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“Really?”
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Alyssa! That’s amazing news. Harley is—”
“Let’s not get a head of ourselves.”
“I’ll get soap and tests,” I tell her, my steps a little lighter, my heart less heavy as I cross to the other side of the store.
Harley and Alyssa had a very difficult beginning. He wasn’t the most receptive to her after losing his wife in a car accident. He has a daughter with his late wife already, but I know he’d welcome another child with Alyssa with just as much enthusiasm. The man loves her unconditionally.
My first stop is the soap aisle, and I realize my mistake of not grabbing another cart when I’m juggling multiple bottles of hand soap toward the family planning aisle of the store. Instead of dropping one and making a mess to clean up, I line them up on the floor to the side before taking a step back to look at the pregnancy tests.
This is just one more mistake. The selection is vast, the price ranges just as wide. There are name brand and generic, lines versus digital. I have no freaking clue which one to pick.
I grab two different ones from the shelf, turning them both over to read about the things each boast that make the better brand.
“I hate to tell you this,” a smoky voice says. “If you’re needing the tests, it’s already too late for the soap.”
My heart is already racing by the time I lift my eyes to Drake.
He seems different, and I don’t know if it’s seeing him for the first time outside of the bar or if something has really changed about him in the two months since I’ve been there.
A lot has happened since his offer to hang out after he got off work. I could blame any number of things as to why I haven’t been back, but I know it has more to do with wanting to spend time with him outside of him standing on one side of the bar and me sitting on the other than anything else.
I smile at him as if he’s a dear old friend before I can stop myself.
I don’t realize until this very second with my eyes on him that I missed him. I missed his flirty smile and the way his clothes always seem to cling to the best parts of him.
“These aren’t for me,” I tell him, holding the pregnancy test up a little higher.
“I would imagine not,” he says, his smile growing wider.
“You make a lot of assumptions about people,” I growl, taking a step closer to him.
“Is it a wrong assumption that you don’t have a uterus?”
I tilt my head to the side. I’m in the wrong here, thinking he was making a jab at my sexuality rather than my gender.
“Who are they for?” Drake asks.
I clamp my mouth closed. I could easily explain, but those details aren’t mine to share. Alyssa is the closest friend I’ve made since coming to Cerberus, and I’d never compromise that to cement the fact that I don’t have some woman in the community questioning whether I got her pregnant.
“If it’s that woman Ugly took to the bathroom a couple months ago, I’ll tell you that she has a history of trying to trap guys, so if he didn’t wrap it up—”
“It’s not for Ugly, either,” I say, my eyes dropping back down to the tests.
“I heard about Aro,” Drake says.
I don’t look back up at him, even when I sense him shifting to get a little closer to me.
“He’s heading to Albuquerque,” I explain. “He’ll go through physical therapy and he’ll come back as good as new.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
I don’t flinch the second his hand comes into view. I don’t pull away like I should when it rests on top of mine. The touch is comforting, having none of the flirty edges to it I’ve come to associate with Drake.
His fingers curl, gripping my hand, unconcerned for the pregnancy test still there.
It’s somehow intimate without being sexual. It’s different from the brushes of fingertips while exchanging drinks or money at the bar.
It’s too personal, the tenderness of his actions threatening to make my throat seize.
This isn’t the same man who puts on a flirtatious show at Jake’s, and I can’t decide how I feel about it.
My heart pounds in my chest as I lift my eyes to his. There’s no familiar smirk on his face. His eyes aren’t sparkling with playfulness.
I made many assumptions about Drake, probably more than he’s made about me, but I never would’ve accused the man of being capable of being serious.
“You are okay, aren’t you?”
I shake my head, not in response to his question, but in an effort to get my thoughts right. He’s thrown me for a loop, and I can readily admit that my mind has been a jumble of so many different thoughts since returning from Costa Rica. A lot of things are put into perspective when you see a friend clinging to life as those around him try to stanch the bleeding of his wounds long enough to get him to a hospital.
