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I hated not being able to give her a safe place like I wanted. It was making my skin crawl. It left me feeling like I wasn’t enough, like I couldn’t take care of her.
“Where are we going?” Lillian asked me as I pulled out of the hospital parking lot and onto the street. It was ten in the morning. She probably wasn’t hungry since the hospital made sure she ate before being discharged, but I sure as hell was. And Ezra and I needed to figure out what to do from here. I wasn’t taking Lillian back home, and I sure as fuck wasn’t taking her back to my house.
Solomon was staying with Ezra, but it was time we figured out what we could afford and move out of this fucking town.
“Mabel’s,” I quietly informed her. “I’m hungry as fuck. We’re meeting Ezra and Solomon there.”
She rubbed her forehead. “God, is it the weekend already?” she asked, dropping her hand back to her lap. When I nodded, she closed her eyes and sighed. “Too much has been happening.”
She sure as fuck wasn’t wrong about that. I felt like my mind had been running nonstop. I was exhausted, but I wouldn’t rest until she was safe, in a warm bed I provided for her, and Solomon and Ezra were with us.
I reached over and grabbed her hand in mine. “You’re right; it has, but it’ll calm down soon enough, and you’ll finally get to adjust to a new normal.”
She arched one of those perfect blonde brows at me. “Which will be?”
“Living with me,” I told her. “Having the freedom to be you, little blondie.”
She hummed, closing her eyes. A small smile tilted her lips as she pictured it in her head, and I squeezed her hand. “That sounds pretty perfect.”
I chuckled. I knew it wouldn’t be perfect at first. It would take adjusting for all of us. Living like this—abusive fathers, a cult-like community, insane rules—it was all we knew. It would be a major adjustment, even for me, and I’d been wanting this for years. But old habits were going to die hard, and we were all traumatized.
The rest of the car ride was quiet, and it didn’t take me long to pull into the parking lot of Mabel’s, coming to a stop beside Ezra’s car. Lillian yawned and sat up straighter. “Tired?” I asked her as I turned the car off. I hated that I didn’t have a bed at the moment to let her rest in. The doctor had warned me she would need a lot of rest to recover and that she would also feel extra tired from her hormones making adjustments to accommodate another life inside of her.
Another life I still hadn’t one hundred percent wrapped my head around.
Shit wasn’t supposed to go down like this, but it had, and now we had to figure out where to go from here…while also planning for a baby.
A baby was a huge, unexpected expense we’d never factored in. But I wouldn’t toss Lillian aside, and I wouldn’t make her choose between me and her baby.
I’d adjust. I’d do what was right by her, and maybe as time went on, I’d learn how to love that baby, too. Just right now, I felt nothing for it—no love, no hate.
It was just…there—something to deal with. Which probably sounded harsh, but I didn’t know how else to factor it in. Right now, it was just something I had no real feelings toward. And maybe that was my trauma speaking. I wasn’t even sure if I’d make a good father, if I’d evenwantto be one when this baby got here, but I’d try.
For Lillian.
I got out of the car, and Lillian met me at the hood as I was rounding it to come let her out. Sighing, I gripped her hip, pulling her closer to me. “Next time, let me open your door.”
A small smile tilted her lips. “Feeling like a gentleman, Amadeus?” she teased.
I growled softly, pulling her even closer so I felt her soft curves pressed against me. “Never a gentleman, little blondie. But I am worried about you.”
Her eyes softened, the teasing expression on her face falling away in the light of my concern. “I’m okay, Amadeus. I don’t break easily.”
I trailed my fingers lightly up her spine beneath her shirt. She shivered when the cooler air brushed over her bare skin as her shirt rose higher and higher. But she didn’t stop me, despite her cheeks turning a light shade of pink. “And I don’t want to find out how much it will take to break you, Lillian. So, that’s a rule. You wait for me to open your car door, clear?”
She nodded. “Crystal, Amadeus.”
I kissed her then. She moaned, her lips opening beneath mine. Her fingers curled into my hoodie, and she leaned up on her tiptoes to get even closer to me. Her heart raced in time with my own, slamming against her breastbone with each beat. I could feel the rapid slam of it against my skin, and I groaned.
It let me know she was fucking alive.
Lacing my fingers in her blonde tresses, I deepened the kiss, my other hand curling into her shirt, wanting to do nothing more than rip it off of her.
A throat loudly cleared next to us, and with a growl, I pulled back, turning to look at my best friend. What a douchebag. And the cocky asshole had the audacity to look amused. “You can join us any time, Amadeus.”
I rolled my eyes at him and slowly released my hold on Lillian. She grabbed my hand in hers, linking our fingers together. We followed Ezra into the diner and to the back corner where Solomon was sitting, digging into a plate piled with pancakes that were smothered in syrup.
“Hungry?” I asked him in amusement as Lillian slid into the booth so she was by the wall. In a corner where I could protect her.
