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“Same,” Elio added, as he and Aldo said their goodbyes. He hung up the phone and drifted toward the kitchen. It was getting late enough that if he didn’t start making dinner, he’d declare it too late and order a pizza.
Glancing at the refrigerator door, he noted that tonight was soup and sandwich night. He grinned as he looked at the scribbled menu hanging there. He’d started the weekly menu right after leaving the cabin, and he hadn’t forgotten to buy a damn thing from the store ever since.
Gianna was a genius.
He sighed as he opened the fridge and pulled out the fixings for a grilled cheese. After assembling the sandwich and putting it in the skillet, he poured a can of tomato soup into a bowl and popped it into the microwave.
Elio had never minded eating alone. In truth, he’d never even thought about it. He’d just prepare his meal, carry his plate to the living room, and eat while watching sports or the news on TV.
Now, he longed for someone to eat with, someone to talk about his day with. Cooking and sharing meals with Gianna had been some of his favorite times at the cabin. After sex, of course.
He missed her.
Those words drifted through his mind at least fifty times a day.
Then, he realized there was one reason he regretted quitting the team.
Because as hard as it was to be here in Baltimore, knowing she was with someone else in Philadelphia, it would be a thousand times harder living in the same city and seeing her with Sam.
Seeing her with another man knowing…
She should be with him.
* * *
Gianna sat on the examination table, numbness sinking in.
“But…I can’t be.”
She’d been throwing up off and on for three weeks, ever since the day she’d accepted the job running Rafe and Gio’s inn. She’d thought it was a stomach bug, figured she’d finally come down with the same plague everyone had been passing around work.
But then it occurred to her that the nausea was fleeting, coming and going, so that while she had moments when she felt like utter dog shit, she had just as many moments where she not only felt great, but she was a bundle of energy.
During one such bout of vigor, she was cleaning out the bathroom cabinet. She found the pregnancy test she’d bought, and a light went on. After some quick math, she realized she was late.
She’d taken the test, hands shaking. When it had shown her a positive result, she’d been certain it was wrong. After all, she’d had her period since returning home from the cabin and she sure as hell hadn’t had sex. So she called her doctor and made an appointment.
“Gianna,” Dr. Blake said. “You are most definitely pregnant.”
“But I’ve had my period since…well…since I’ve had sex.”
“Was it a normal period?” her doctor asked.
Gianna considered the question, then shook her head. “No, but to be fair, none of my periods have been normal since I stopped getting the birth control shot. One month heavy, the next light. I thought it was just my system trying to work itself out. This one was,” she sighed, “very light.” Something she hadn’t thought about at the time because she’d been pissed off at Sam for breaking into her apartment, missing Elio so much it hurt, and exhausted from too many days of working double shifts and preparing for her interview with Gio and Rafe.
And now that she had the job, the groundwork had only gotten more intense because she was thrilled by the opportunity she’d been afforded, excited by the tasks. Gio and Rafe were encouraging her to make the inn her own, to follow through with her vision, and she didn’t want to let them down.
“Most likely what you experienced was spotting, not a real period.”
“Is that bad?”
Dr. Blake shook her head. “Very common, actually. Do you know when you conceived?”
Gianna nodded, her shock quickly giving way to genuine excitement. “December twenty-ninth.”
The doctor consulted her iPad, and said, “Then we’re looking at a September twenty-first due date. That also means you’re around six weeks pregnant. I’m going to give you a prescription for prenatal vitamins. If you smoke—”
“I don’t,” Gianna said quickly.
