Page 70 of Act Like You Don't Care
“He’s a cousin of Shane’s,” Kade explained. “Shane’s mother’s sister that moved away.”
“Ah, yes. The Hollywood boy.” Mrs. Rosewood looked me up and down. “You look just like in your movies. Better shape, though. Where’s that handsome alpha you were hanging all over in the pictures?”
Oh, God. “Thank you, ma’am,” I replied, remembering my manners. “We broke up.”
She tsked at me. “You should go catch him again. He looks like just the right kind of alpha.”
He was. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
She waved a finger at me like some old schoolmarm in a poorly made Western. “Well, you need someone to give you a baby. Unless you already have one?”
My hand twitched toward my belly and I clenched it into a fist. “No,” I lied and rolled my eyes toward Kade in desperation. He wasn’t any help at all—his eyes had gone all glazed looking and the smile fixed on his face had the plastic look of bad surgery.
“Shame. Omegas and babies go so well together. Was that why you broke up with him? Was he having problems in the downstairs department?” She made a gesture toward her crotch and smiled in a conspiratorial fashion. Kade’s eyes went wide, like he’d just been kicked in the balls and if I hadn’t already started wondering if I’d died and gone to hell, I might have laughed.
“No.” My voice squeaked a little as I held back hysterical laughter. “No, that wasn’t the problem.” I glared at Kade, who’d gone almost purple in the meantime.Get me out of here!
“Well, that’s good to know,” she said in a satisfied voice. “You certainly seemed to have good chemistry and chemistry’s very important for a relationship. Right, Dan?” She reached up and patted the hand of the man pushing her wheelchair around.
That was the point when I realized that this wasn’t her carer pushing her around, but her boyfriend, and for a second I could have sworn every neuron in my brain was curled up on the floor having a panic attack.
Before I’d completely recovered, she leaned over and patted my stomach, just below my belly button. “Don’t let it wait too long dear. In fact, I have a pair of underwear that you can use. They’ll be just perfect for you and your alpha. If I can just find my knitting bag.”
Dan smiled fondly at her and said, “You left it back at the station.”
“Too bad,” Kade said, in a way that sounded more likeThank Godto me.
“I’ll just have to figure something out myself,” I told her.
“I’ll get your address from one of the boys,” she replied, a gleam in her eye. “I can mail it to you. I wouldn’t let a lack of good underwear stop you from finding an alpha to give you babies.”
Kade interrupted us while I was still trying to find my power of speech. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Rosewood, we have to go. I promised to have Tam back for dinner and we’re already running late. Conner!” He waved desperately at his stepson and grabbed my arm. “Say goodbye, Tam.”
My “goodbye” trailed over my shoulder as Kade dragged me away at top speed.
“Always with the babies,” he muttered, then gave me a sideways glance. “Although, she’s not wrong. If you want him, why are you letting how you met stop you?”
“It’s not just that. And you don’t think there’s enough gossip about me already?”
Kade held up a finger to Conner, a silent request for a moment’s more privacy. The sun made the boy’s hair blaze as he nodded and wandered off toward a nearby bench. “Do you care?” Kade asked.
“No. But he might. His business is supposed to be discreet.”
“Then he knows how to keep a secret. You aren’t his client anymore. And he is the father of your baby. What could it hurt to give it a chance?” He called Conner over after that and told him he could stay over at Jake’s, then he took me back up the street to the fish and chips shop.
We avoided the topic of me and Miles while I scarfed down three days’ worth of calories in a euphoric, gluttonous junk food bender, but that didn’t mean my brain had stopped working at the problem.
For a moment, I considered asking if he might be interested in being more than just the baby’s father. Once I’d told him about the baby, that is.
Two things stopped me. One was my upcoming schedule and the absolute chaos I was sure it was going to be, no matter how this thing with Wirechild ended.
The other was the pure terror that enveloped me when I imagined asking him that question. What if he said no? He’d been the same old Miles before we broke up and even after, when he’d gone with me to the jail, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t thought better of a relationship with me, if he’d ever considered it at all. I fought down a panic attack at the vision of trying to be parents with Miles after being soundly rejected. I couldn’t—if I did ask and he did say no, I knew I’d be bitter and bitter me could be mean. I’d finally found an alpha I thought I could live with and I’d made every wrong move in the book.
And no matter what Kade thought, Miles hadn’t called me once since our breakup. Not even a “Hi, how are you doing?” Maybe I hadn’t been that big a deal in his life as I’d thought.
I’d decided Kade was right, at least in part. I could let Miles be a part of my life. I had to, for the baby’s sake. But that was all it could be.
That thought made me unaccountably sad.
