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“Thanks, then.”
His responding smirk is playful. “You’re weird, but you’re welcome.”
“I’m weird?” I ask, my jaw dropping, but my lips quirking up in amusement at the same time.
“Don’t worry. That’s a compliment too.” He flashes a flirty wink, and my heart kicks up in rhythm inside my chest. “In fact, you should probably just prepare yourself. I’m likely going to be complimenting you all night.”
“All night?” I feign a teasing scoff. “That’s a little ambitious, don’t you think?”
He laughs, and the air in my chest arrests. “Oh wow. You have a dirty mind, too?” He looks to the ceiling dramatically. “How good can this get?”
I roll my eyes. “It just seems presumptuous of you to assume you’re going to see me for anything longer than the next couple of minutes.”
He shakes his head pointedly. “It’s not presumption, Rock. It’s hope.”
Goddamn. This man. I think I’m in trouble. Yes, please.
Harrison
Usually, sexy and nauseous are not synonymous, but the same can probably be said about a one-night stand with a secret virgin and an unexpected pregnancy.
God, the swell of her stomach is sexy.
It’s an odd thought, finding a curved, pregnant belly so erotic; one made stranger by the timing of its delivery to my awareness—smack-dab in the middle of several threats of vomit.
“I guess my face should be expecting a visit from your brother’s fist sometime soon?” I ask Rocky in an attempt to take her mind off the nausea.
“What?” she asks, her head still bowed toward her master bathroom sink.
“For my crimes. I can’t imagine Luca Weaver has taken kindly to his mortal enemy getting his baby sister pregnant.”
Rocky rolls her eyes briefly, and I see it in the vanity mirror. It’s a gesture I’m not expecting, and I have to admit, I don’t understand.
“He’d have to know I’m pregnant in order to be angry about it.”
My eyes narrow. “He doesn’t know you’re pregnant?”
“He doesn’t know anything about me.” My chin jerks into my chest, and she turns from the sink to face me. We’ve been in here since we got back to her apartment, an overwhelming bout of morning sickness making it impossible for Rocky to feel comfortable talking anywhere else. Her last sentence and the absolute lack of sense it makes have me thinking the smell of the bleach in the toilet cleaner that was clearly recently used to sanitize the area is starting to get to one or both of us.
“You guys aren’t close anymore?” I ask, trying to make sense of it all. They were as close as two siblings could be before I left California all those years ago. I distinctly remember because I used to tease Luca relentlessly about being so involved with his much younger sister.
I can’t say I understand what I was making fun of back then, but as a nine-year-old little shit-stirrer, especially when it came to Luca Weaver, I would have picked on anything.
“You really are numb to the goings-on of Hollywood, huh?”
I shrug. I have no good defense other than apathy. I never had much interest in keeping up with the lives of celebrities—certainly a side effect of being Hall Hughes’s son—and I never invested any time in it. Ironically, that’s all been flipped on its head, and as a result, I now have to deal with the consequences of knowing absolutely nothing.
Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss. It’s just a position behind the curve and leaves a hell of a lot of catching up to do.
“Luca left the summer after he turned twenty-six. Moved…somewhere.” She shrugs. “I don’t know where. He couldn’t take this life anymore—the pressure and expectation of it all combined with having no choice to change it while he was here. My parents worked too hard to get us into the limelight to let him control the direction and wattage of the beam.” Rocky frowns as she recalls the sour memories. “Eventually, he just broke. Left all of it—and me—behind. I haven’t spoken to him since. I don’t even think he’s got a phone wherever he is. Or if he does, I sure as hell don’t have the number.”
“God, Rock. That’s…terrible. I’m really sorry. I had no idea—”
Abruptly, Rocky throws up one hand in my face and puts another to her mouth as her cheeks inflate. I don’t even have time to question it before she shoves me out of the way and dives to her knees on the floor in front of the toilet.
With a bowed back, she empties the contents of her stomach into the bowl of the toilet and grabs at the edge of the porcelain to steady herself against the heaves.
Surprisingly unaffected by the wholly icky factor of being privy to someone else’s bodily fluids, I rush to the cabinet by the sink, search the shelves for a washcloth, and wet it under the faucet.
