Page 81 of Protect My Heart
She shakes her head. ‘Nothing.’
She’s having doubts. I am too, but we’re stuck in this now. Our only way out of it is telling the truth, and Mia doesn’t want to do that. I don’t either. I kind of like the idea of having a whole summer with her, even knowing it’s going to make it that much harder when she leaves.
‘Now that we’re going to be living together, I want to be part of this.’ I glance at her stomach. ‘I want to be part of thepregnancy. I want to go to doctor’s appointments with you, shop for baby stuff, and whatever else dads do.’
She turns and walks away from me. ‘Jason, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Why?’ I go over to her. ‘I’m the father. Why can’t I be involved? Why wouldn’t you want me to be? Do you really want to do all this alone when I’m right here?’
She looks at me a moment. ‘You really want to go to appointments with me? And look at baby stuff?’
‘More than anything.’
She smiles slightly. ‘Okay.’
I hear my mom talking at the top of the stairs.
‘You want to give them a show?’ I ask Mia.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Our moms are coming back. We should kiss. Show them how in love we are.’
She hesitates, then quickly nods as we hear our moms walking down the stairs.
I take Mia in my arms and kiss her. It’s an innocent kiss, no tongue, but still manages to stir up feelings in me.
How am I going to do this? How am I going to live with a girl I’ve completely fallen for, am insanely attracted to, and who’s carrying my baby, and act like we’re just friends? I can kiss her when we’re out in public, and hold her hand, but it won’t be real. We’ll be putting on an act. What’s going to happen when we’re here, alone together? Can we really go all summer without something happening?
‘Oh, would you look at those two?’ Harriott says. ‘Aren’t they just darling? I remember when Walter and I were like that.’
Mia backs away from me. ‘Mom.’ She turns to her. ‘I thought you were upstairs.’
‘I was. Martha showed me the bedrooms. You should go up and see them.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ I say, taking Mia’s hand.
As we go up the stairs, I hear Harriett say, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be sending them up there if they can’t even keep their hands off each other down here in the kitchen.’
Mom laughs. ‘I think it’s too late to worry about that. She’s already expecting.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Harriott says, laughing with Mom.
It sounds like they’re getting along. I wasn’t sure if they would. I thought they’d be too different. My mom’s not as strict as Mia’s mom. She accepts that her kids do stuff she may not approve of, like Brody and me going out with a different girl every week, which we did for awhile a few years ago. My brothers and I have done plenty of stuff Mom doesn’t like, but she still loves and accepts us.
‘What do you think?’ I say, taking Mia into the master bedroom. It’s got a queen-sized bed with a black iron headboard and white down comforter. There’s a nightstand on each side of the bed and an antique trunk at the end that’s filled with extra blankets.
‘I love it,’ Mia says, walking around the room. ‘Is it mine?’
‘Well, yeah. Or .?.?. ours.’
‘Ours?’
I walk over to her. ‘We need to talk about this. The separate bedroom thing. If we do that, we risk the chance of one of my family members stopping by unannounced and finding out we’re not sleeping together.’
‘That would be bad.’ She pauses. ‘Do you really think they’d stop by unannounced?’
I laugh. ‘Have you met my family?’
