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“I’m not—” She pulled the phone away from her head and glared at it. What? She cleared her throat and counted backwards from ten. She got to seven before she snapped. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Uhhh….” His swallow was pretty damn loud. All of Chicago probably heard it. “I’ve said the wrong thing.”
“I just got offered the job we’ve both been waiting for, and you want me to turn it down because I’m not thinking clearly?” Okay, when her voice tipped up into a shriek like that, maybe he had a point. But still. “This is a dream opportunity, Kyle.”
“Is it?” He ignored her next yip of protest and kept going. “Okay, first of all, I didn’t say that you should turn it down. And I’m not denying that I’ve always hoped we might move back to Ontario. But you’ve always been happy here. Don’t change the course of your career forever and ever just because it’ll make me happy.”
She rolled her eyes. “I love you, baby. More than my job, more than deep dish pizza, and definitely more than living in a metropolitan city. But I’m one-hundred-percent not suggesting we do this move for you.”
“Bluewater Cove is everything you’ve ever wanted and more?” Skepticism dripped from his voice—and with good reason, she had to give him that even as she bit back frustration. Why did she have to spell out for him that everything had changed?
“Maybe it didn’t used to be my top location pick, sure. But everything is different now.”
“This sounds like nesting on an epic scale.”
“Oh, really?” Laney swallowed back the louder-than-strictly-necessary snap that almost followed, because she could hear her mother still moving around.
“No?”
“No!”
He didn’t say anything.
She sighed.
He laughed, just a little, with just enough of a rye twist that she knew he wasn’t laughing at her. “Of all the things I thought we might fight about while you were pregnant, I honestly didn’t see this one coming.”
“What did you think we’d fight about?”
“You working too much.”
She closed her eyes, squeezing them tight. He was honest to a fault with her. “I’ve been trying to be good about that.”
“You’ve been great about that, babe. You’re already a rock star mom. You’ve really…” He cleared his throat. “Changed. Oh. That’s what you’ve been trying to say.”
“Yeah.” She rolled onto her side, her top leg pulling up against her belly. This was her favourite position to sleep in now. When she was at home, she spooned Kyle and Little Bean kicked him in the back. And then she’d roll over, and he’d follow, curling around her body and cupping the bottom curve of her growing belly with his hand. “I should have waited to tell you.”
“You were excited. I’m sorry I dumped on your parade.”
“I really am different now. Your kid has already messed with me on what I swear is a cellular level. I know you think this is just hormones, but I promise you, I know the difference between a temporary emotional outburst and my life priorities shifting permanently. I don’t want to be so far from our family anymore. I wouldn’t give up my career to be closer, but I would make different choices. I want to make some different choices. And this is a golden opportunity. If I don’t take it, I’ll be crying to you six months from now because I want to move home and I can’t find a position anywhere. It’s not like there are job openings for surgeons every day in small towns.”
“I just want you to be sure this is a decision you’ll be happy about two years down the road. Ten years. Once our kid is all grown up and heading off to Harvard like her mother.”
Would she regret leaving the challenges and opportunity of a big city hospital behind? In the background behind Kyle, someone said something into his phone. She recognized his friend Willem. “Honey, I’ll let you get back to your thing there. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“It’s fine. These—” he broke off and swore good-naturedly at his friends. “These assholes just won’t stop ribbing me for the lecture.”
“I want to hear more about that.”
“And I want to hear more about your crazy plan to move us, a dog, and a newborn to a whole new town and start over.”
Shit. When he put it like that… she groaned. “Tomorrow, then. No decisions until I’m home, and we can talk about this seriously.”
“In bed with some of Carrie’s lemon squares?”
“Exactly. I’m picking up a double pan before I hit the road in the morning.”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
