Page 103 of Act Like You Don't Care
The party broke up shortly after Margaret. Grady helped Miles and his father carry everything out to the SUVs. No one would let me carry anything so I hung out by the door to finish the last of my water and watched as Grady and Miles played Tetris with it all, trying to make it fit. I’d already bought a crib and matching furniture for the baby, but we’d gotten swings and seats, a car seat and a stroller, other weird things that I didn’t quite know what they were for. And clothes. So many clothes. How could one kid wear that many clothes?
Standing there in the sun watching the alphas work was kind of fun, though. Strange how much I preferred Miles to Grady. They were both good-looking but even as biased as I was, I had to admit that Grady outshone Miles in the classically handsome department. Miles, though… Miles moved like he expected the world to give way before him. At the same time, he handled each gift going into the SUV like it was made of glass, careful to ease it into place, and bracing everything so it wouldn’t shift when we were driving. It seemed to me that, considered with all the rest I knew about him, it was as good a description of what he’d be like as a father and as a person as any. And if he stood out less in a crowd than Grady did, I decided that I liked that better. It made him more mine and I could appreciate the subtleties of his particular kind of beauty that other people might not see.
But when Rick came to see if they could fit in the bottle warmer that Margaret had bought us, it was definitely a dead heat between him and Grady. I amused myself with the thought of taking them both out to a club and setting them loose, then counting the bodies that fell at the end of the night. Miles would probably just shake his head at me.
They found space for the bottle warmer, but it looked like I was going to have a couple of gift bags on my lap until we made it to the house.
Rick left and I walked over to the SUV. “Is that it?”
“I think so,” Miles said and shooed Grady out of the way so he could close the back of the vehicle. “How are you doing?”
“I’m going to explode like a fountain,” I complained and sidled a step closer. How, exactly, did a guy flirt with the father of his unborn child, when he didn’t know if the father was interested back?
Very awkwardly, if my example was anything to go by.
Miles smiled at me and gathered up the loose gift bags. “It’s almost time to go. Maybe if we’re there early, we can skip the line.”
“Ha! I doubt it, but I like the way you think.” I reached for the bags, waved goodbye to Grady, and waddled carefully up the side of the car. “Don’t hit any potholes, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.” He watched me with what I liked to think was a little extra care until I was seatbelted into the passenger seat with the bags on the floor at my feet.
I stopped him before he could turn the car on. “Thank you,” I said and meant it.
“For what?” he asked with a puzzled smile. “The shower? That was… I don’t know who had the idea first, actually.”
I shook my head, then nodded. “That, yes. But, for everything.” I put a hand over one of his where it rested on the steering wheel. “This would have all turned out differently if we’d hired someone else. I’m really glad we didn’t.”
“Even with the baby?” he asked quietly.
“Even with the baby.” On impulse, I undid my seatbelt and leaned across the car to kiss his cheek in a very un-me-like manner. “I wouldn’t change it at all.”
He gave me an odd look and turned the key in the ignition. It wasn’t a bad expression. Not angry or annoyed or amused. I wasn’t sure what I’d read in his face, just that it wasn’t bad.
“I’m glad,” he said after a moment. “I don’t like to think that I was responsible for something that forced your hand and changed your life for the worse.”
“Not in the slightest,” I told him with all the sincerity I could muster. Because it was true—he hadn’t made my life worse. He’d made me see what it could be and, as long as he was somewhere in my life, I was pretty sure it was going to be better. “We should get going before I pee on your seats,” I told him apologetically.
“Can’t have that,” he said with a grin and put the SUV in gear.
I leaned back in my seat and watched him all the way to the hospital.
Miles
Ihelped Tam up onto the exam table, then stepped out of the way to let the technician get into place. Tam kept my hand, his fingers gripping mine convulsively as he made small talk with the technician.
I squeezed back and took advantage of his distraction to think a little. He’d been friendlier recently. Since the day we’d had the cops called on his father and that other Vinist. I was still going to be cautious—Tam being Tam, if I rushed him he’d back off and run in the opposite direction. Having had a first-hand view of the culture he’d come out of, I wouldn’t blame him, either.
If I really wanted this to succeed, the first move had to come from Tam. Just like it had in that hotel room in Kentucky. Which meant playing it cool, until he decided to turn up the heat.
The hard part was that he seemed happy being friends and I didn’t feel I could trust those fleeting moments when he seemed to want something more. The more I thought about Tam, the more I realized how different his public and private personas were. In public, he was a wild risk-taker, a perfectionist who pushed himself to the limits as if it was a personal fuck-you to everyone who said he couldn’t or shouldn’t. In his private life, though, he was much more cautious.
Tam laughed at something the technician had said and I tuned back into the conversation. They were talking about all the inconveniences that went along with being pregnant and she was telling stories in a light tone about awkward situations either she or one of the other technicians had experienced while she applied the gel to his belly.
“Miles managed to dodge most of the potholes on the way here.” Tam glanced up at me, his eyes shining with excitement. “Except for one. I thought I was going to ruin his upholstery for a minute there.”
“Sorry,” I replied with my own smile. “You made me pay for it after.” I rubbed my arm where he’d slugged me then tugged a lock of his hair. “I’ve already mapped out the route to the bathroom for when we’re done here. I promise to run before you like a football player clearing the path for the quarterback.”
“Perfect! I’m going to need it.” He grunted softly as the technician started running the sensor wand around. “Careful.”
