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I wanted to bury myself alive at the mention that we were a couple, but he ignored that completely and said, after a moment of serious consideration, “That’s actually brilliant—”
I swatted him, and he reacted by pulling me closer and pinning me against him until my body relaxed.
“You said we were a couple.”
“Acoupleof people.”
“That’s not what you meant.”
No, it hadn’t been what I’d meant.
I sighed. There was no going back now.
“Is that what we are?” he asked quietly.
“Is that what you want to be? My boyfriend?”
“Well, I’m already pretending to be. We just slept together and that didn’t feel like pretend—”
“Definitely not pretend,” I concurred, pursing my lips.
We’d given in and fallen off the deep end.
“Fine, then were dating now.” It was a veryPeteway of saying it.
“Fine,” I said with a little laugh before snuggling into the crook of his arm.
He promptly fell asleep, but I was wide awake. I watched the shadows creep across the room as the minutes ticked by.
I should have been thrilled.
But…
Something was nagging at me as I slipped out of his bed and went to the kitchen. I looked down at my phone, tapping the screen.
It would be another few weeks until I got those paternity test results back. He was… He still believed there wasn’t a chance this baby was his.
I made a cup of coffee and sat on the couch, sipping it in the quiet.
Jonah crept back into my mind as I waited, and waited, and waited for Pete to wake up.
Chapter Seventeen
Pete
Iunzipped the plastic wrap holding the new comforter I’d just bought and unfurled the thick, navy-blue quilt. I eyed my old blanket; the one Sierra had claimed as her own between the hours of 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. whenever she woke up and started making all kinds of noise in the kitchen.
Three weeks had passed since we’d fallen into bed together and she hadn’t slept in the guest bedroom ever since. Since then, we’d fallen into a routine that felt incredibly domestic in nature, so much so that I’d been questioning my usual schedule of sleeping late into the day and working in my office until the bar started to pick up. Then, I’d hop behind the bar and help out until we sent the last patrons home and I’d crawl into bed between three and four in the morning.
But now I just wanted to be home, with her, sitting at the dining room table with take-out because Sierra was a worthless cook. She did try, though, and now that she was over that earlypregnancy nausea, she’d been getting lessons from Keely once or twice a week while I worked downstairs.
I’d popped in to see her a few nights ago and found her making fried chicken—my favorite.
I hadn’t gone back to the bar that night. Or the next night. Or the night after that. Or last night.
I actually planned to take a few days off this week to just hang out with her and go to her big doctor’s appointment and take her out of town to do some shopping.
Shopping for the baby, and for her.
