Which was why Kimbra was usually riding his ass to go home early, take time off, take a personal day—anything involving self-care.
She’s right, I’m going to burn myself out.
Another reason he wanted Kira living with him. She was no slacker, but she could also talk him into taking time off.
Wasn’t that also part of the problem? That when he’d lost his best friend to the “Big D,” he’d kind of lost his will to replace her and his social life. Yeah, he had friends, but no best friends.
She was his best friend.
Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He packed his stuff and paused in Kimbra’s doorway on his way out. “I’m out of here.”
She leaned back. “Have fun tomorrow. You want another day?”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
First, he wanted to see what kind of emotional shape Kira was in. She might want to do nothing more than lie on the couch, alone, and watch TV on Thursday, a decompression day after the stress of the past several weeks for her.
“You guys coming to dinner Saturday?” Kimbra arched an eyebrow at him.
“Maybe. Might bring Kira.” He smiled. “Set you all on the job of finding her a guy.”
“Hey, Lara and I lucked out, that’s all. I’m not on the Frightful Five squad. I don’t want that much power.”
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
She giggled. “You know it, buster.” She shooed him out. “Go on, now. Have fun.”
“See ya.” He felt…light as he headed to his car. Twenty minutes later, he was sitting inside the terminal and skimming through e-mails on his phone. He wanted to text Dustin, but he’d be in his closing and Bryce didn’t want to interrupt him. Fooling around with him at an open house was one thing. Bryce would never fuck up a deal or closing for him. That was way out of bounds.
The arrival board’s time agreed with the flight tracking app. As he watched the distance tick off, the plane almost there, he fought the urge to stand and nervously pace. He’d waited so long for this moment, to have her back.
Suck it, Shawn.
There had to be more to their breakup than she was letting on, because that was sooo Kira. Minimize, deflect, and then, later, when she was ready, after she’d processed everything, she would open up. At her pace, on her timeline. He totally respected that.
It felt like it took forever from when the arrivals board and the app both said the plane was on the ground and taxiing to the gate before people started to emerge. She trailed the main crowd, a laptop bag draped over her shoulder and towing a rolling carryon.
Okay, so that squee other people definitely heard. Maybe a few even turned to look at him, but he didn’t care!
He went to sweep her into a hug, spin her around, but she stopped him. “Easy, B. I’m kind of sore. And I’m working on a headache.”
“Oh, sweetie!” He took the laptop bag from her and gently hugged her. “Of course you are, all that packing and stuff.” He took the carryon handle from her. “I wish you’d have let me come help you with all that. You know I would have.”
She did look a little paler than usual, and that concerned him. Plus he hadn’t realized how thin and drawn she looked. Video chats didn’t really convey that.
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have met Dustin.” Her brown eyes twinkled, and today she wore a colorful scarf folded narrowly like a headband, holding her brown hair back from her face. She’d let it grow longer than the last time he’d seen her, down past her shoulders.
“Let’s go get your suitcase and get you home. I can’t wait for you to meet him. Oh, my god, I’m so excited!”
“I hope Archer likes me.”
He grinned. “He’s an asshole. His opinion doesn’t matter.”
She looked tired. And her body had felt a little on the gaunt side when he hugged her. Shawn was always an asshole about hitting the gym and working out, so no doubt she’d tried to keep pleasing him, and all the stress and everything.
“What does your bag look like?”
“Bags, plural. There’s four.”
“Four?”
“Yeah. Wanted to make sure I had everything. Big, round, hot pink name tags and pink ribbons tied to the handles. They’re all black. The bags don’t match, just the name tags and ribbons are alike.”
“Kimbra said she and Eve can help introduce you around. You know, about getting interviews for positions.”
“That’s…that’s great, thank you.”
Her tone didn’t sound…right. He turned from the luggage conveyor belt. “What’s wrong?”
“B, I’m tired. Exhausted. There’s one of them.” She pointed. He turned, spotted it, and snagged it. She stepped back from the conveyor belt so he’d have room to set it behind him.
After ten minutes, they had all four of her bags, and he felt like an utter shit. She was five four and slim, and even on a good day, it wasn’t like she could bench press a Buick or anything. Her suitcases each had to weigh at least fifty pounds, if not more, and she’d had to deal with them alone in Texas? Wrestling them in and out of vehicles? And then in the airport?
I should have flown out there to help her.
“Let me go grab one of those carts, then we’ll get you out to the arrivals curb and I’ll go get my car and bring it around. Okay?”
“Thanks, B.” He started to walk away, but she caught his hand and he turned. “I love you.”
He stepped in, shoving away the flash of chill that tried to settle in his soul. “Love you, too, sweetie.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, like he’d always done. “Let’s go home.”
Twenty minutes later, they were heading south from the airport down 41. She watched the scenery pass outside her window. “God, so much has changed even in the past year. They finally finished all that construction though here, huh?”
“Yeah. Hell, I think they’d started some of that shit when we were in high school. Are you shipping your car, too?”
She didn’t turn from the window. “I sold it. I didn’t want to deal with it, and it had pretty high miles on it. Plus, I’d bought it from Shawn’s brother.”
“Ah. Fresh start. Totally get that.” He studied her at a stop light. “I just cannot believe you’re finally here!”
“Sorry I’ll be crimping your sexy style, dude. Seriously, don’t mind me. As long as you two aren’t trying to do it on my bed while I’m in it, I’m fine. It’s your home.”
“Hey, it’s our home. You and me, just like old times. Banana pancakes and everything.”
That pulled a smile from her. “Jeez, you have no idea how much I’ve missed that.”
“If it’s a fraction as much as I’ve missed it, then yes, I do.”
When they finally arrived, he smiled as he shut off the car. “Welcome to Chez Kinky,” he joked. “Sorry about the futon in the guest room.”
“No, seriously, it’ll be fine.”
“I mean, once your bed gets here and everything—”
“Honey, I really need to pee. Sorry. Can we get inside?”
“Oh, sure, duh!” He rushed ahead to get the house unlocked and turn off the alarm. He showed her where the hall bath was and then unloaded her luggage and wrangled it all into her room.
Her room!
She rejoined him in the living room, and he took her into his arms and did a silent waltz around the living room. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to see the place in person.”
She smiled. “There’s no music, B.”
“There will be. Whatever you want. Lady’s choice.”
“Show me around.”
He did, and they ended back in the living room, where Archer stared at them from the couch, interrupted in mid-no-balls lick, freezing as he watched them.
“Please forgive the uncouth furball,” Bryce said. “At least he’s always elegantly attired.”
Archer pulled his nose out of his junk and sat up to let her pet him. He immediately head-bumped her hand
, loudly purring.
“See? Told you he’d like you.”
She sat down next to Archer, petting him. “He’s a sweetie.”
“See if you say that after nine phone charger cords. Or was it more?” He honestly couldn’t remember now. He sat next to her. “Plus, Dustin’s lost a couple to him, too.”
He heard her deep sigh, like it echoed through the hollows of her soul, and his instincts cringed before she even spoke.
“I need to talk to you about something, B.”
“What?”
“I…” She blew out a breath. “Wow. This is harder than I thought it’d be. I didn’t want to do this at the airport. I wanted to wait until we were safely here so we could…focus. Let me start by saying that if you say no, I’m cool with that. We’re cool. Understand?”
Confusion filled him, along with growing terror. “What?”
“Just…” She started crying. “I’m pregnant, B.”
He blinked, certain he’d misheard her. “What?”
“That’s not the problem, though. And I need you to stay calm. Please?”
“What do you mean that’s not the problem? How can that not be the problem?” Now he understood why she’d had to get out of Dallas and away from Shawn. It had to be about Shawn, maybe abuse she’d hidden—
She untied her scarf headband and removed it, tears falling, trailing down her cheeks. Now he spotted something he hadn’t consciously processed before—she wasn’t wearing makeup, which was highly unlike her, and…
He blinked. His brain shifted to neutral and wouldn’t engage again.
Refused to acknowledge.
At first.
As his eyes betrayed him, his gaze followed her hairline from her ear, up her left temple, to the spot at the front of her scalp, over her left temple, where it had been recently shaven and was already starting to grow back.
In the middle of that lay a fresh half-circle surgical scar, the staples still in place, like an evil smile with tiny, shiny teeth.
Chapter Fourteen
“I…” Kira choked back a sob. “I sold my car because I shouldn’t be driving. Won’t be able to drive anymore.”
“Because you’re pregnant?” Bryce couldn’t pull his eyes from the surgical scar. Didn’t want to think about what it meant, a cold, hard, steel ball suddenly rattling around in his guts and threatening to take his stomach out in the process.
She laid her hands over his and he was aware she was trying to look him in the eyes, but he couldn’t.
Ten staples held the curved wound closed.
He counted.
And recounted.
Fresh. Less than two weeks old, from the looks of the way the wound’s edges were healing and the hair growing back in.
“B, please look at me.” He finally forced his gaze to meet hers. “Please let me get all the way through this, because I don’t think I can say it more than once.”
He nodded.
“If you say no, we’ll think of something else, okay? No is fine. But…it’s bad, B. It’s glioblastoma multiforme. It’s aggressive. It’s not treatable.” She squeezed his hands. “Look at me, honey.”
His gaze had drifted up again, toward the scar. “What? What does that even mean? What is it?”
“Cancer, B. It’s cancer. One of the worst a person can get.”
“Cancer?” Had he thought it couldn’t get worse?
It had.
She nodded. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“Lied?”
“When I blew off our Sunday FaceTime call a couple of weeks ago, I was still in the hospital. I’d had surgery that Friday. With everything going on, I forgot to text you an excuse sooner. I didn’t want you to find out like that.”
He hated that she’d been going through all of this alone.
She continued. “Before you ask, no. There isn’t a treatment. Not to cure this. It’s aggressive, and it’s fast, and it’s already pretty far along. That’s how I found out I’m pregnant. As part of my pre-surgery lab work, they tested me, standard procedure. I’m less than eight weeks along.”
“Shawn’s?” He didn’t know why he asked, more reflex than anything, because no, she was not a cheat. Not his Kira.
“Yeah. The ironic thing is that the final fight we had, it had been him all pissed off because I had yet another bad headache and turned him down for sex.”
His heart sank. “Your headaches.” She’d been having them off and on for months. Over a year, when he thought back.
Bryce had been chiding her to get to the eye doctor, thinking she probably needed glasses.
“Yeah. Exactly.” She took a deep breath. “The fight devolved quickly, and he accused me of all sorts of things that had more to do with the seven beers he drank than it did me. I said look, why would I want to be with a guy who won’t even give me a commitment about marriage or children? And he looked at me and said, ‘I told you I don’t want kids. You get pregnant, you get an abortion, or you get out. And if you get out, forget me paying you child support. The only money you’ll get out of me for a baby is me dragging you to the abortion clinic myself to pay for it.’ Then he shoved me.”
“Shoved you?” Rage washed through Bryce and threatened to make him sick to his stomach. There was no irony. What he and Dustin did consensually was light-years away from that fucking piece of monkey shit shoving his best friend.
Pregnant best friend.
Dying best fr—
“Don’t worry. That’s the first and last time he ever put hands on me. It was the final straw.”
“That motherfucker.”
“By the time he sobered up, I already had a U-Haul truck backed up in the driveway and had paid the neighbors next door to help me load. He didn’t even remember the fight, but at least the neighbors had heard the screaming and backed me up. Then the fucker told me if I wanted to get pregnant so badly, I could find another guy. Like he was trying to save face or something.”
Her bitter laugh held the dregs of disappointment and heartache. “Joke’s on him. I left and didn’t even know I was pregnant.”
“Oh, sweetie.” He folded her into his arms. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I was going to, but I was too busy moving out. Then I got laid off. A couple of days later, I had a really bad headache that night. I thought it was all the stress catching up with me. It was horrible bad and got worse, and I ended up calling an Uber to take me to the ER because I couldn’t even drive. They did a CT scan and the blood work and…”
It would have been less painful on him opening a vein and bleeding versus watching her cry, the agony in every sniffle, every sob. “I wasted my life with him, B. He brushed me off when I’d talk about kids, but not like he was really serious. Always said we could talk later and then turned on the charm to distract me. Later never came. I should’ve known better.”
“Shhh. I’ve got you, sweetie.” An arctic chill settled in his chest, blanketing his soul as he tried to process all of it.
“I need a big favor. I researched. In Florida, if a couple’s married, the husband is assumed to be the baby’s father. I want to marry you so she’ll have you when…” She sobbed again. “It’s really bad, B. I also want you there at the end to…to take care of the final decisions for me. I won’t do that to Mom and Dad. I don’t want them having to decide to kill me off.”
“Can’t we get another opinion? We can go up to Moffitt in Tampa. They’re a research—”
“No, B. I’ve already had multiple opinions, okay? Nothing we do will stop my cancer. But anything we try to slow my cancer, which won’t work anyway, those will hurt the baby. They almost didn’t do the surgery on me to verify it. And I was in a university teaching and research hospital.”
She looked up. “I had a team of doctors working on me, because, whoopie, I’m an interesting case. I’m going to have this baby or…” She laughed, but it sounded bitter, hollow. “I’m going to have this baby or die trying. But I want you to be his or her father.
That means you need to talk to Dustin about this. I won’t come between—”
“Yes.”
She cupped her hands around his cheeks. “No, B,” she gently said. “You have to talk to Dustin about this first.”
“We’re not married.” He realized how idiotic that sounded as soon as he said it. “We’ve only known each other a couple of weeks.”
“You’re in love with him, you big dummy. I could see it on your face, and I saw it on his during that FaceTime call. He loves you. This guy has a different effect on you than I’ve seen any other guy have on you before. I know I’m right about this. So you need to talk to him first. I won’t violate his consent. I might not have long to live, but I can’t live with myself if I fuck this up for you.”
He rested his hands over hers on his cheeks. “How long?” It felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs, like it was being squeezed out of him.
“Less than two years, definitely. The tumors are too pronounced. Almost surely less than a year. Everyone thinks I can probably be kept alive long enough for the baby to develop enough to be safely delivered and have minimal complications. I’m less than eight weeks along now. That means approximately seven months to go, at the most.”
He stared into her eyes. “Kept alive?”
“I might not be conscious. That’s my only loophole about hydration and nutrition and intubation, is if I’m still pregnant and you need to keep me alive so the baby has a better chance of survival. My goal is to see my baby born, but no one could guarantee I’ll be conscious and aware for that.”
It all slammed into him at once, like a kick in the balls and twice as painful.
“This is why you sold your car,” he whispered, finally understanding, completely.
“I sold everything, B.” She sadly smiled. “I have several boxes I shipped via UPS this morning on my way to the airport. They’ll be here by Friday. I sold everything else, or donated it, or trashed it. I won’t need it and didn’t want anyone else dealing with it. All I need is you and here and now.”
“Loose ends to tie up.” Everything she’d told him now made perfect sense.
Context.
Our Gravity Page 13