Page 7 of Objection to Love

By the time Em turned back around with the toast, April had her arms folded across the counter, and her head on top of them.

“Aw, I’m sure it’s not that bad. Haven’t you at least learned if he’s the kind of guy willing to go out at midnight for his wife’s favorite ice cream?”

“He is,” she whined without looking up. “He’s perfect. I’m not bringing anything to this relationship.”

“You’re bringing your hot bod.” She set the toast in front of her sister, waggling her eyebrows. The expression was lost on April, since she didn’t look up in time.

But when she did look up, it was to send Em a scathing look. She pointed at her rounding middle. Barely rounding.

“Ha! Good one, Em. I look like I’ve been subsisting on pizza and ice cream.” She groaned and dropped her head back onto her arms. “Ihavebeen subsisting on pizza and ice cream. Jackson is repulsed by me, I know it. And they told me there would be aglow. There is no freaking glow.”

Em crossed around the peninsula to sit by her sister. “That is the furthest thing from true you’ve ever said. And you thought the lyrics ‘shot through the heart’ were really ‘shak-a-la-ha!’”

April looked up and gave her at least a hint of a smile.

“Seriously. You’re gorgeous and don’t even look pregnant, and Iknowwhat Jackson thinks of you. If anything, he’s loving the changes to the upper half of your body.” Em waggled her eyebrows.

April glanced down at her chest, which had grown at least a cup size. She finally smiled. “You’re not wrong.”

“Annnnnd, that’s our cue to leave.”

April laughed but stood up, grabbing her toast. “We really should go. I’d hate to ruin the one instance I was on time by spending all our precious minutes crying about my changing hormones. Which, incidentally, are the reason I’m crying.”

Em squeezed her sister’s arm consolingly then headed for the door.

Once outside, she made a beeline for April’s car. But April did not. She stopped suddenly on the porch and hissed to Em, “Who isthat?”

Em shot a look in the direction April was indicating. “Oh. That’s my new neighbor.” She lifted a hand in acknowledgment of Garrett and kept walking.

He waved back.

April ran forward to catch up with Em, skirting around her to circle the car and get in the driver’s side door. She was suddenly quite buoyant compared to how she’d been in the kitchen. Her suggestive eyebrows didn’t lower even once the sisters were sitting beside each other.

She was clearly waiting for Em to say something. So, in perfect younger sister fashion, Em said nothing at all.

After several seconds, April sighed with annoyance, then prompted her, “Your new neighbor? As in, the one who saved you last night? You didn’t mention it was ahim. And that he looked likehim.” April pointedly looked out Em’s window, up to Garrett’s porch, where he was nonchalantly sipping something from a mug.

Em understood her sister’s reaction. He looked even better in the daytime, with a white t-shirt and basketball shorts on.

He waved again, catching them staring.

Em looked away, fighting embarrassment. “Drive, April. He isn’t an exhibit.”

She put the car in drive, mumbling, “He should be in one.”

Em rolled her eyes, chancing one last glance at Garrett. He was still watching them, his eyes on hers. She couldn’t determine the color of them from here, but they caught her all the same. She nearly turned in her seat to keep the contact as April pulled from the curb.

Thankfully, April’s muffled laugh pulled her back to the present. Her sister glanced sideways at her. “Sooo… what are you going to do about that?”

“About what?”

“About your hottie neighbor.”

“Nothing.” Em crossed her legs and leaned back against her seat, banishing thoughts of Garrett and his piercing stare from her mind.

“Yeah. Let me know how that goes,” April said dryly, heading for the small city center of Greenbank. It shouldn’t have counted as a city center. It included a single road, lined on both sides with businesses, such as the post office, a bed and breakfast and hotel, the tow center they were heading to, and a beauty salon that Em still wasn’t sure was actually open. They had gotten a second stoplight the year before, though; so there was that.

“I will, thank you.”

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