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“Alright. If you come back home, you don’t work for me.”
“I’m living on my own floor again too. I’m not going to be spending nights in your bed while we try to figure this shit out. I need personal space. I need time to think and process. I can’t do that if I’m getting into bed with you every night.”
“Done,” I say, starting to feel hopeful.
“And another thing, you have to actually work at this. You can’t just throw money and a lavish lifestyle at the problem and hope that it goes away. I deserve to be treated as your equal and I’m not going to settle for anything less.”
“Kendall, you’ve always been my equal.”
Her eyes glisten as she shakes her head. “Not all the time. Sometimes, I feel like I’m just some pretty doll you’re keeping around to show off to your friends. And then, in those moments when you aren’t around, your parents never fail to remind me that I don’t belong in your life.”
“I’ll deal with them.”
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “How can you deal with them when you can’t even stand up to them for yourself?”
As much as I hate to admit it, I know that Kendall’s right. My father still has his nose in every aspect of the business and I can’t bring myself to force him out fully.
Maybe it’s time I start making some changes in my life.
“I don’t need you to deal with your parents on my behalf either. I can handle them.”
I shake my head, frowning at her. “That’s where I draw the line, Kendall. Just because you can handle yourself with them, shouldn’t mean that you have to. They’re my parents and I will deal with them.”
“Okay,” she says, though I can see it bothers her to concede on this point.
“Now,” I say, taking a step closer to her and smiling slightly, “we’re going to be having a baby. You know, I didn’t think that was something that would ever happen for me.”
“Well,” she says, her hand drifting down to her stomach as a small smile crosses her face. “It’s happening.”
“I thought you were on the pill though. From the moment you moved in, you left your birth control wherever you happened to drop it that night. I know you were taking it.”
Kendall shrugs. “I was stressed when we first started sleeping together. It makes birth control less effective. Some days, I forgot to take it altogether.”
I nod. “Well, either way, we’re going to be parents and I’m terrified.”
“I am too.” She looks up at me with wide eyes. “Aurora and Zara are here for me, but neither of them seem that interested in talking about a baby. I don’t have anyone I can talk to.”
“Have you thought about talking to your mother? I know that you two haven’t spoken in a long time, but she might be able to talk to you about it in a way that your friends can’t. She has been through it after all.”
Kendall looks thoughtful for a moment but I don’t miss the flash of fear across her face. Even if she wants to talk to her mom, I suspect it won’t be easy for her.
There’s a part of me that wants to be angry with Lydia for allowing her daughter to walk away, but I don’t fully know what happened between them. It’s not for me to get involved in, even though I could.
“Please come home,” I say, stepping toward Kendall again. “I love you and I miss you. I’m more than happy to take this as slow as you want, but I don’t want to keep going home without you.”
Kendall’s eyes glisten with tears as she nods. “I’ll come home, but this is going to be slow. I need time to heal and both of us need time to figure out what a relationship looks like for us.”
“We can take as long as you need.”
She bites her bottom lip before closing the distance between us and giving me a tentative hug.
It isn’t much, but it’s the first step toward healing us.
19
KENDALL
Thesunisshiningand the house smells like bacon. For the last few nights—since moving in with Evan again—I’ve slept better than I have in ages.
