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I shrug. “I know you, Katy baby. I can read you.”
“You’re okay if I tell them? Even though it’s so soon. I can hold off on telling the others for a bit, but that won’t last long if I’m not drinking. My people know me.”
I grin. “They do know you, and I’m fine with telling them. We need to tell my mom.”
“Can I cook dinner for her tomorrow night? We can tell her then.”
My eyebrows bounce. “You want to cook?”
She shrugs. “If my stomach is up to it, yeah. I mean, it won’t be much. As you know, I only know how to make like five things, but I’m sure she’ll like one of them.”
Hope blooms in my chest. She’s starting to talk. To brighten up a bit. “She’ll love anything you make her. Especially if we tell her you’re pregnant. How are you feeling?”
A brilliant smile overtakes her face. “Good. Excited. Weird. Happy. Freaking out a bit. Or a lot. I might be freaking out a lot. You?”
“Same. All of the same.” I hesitate. Fuck it. I round the island and drop into the seat beside her, twisting her until she’s facing me, and take her hand in mine.
“Katy…” I want you to move into my room. I want you to fall in love with me. I want to be not just the father of your baby but your guy, the one you love and curl up against every night and wake up beside every morning. Fuck! “We’re having a baby together.”
“That we are, my friend.”
I stiffen, my insides plummeting hard and fast to my feet. Friend. Did she just call me her fucking friend? It was said off the cuff, but now she’s staring straight into my eyes and she’s not taking it back or talking over it the way she typically would.
She wants me to know she means it.
“Katy… I…” I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to be your friend. I want to be your everything the way you are mine.
Fuck. Just… fuck. I don’t think I’ve ever been in as much pain as I am now, and hell, is that saying a lot. I had a father who didn’t love me, a wife and best friend who betrayed me, and a mother who is sick with cancer. But one word from Katy and it feels like my life is falling apart faster than it ever has before.
Friend. A humorless, devastated laugh hits the air between us. It’s funny, or not so much. Maybe more ironic in a twisted way. Her eyes are all over mine, and just as she opens her mouth to say something else, the doorbell rings. Her eyes close, and she blows out a breath.
There’s nothing else to say after that anyway.
“You’re sure about this?” Katy whispers through the side of her mouth.
“You mean I should turn them away?”
She opens her eyes just as a second impatient ring sounds. “I’m just saying, gird your loins because shit is about to go down.”
“Who says gird your loins? I’m not sure I even know what that means.”
“It means there’s an incoming invasion.”
“Katy…” I trail off, stuck, fucking ruined and miserable, and yet so goddamn elated and happy, I can’t make heads or tails of any of it. I lost Katy, but she’s pregnant with my kid. She called me her friend. Her fucking friend.
How do I fight that?
She might as well have cut me off at the stem and tossed my dick in the trash before chucking my nuts outside for the squirrels to have. They’re no longer necessary to her, and she made that abundantly clear. Purpose served, now move on.
Only I can’t move on.
I’m in love with the woman carrying my child and all she wants from me is friendship. How do I change that? Is that even an option? We have a contract. She’s following the rules when I’m trying to break them.
“Thank you for this,” she says, giving me a half-smile and a small hip bump like the buddy I am to her as we head for the door. “They would have been relentless otherwise.”
“This is your home, Katy. They’re your people. Don’t thank me. They’re always welcome.”
“I’d thank you by dropping to my knees later, but we’re not doing that anymore.”
