Page 94 of Act Like You Don't Care
He came to sit beside me. "I'll bet." He draped his arms over his knees, wiggling the remains of his ice cream cone back and forth between two fingers. "I'm not going to lecture you. That's not my place, except..." He tossed the bit of cone toward an enterprising seagull and sighed. "It's your body."
I gave the seagull my ice cream cone too. My stomach twisted and sent up small distress signals. "It's your baby."
He gazed out over the water again, not saying a word. His expression was sterner than I'd ever seen it. It made me anxious, but unlike when my father’s face would fall into those lines, I wasn't worried he'd take his anger out on me. The anxiety came from somewhere else and made me second guess my determination to keep Miles in the friend-zone.
"Miles?" When he didn't answer, I put a hand on his arm. "What is it?" I felt like I was losing my only friend. Other than Will. I didn't want to lose Miles. He was a rock of steadiness in the chaos of my life and it hit me now how much I'd missed him in the gap between our fake break-up and the discovery of the baby's existence. And how much I’d hate to lose him, even if all I could manage to keep for myself was his friendship.
"I'm not going to make your choices for you," he said harshly. "We're not dating, we're not mated. I know you have to do these things because your career is valuable to you." He bit off whatever he was going to say next and tossed a stick at the seagull. The bird squawked with excitement, then shot us a dirty look when it realized it wasn't food.
"So is the baby," I said softly. "I'm not doing any of my own stunts in this one. This—” I gestured to the line of stitches under my chin, “—wasn't a stunt, it was an accident." I suddenly discovered the appeal of watching the waves. "What did you feel when they called you? After the accident?"
He huffed a little. Not in a snotty way, but like I’d brought up bad memories. "Terror, mostly." He tossed another stick at the seagull, who darted toward it, then promptly turned its back on us and strutted away with disdain. “I’ve lived around Hollywood most of my life. I know what happens on movie sets. But all I could think when they called me was that you’d been hurt so bad they didn’t think you were going to make it.”
Ah. Yeah. I was a shitty boyfriend. Except he was right—we weren’t dating, so I wasn’t actually a boyfriend. Which made me even shittier, because he was the kind of alpha that would care about a guy, even if there wasn’t really a relationship there anymore. “I promise you, we’re taking every precaution. I can’t just stop working because I’m pregnant.”
“I know.”
Why wasn’t that comforting? I thought about the situation for a few minutes, blindly staring out over the sand and the tourists and the water, trying to find a compromise. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue and I wasn’t going to act like I didn’t care about his feelings in this. “What do you want me to do?”
He shook his head, still not meeting my gaze. “I don’t know.” He scooped up a handful of sand and let it trickle back down onto the beach. “I don’t think there’s anything you haven’t already thought of.” He turned toward me finally and smiled a little sadly. “I’ll be fine. Still getting used to the idea, I guess. Don’t tell Mom, she’ll lecture me about being a silly over-protective alpha and tell me to smarten up.”
“I won’t. I promise.” I held up a hand with my pinkie finger stuck out. He stared at me for a moment in puzzlement, then laughed and linked his pinkie with mine.
“Pinkie swear’s forever, you know,” he said.
I tightened my finger around his. “I know. That’s how serious I am.” We shook. I ignored the continued rumbling of my stomach.
A shadow fell across us. I looked up to see a young couple standing in our sunshine.
“Hi,” the young woman said. “I don’t mean to bother you, but… Are you Tam Laydon?”
I met Miles’s eyes, looking for input here. Did I say yes, or did I say no? He quirked his eyebrows at me, which didn’t tell me anything. So, I pasted on my professional smile and held out a hand. “Yes, I am.”
The woman stared at my hand for a second, then grabbed it. “Oh, I can’t believe it’s really you. Can I get a picture with you? No one back home will believe I met a real movie star!”
“Me too, if that’s okay,” the young man said.
I cast a glance Miles’s way. For a moment, something dark and alpha coasted across his face, then he smiled. “Why don’t I take it for you?” He accepted the woman’s phone and I stood up and put my arms around the two tourists, still wearing that professional smile I’d cultivated to hide the fact that my stomach was not happy at all with the movement. In fact, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through the picture taking without throwing up on someone’s shoes.Please go away.
They stayed for what felt like forever, until one of them asked about the baby. Miles took one look at my face and put an end to their long list of questions with a cool, “We have to go. Meetings.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, I said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“How sick?”
“Real sick.” I turned and bolted for the bathrooms at the end of the beach, not giving the scene I was making a second thought.
I got there just in time to fall to my knees and throw up everything but my memories.
Somewhere in between bouts of vomiting, Miles wiped my face with a wet paper towel and brought me some water in his cupped hands. “I thought this was done.”
“So did I.” I closed my eyes and tried to settle my stomach.
“Was it the question about the baby that set it off? Because if it is, we probably should stop by the doctor’s.”
I shook my head and immediately regretted it, as that whirling nausea started up again. “No, I think the ice cream wasn’t what the baby wanted. Guess we have a prankster on our hands.”
“Great. My brother Jim, reincarnated before he’s even died.”
