Page 93 of Act Like You Don't Care
“Good.” He went silent for a moment, then asked, “Will you let my Mom see the baby?”
I sat up straight in surprise. “Like that would even be a question. Tam!”
The scold seemed to reassure him and the old Tam smile came back. But all this melodramatic, moody obsessing made me wonder just how bad the accident had indeed been and I decided I was going to get the full story out of Will as soon as Tam let me go. Because for damn sure, I wasn’t leaving him here by himself until I was sure he was going to be all right. Not just physically, but that he’d sorted out whatever it was that was going on in his head.
We talked a little while longer, until Tam’s eyelids started drooping. A nurse came by to check on his vitals and let me know that visiting hours were almost over.
“Will you come back?” Tam asked groggily.
“If you want me to.”
“Yeah.” He yawned and frowned. “Or do you have work?” His eyes drifted shut.
“I can bring my work here,” I said gently and met the nurse’s eyes. She nodded and smiled.
I took Tam’s hand, but he was asleep. So asleep that he didn’t even twitch when I leaned in to kiss his cheek and whisper, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Tam
They discharged me the next day with orders to take the day off. I didn’t have the time, though—I still had all that legal stuff to get fixed. This accident had scared me in ways I’d never been scared before and that included Joshua trying to gas and kidnap me. So instead of waiting for my appointment with the lawyer next week, I bullied my way into one that afternoon and made Miles take me right there. I had the paperwork officially drawn up to make him my medical proxy and to put him down on paper as the baby’s father. On Miles’s and the lawyer’s recommendation, I also had some changes made to my will to have my properties moved into a trust if something happened to me so there was money coming in to support the baby. We put Miles in charge of that too, since he would be looking after the baby if I wasn’t around to do it.
"You're sure you're okay with all this?" I asked him as we walked out of the building into the mid-afternoon sunshine. "I didn't, like, guilt you into it or something?"
He looked surprised. "No. Not at all. I understand you want to have things in place, even for the remote chance of you getting hurt bad enough to need them. I'd probably do the same thing."
I studied him intently and he stood there and let me do it. It occurred to me again that, for someone who'd gotten pregnant entirely by accident, I'd picked a damn good baby daddy. "Thank you," I said, suddenly remembering my manners. "I really do appreciate this."
He smiled at me and shrugged. "I mean, this kind of makes me family, right? That's what family does."
Maybe in your family.
"Are you doing anything the rest of today?" I asked on impulse. "I don't have to be back on set until tomorrow morning."
He raised his eyebrows. "I thought you were on a compressed schedule."
I made a face. "I am, that’s why we’re filming on Saturdays. Today is doctor’s orders. I’m supposed to beresting."
Miles laughed at me. "Why not? I'll just pretend the lawyer took longer than we expected." He leaned over and nudged me with his shoulder. "So, where should we go to play hooky?"
I was hungry. Which was not a surprise. "Let's get some ice cream," I suggested after a few moments useless battle against the baby’s demands. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans so I wouldn't forget myself and take his arm. "Follow me."
As we walked, we fell back into the casual rhythm of our conversations. It was nice. Low stress. It reminded me in ways of my ex Joseph, but without the pressure to be someone I wasn't. In a sense, it was all the things I'd liked about all my exes, without all the things that had driven me mad with frustration.
At the ice cream place, we bickered comfortably over what we should order. I ended up with a single scoop of vanilla with crackles of fudge and multicolored sprinkles over the top of it. Miles went straight for the chocolate-peanut butter, with a second scoop of butterscotch. I side-eyed him for being greedy, but after he'd talked me into trying a bite, I had to admit that the combination had something going for it. I was still jealous that he could eat two scoops—I was pushing my calorie intake just having one.
We walked down to the beach as we finished off our ice cream.
"Did they fix that ramp that broke on you?" Miles asked.
"No, I think they trashed it," I said, licking melting ice cream from the back of my hand. "The director said he could cobble something together from the two takes that would work."
"I’m glad. I have to admit, you scared me."
"I've been hurt worse." I winced internally. He knew I’d been scared—everything we’d done today had been because I was scared out of my wits. “But yeah. You and me both.”
He grunted and looked out over the ocean. I waited for him to say something, but he remained silent, watching the waves and the vacationers playing in the water.
I sighed and found a likely looking spot to sit down in the sand. "I know it's not just me I have to think about anymore. I've heard all those messages all my life. They're burnt into my brain."
