’t have many options, babe. Ida Sue offered, seemed the best solution.”
I ignore the way he casually tossed in the word ‘babe’ and then I ignore the tingles that run through me when he said it. I try to concentrate on the biggest problem. The one that has the most potential to rock my world off its foundation.
“The best solution… to what?”
“I told you I was moving here, Faith. I didn’t lie.”
Oh crap. I mean, I know he said that, but somewhere in my head it all got fuzzy. I thought he’d get tired of staying and go back to California. Seeing him in my aunt’s house—an aunt he complained for weeks about because she kept pinching his ass—does not sound like he’s doing something he will give up on. I don’t know what it says, but it doesn’t seem like a good thing for me.
“Titan, aren’t you jumping the gun a little bit? I mean, we just found out I’m pregnant. There’s no need to make life-altering decisions right now. We can figure it all out when little Zeus or Eris gets here.”
“Zeus or Eris?”
“Greek gods. It was my idea, sugar-lumpkins. With a dad named Titan, the baby needed a special name,” Ida Sue chirps cheerfully. “Of course we could always continue the family tradition. How do you feel about naming your son Turquoise?”
“Turquoise?”
“Pretty, right? We could call him Turq for short. Turquoise Vegas… or was it Colorado where the soldiers finally swam home, Faith?”
“I think I’ll just leave and we can do dinner another night—after the air is fixed,” I answer instead, totally ignoring my crazy ass aunt’s questions.
“Nonsense. The pizza will be here soon.”
“Pizza?”
“I ordered it. There was no way I could cook in this kitchen. But when Titan here gets the fan going, it should cool down enough to eat. I hope you’re hungry, I ordered a ton. Once the air stopped working, though, everyone began bailing. White and Kayla couldn’t make the trip here, they had a parent-teacher conference, Gray and C.C. are stuck at home with sick babies, Black refuses to eat dinner with us because I won’t let him hit Titan.”
“I’d like to see him try,” Titan grumbles, stepping down from the ladder. He’s got a cloth he’s rubbing his hands on as he steps into me, invading my space.
“Why does Black want to hit you?”
“Because I was an insult to dickheads everywhere,” he says with a soft smile. I stare at the smile and the way the white of his teeth shines little by little. I stare so long that I have the strangest urge to reach up and kiss those lips, run my tongue over them, lose myself in them. I shake my head.
It’s just pregnancy hormones. That’s all it is.
“Babe?”
“When did the babe thing start?” I ask, because clearly I’ve lost my mind. I sound annoyed, because I am. Every time he calls me babe I feel a little shiver run through me.
“What?” he asks, his face moving to show confusion, and I watch every movement. I watch it and enjoy the show, because he’s close, because he’s beautiful, and because I like it. I watch because I’m insane and I do it while thinking that if this is not pregnancy hormones I’m in deep shit.
