Page 26 of Not Our First Rodeo
I swallow and lick my lips, watching as his gaze darts down to follow the movement. “I think they’ll be happy,” I finally say.
“But they wouldn’t be if you were there?” he asks. His gaze narrows, like he’s trying to piece out this puzzle and he’s getting closer with every question. I hate how exposed I feel.
“I don’t know,” I answer slowly. “And I’m not willing to risk it.”
He sighs and pushes a hand through his hair. “Elsie, why would you even think something like that? My entire family loves you. You’re as much a part of the family as I am.”
I feel myself shrinking into the couch, wanting to hide myself from him, from the emotions that are simmering below the surface of my skin, the ones he seems to have X-ray vision for. Before I can respond, his eyes soften, and the tension in his shoulders loosens. He looks defeated, sad. I wish I could make it better. But if I wounded him with this one confession, letting him see all the dark thoughts in my head would wreck him.
He moves until his knees hit the couch, and he leans down over me, close enough that I can smell the minty scent of his toothpaste. “It’s okay if you don’t want to go yet, but I need you to know that whenever you’re ready, our family will be waiting for you with open arms. They love you and they’re going to be so thrilled about this baby.” He smiles then, one side of his mouth lifting before the other. “Not as excited as me, of course.”
I follow his gaze down to where it’s now trained on my stomach, and something inside me turns to mush when he presses his large, calloused hand there and says, “Hey, baby. It’s your daddy. I’ll be back soon. Take care of your mom for me, and don’t make her feel too sick.”
Before I can respond, although I don’t know how I would over the lump clogging my throat, he presses a kiss to my temple and says, “Be back soon, Elsie baby.”
He leaves me sitting on our couch, his words ringing through my head. I’m not sure how long I sit there before there’s a knock at the door. I push up off the couch and head for it, swinging it open to find Jade standing on the other side, a huge smile on her face.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, staring at her, confused. She always goes to family dinner at the big house with her parents, who have become close friends with the Jenningses over the years.
She smirks, pushing past me into the living room. “Hello to you too. Get dressed, we’re getting dinner. Anywhere that won’t make you throw up.”
I follow her through the house, watching as she plops down in the exact place on the couch I vacated. “Why aren’t you at Lucky Stars?”
She shrugs, like her answer is obvious. “Because I wanted to spend the evening with my best friend.”
I give her a grateful smile. I may not have wanted to go to dinner tonight, but I didn’t want to spend my evening alone. “Well, I’m glad you came,” I say and mean it. “But we can’t go out. It’s snowing.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s just a little snow. If we leave now, we will be back before it gets bad. Now go get dressed.”
I look down at my gray sweats. There’s a stain on my left boob and a hole in the knee. But they’re warm and comfy.
“Can I just wear this?”
She sighs, as if this single question is the last one she has the patience for. “Fine, but we’re ordering out and eating in the car, then.”
I smile because that’s my ideal dinner anyway and she knows it.
She waits for me as I slip a jacket over my shoulders and shove my feet into a pair of boots. The cold is bitter, the wind whipping against any bare skin and instantly chilling me to the bone. Snow falls in thick flakes, piling onto the powder already dusting the ground. Above us, only a few stars penetrate the clouds, lighting our way to her truck.
We climb inside, and she cranks the heat and the radio. “Where to?”
“A burger actually sounds good.”
“Really?” she asks, sounding incredulous.
When I laugh, it puffs in the cold air of the cab. “Surprisingly, yes, but if you’d asked me that at lunch, I probably would have thrown up.”
“Pregnancy is fascinating.”
“It really is.”
She turns out of the driveway. The roads are thankfully still pretty clear from the other vehicles that have driven down it. Our house is situated between downtown Larkspur and Lucky Stars, so our road gets a decent amount of traffic. I’m more worried about Beau making it home tonight.
“Beau showed me the sonogram this morning,” Jade says.
“Yeah?” I ask. I can’t help but feel my frozen heart melt just a little at the thought of a proud Beau pulling out that blurry photo to show her.
She flashes me a smile. “Cutest blob I’ve ever seen.”
