by C. C. Wood
It was probably a smart move on their part, but it meant that I didn't have a lot of friends when I graduated high school.
During college, I didn't have many friends because I had no clue how to make them or keep them after so many years of solitude.
As soon as the marshmallow was almost black on the outside, I placed it between the crackers and pulled the fork out of it. Smiling, I handed it to J.J.
"Thanks. I can't believe you remembered how I like them."
I shrugged and put another marshmallow on the fondue fork. "You always incinerated them when you came over for weenie roasts. Kinda hard not to miss when you were the only guy with a black marshmallow on your s'more."
J.J. grinned but didn't speak. He just grabbed the s'more and lifted it to his mouth for a big bite.
I giggled as he sucked in air and cursed when the molten marshmallow hit his tongue.
When mine was lightly toasted and just a shade darker than golden brown, I put it between two graham crackers and smooshed it flat.
In a few quick motions, I had the fondue fork in the sink of soapy water, the burner off, and the rack back in place.
"Cheers," I said to J.J., lifting my s'more up to him.
He laughed. "I see that hasn't changed either."
He tapped his graham cracker goodness against mine and we each took a bite.
"Mmmmhhhhmmmm, yum," I moaned.
In the dim light of my kitchen, J.J. and I ate our s'mores standing in front of the sink, holding little plates beneath our chins to catch the crumbs.
When we were done, I insisted on washing the last few dishes while he put the chicken and vegetables into containers. Five of them.
He'd made enough food for a full week of dinners. Just because he wanted to make sure I had a healthy meal to eat even when I was too tired to cook.
Once everything was clean, he put the containers in my fridge and said, "I don't know how well they'll freeze, but you could probably stick'em in there if you don't eat them all this week."
"Thanks," I said. I hesitated too long in saying anything else though because he headed toward his shoes.
"Are you leaving?" I asked.
He stopped in the process of sliding his feet into his sneakers. "I figured you'd be heading to bed soon."
I shrugged. "I usually watch a little TV before bed." I glanced at the clock. Nine-forty-five. "You're welcome to join me if you don't have to head home."
He didn't say anything, just used his foot to shove his shoes back toward the wall, which made me smile.
He followed me into the tiny living room off the kitchen and plopped down in the middle of my small couch while I turned on the lamp and looked for the remote.
"I don't have cable," I admitted. "Just a few streaming channels. There's no use paying the bill when I'm barely home to watch."
"Sounds like a smart move," he commented, propping his feet up on my coffee table.
If I'd had nice furniture, I probably would have told him not to do that, but it was a scratched, chipped garage sale find, so I really didn't mind if he put his sock-clad feet on it.
Once I found the remote, I had no choice but to sit right beside J.J., which meant I was practically glued to his side because the worn cushions were sunken in the middle.
I'd barely settled in when he took the remote from me and started clicking through the menu so rapidly that I was a little dizzy.
"What do you like to watch?" he asked.
"Anything but golf. It puts me to sleep."
J.J. chuckled and put his right arm around me, using his left to navigate my streaming channels. "How about something funny?"
"Sounds good," I answered, trying to hide my sudden yawn.
If he noticed, he didn't say anything, but I did rest my head on his shoulder because in this position I had to crane it to the side to avoid bumping into the joint anyway.
J.J. slouched deeper into the couch, which meant I could rest the back of my head against his shoulder and still see the screen.
Finally, he laughed and clicked on a series I hadn't watched before. "I think you'll like this one. And the episodes are an hour each, so you can get to bed before it's too late."
As I settled deeper into his body and watched the opening credits roll across the screen, I thought that I wouldn't mind doing this every night.
8
J.J. and I were both busy the rest of the week, so there were no more quiet dinners together, but he did call or text me every day.
Every. Single. Day.
I honestly didn't know how I felt about it because my moods were all over the place. I was beginning to understand why my oldest brother said he dreaded my mother's pregnancies once he was old enough to understand that the thing growing in Mommy's belly was what made her completely unhinged.
When he'd said it several years ago during his wife's first pregnancy, I'd blown him off.
But now I understood.
One minute, I thought J.J. was the sweetest man alive for making me dinners and calling or texting to check on me every day. I loved the thoughtful gifts he sent and I hated that I couldn't see him.
But an hour or so later, I'd be ready to rip his head off because I didn't need him checking in on me every day like I was helpless or stupid.
It was especially scary because I'd never been the head-ripping type. I'd always been more of the sneaky vengeance type. I'd set things up so that my brothers would tell on themselves, or so they would get caught doing things they weren't supposed to.
Like the time Robert snuck out to go to a party and get drunk. Normally, I would never have done anything to get him caught, but he'd stepped on the pretty tea party I'd set up for my Barbies and told me to buzz off when I got upset.
So, I took one of Scott's motion-sensor toys that blared a siren anytime you walked by it and put it right outside the door of Robert's room. He didn't notice it when he stumbled in, drunk and probably high, and set it off at three in the morning.
My parents were light sleepers after having five kids, so my dad came out to check on the noise and found Robert reeking of alcohol, weed, and wearing his shirt inside out.
Needless to say, he'd been grounded for the better part of that semester.
I still laughed any time I thought about it.
But I'd never been a violent person unless I was pushed too far. Pushing from the Prescott boys was completely different from J.J.'s perfectly acceptable messages and calls to ask me how I was doing that day and if the morning sickness was getting any better.
There was no reason for me to want to reach through the phone and smack him.
I was pretty sure that Cam and Sierra noticed my moodiness, too. Usually, when I got too quiet at work, which I was prone to do, they would cut up and bicker in an effort to make me laugh.
Now, they just worked in silence right alongside me.
At least I hoped it was my moodiness that caused the change and not the fact that they were thinking of getting rid of me now that I was pregnant.
God, see what I mean? My thoughts, my moods, my body. Every part of me felt like it was going all over the place and there was no hope.
My last day at the shop for the week was Friday. Cam always tried to give me at least one full weekend off a month. I didn't expect it or even ask for it, but she made the effort, which I appreciated.
This weekend was the one and I was so looking forward to it. I fully intended to sleep most of the day tomorrow and spend Sunday doing nothing but puttering in my garden and cleaning my own house.
"Don't forget about Sunday," Cam said to me as I gathered my things to leave.
I shot her a blank glance. "Sunday? Do you need me to work?"
She smiled at me. "No, Sunday dinner at my parents, remember?" Her smile faded. "Unless you changed your mind."
I hadn't changed my mind. I'd forgotten completely, which was utterly unlike me.
"No, no. I'm going to be there." I swung my purse over my shoulder and grabbed my lu
nch bag. Since the nausea was kicking my tail, I tended to bring food that I knew wouldn't bother me to work. Plus, I was trying to save every spare nickel and dime, so there would be no more eating out for me for a long while.
"You didn't tell your parents that I'm..." I let the rest of the question hang in the air, unspoken.
Cam shook her head. "No. You told me that you wanted it to stay between us for now and that's what will happen. And I don't blame you."
"Thanks, Cam."
"Don't thank me for that. Thank me for not beating up my brother. That was the most difficult task."
I shouldn't laugh, but I did. "I told you not to blame him. We're both adults and we did everything we were supposed to do but this still happened."
"Everything you were supposed to do?" Cam scoffed. "The only thing he was supposed to do was keep his hands off the best employee I've ever had!"
"Seriously, Cameron. Stop blaming him," I said. "You should be mad at me for hooking up with your brother the night of your wedding!"
She sighed. "No, I shouldn't. I've never heard you mention dating someone since you started working here, yet you take my brother home that night. That sounds like he convinced you, not the other way around."
"It was a mutual convincing," I stated. After a short pause, I confessed, "I always had a crush on him when I was younger. He'd come over to hang with Scott and he was so handsome and so much nicer to me than any of my brothers' other friends." I shrugged. "So it wasn't as if he took advantage of me. I made a choice with my eyes wide open."
"And something else wide open considering your current condition."
I squeaked and whirled around to find Sierra standing in the doorway of Cam's office, smirking.
"You did not just say that!" Cam exclaimed, jumping to her feet behind her desk.
"I'm sure there's more than one way to get knocked up, but that's the most popular one."
I had to laugh. Sierra was completely irreverent and outrageous and if she wasn't already in love with and married to Benjamin Murphy, I would have fixed her up with Scott. She was exactly the kind of woman he needed to date instead of the ones who expected him to fix all their problems before they broke his heart.
"See? Lee thinks it's funny," Sierra said, gesturing toward me. "Don't get your panties in a twist."
"Okay, I'm going to head out," I said, clapping my hands together to interrupt them. "What time should I be at your parents' house, Cam?" I asked her.
"We eat around one or one-thirty, but I'm pretty sure J.J. said something about picking you up, so I'm sure he'll be in touch."
I bit back a sigh. Yes, he likely would. He would also be disappointed because I intended to drive myself to the McClanes' on Sunday. Until I decided what I wanted to do, and if I seriously wanted to consider the marriage proposal J.J. had only uttered once, I didn't want his parents to think we were together.
I liked Colette and Malcolm and I didn't want to get their hopes up.
Cam snickered, breaking me out of my thoughts. "Oh, Lee. I'm actually kinda glad J.J. knocked you up. He has no idea what hit him or even what he's in for."
I frowned at her, a bit offended. "I'm not going to do anything mean to him."
She waved a hand at me. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just that J.J. is used to women giving him exactly what he wants because of that pretty face and his nice manners. The fact that you aren't falling into line with his plans, well, it's gonna throw him for a loop."
I didn't tell her that other than the one time he mentioned marriage, J.J. hadn't said a single thing about future plans between the two of us.
I was too afraid of what I might see in her face.
Cam was right about J.J.'s intent to give me a ride to his parents.
But she was wrong about him being thrown for a loop.
When he called me Saturday evening to see what time he could pick me up for lunch the next day, I told him that I was driving myself and I would meet him there.
He took it in stride without so much as a word of argument.
After a short conversation, we disconnected and I spent the rest of the day either napping or feeling vaguely disconcerted about the lack of response from J.J.
Cam seemed positive that he would behave a certain way. And, honestly, I'd expected him to bring up marriage again, as well.
But he hadn't done either of those things.
I wondered, and not for the first or even tenth time, if he'd changed his mind about wanting to marry me for the baby's sake.
It shouldn't have bothered me, especially since I'd rejected him the first time he'd mentioned it.
But it did.
I also had no idea what to do about it. In the past, if one of my few female friends in college had an issue with their boyfriends, I'd tell them to talk to him.
I'd even made that suggestion to my brothers on multiple occasions, but they seemed to have a switch that flipped directly to "self-destruction in progress" any time there was a woman involved.
Now, in my current predicament, I wanted to go back in time and smack some sense into past me. Granted, my situation was a little different than the complaints that my friends had made about him not wanting to spend time with them. Or him ignoring them for his video games. Or him acting differently in front of his friends.
It wasn't like I could just approach J.J. and say, "Hey, let's talk about that marriage thing you brought up before."
Because that wouldn't be weird or uncomfortable for anyone. Least of all me.
I knew that worrying about this would do me no good, but I was still waiting for Cam and Sierra to tell me what they'd come up with for health insurance for me. Or if they could do it at all.
It was nerve-wracking, this waiting.
That was probably why I was seriously considering the proposal J.J. had given once but never mentioned again.
I knew when I parked in front of the McClanes' pretty white farmhouse on Sunday that I would have to ask Cam tomorrow at work. It was the only way I could decide what my next step should be.
Logically, I knew marriage was not my only option since I wanted to keep the baby. I could find a job with benefits, probably closer to the city, and do just fine. Though I'd have to put the baby in daycare and that would cost an arm and a leg.
There was also the fact that I'd have to move. Right now, I had no rent or mortgage payment, just taxes and insurance, which in our little part of the world, wasn't too expensive.
If I moved closer to the city, those prices would be astronomical.
And I wouldn't be close enough for my parents and siblings to help me out by babysitting or running errands if I was in a pinch. Two of my brothers had kids and I remembered how crazy the first year of their kids' lives were. I was going to need help. If I tried to do everything myself, I would explode.
All of these thoughts were still racing in my brain when I walked up the front steps. The first person I saw was Cam because she opened the door and met me on the porch.
"Hey, Lee. Um, can I talk to you for a second before we go inside?" she asked.
I nodded. The heat in September was still intense, but the shade of the porch helped some. I ignored the sweat that popped out on my forehead as we shifted toward the swing on the front porch. Cam sat but I shook my head when she gestured for me to join her.
"Motion-slash-morning sickness," I said quietly.
She nodded and laced her fingers together. "I'm not sure exactly how to tell you this, but I thought it would be better if I did it instead of Sierra."
My first thought was that she was firing me, but I doubted she would do that right before a family event that I'd been invited to. The next logical choice was about my request to go full-time and have benefits earlier than she planned.
So, I was somewhat prepared when she said, "I'm so sorry, but there's no way we can get you on full-time and with benefits until February. We have a lot of capital already tied up in the second location and we haven't even started renovations ye
t. I wanted to put it off, but it was too late. We'd already signed contracts and invested the money. I am so, so sorry," she repeated.
I nodded. "I expected as much. And I meant it when I said that you shouldn't put that off. If you have momentum now, you need to use it because it'll be a lot harder to get the ball rolling again later if you don't."
"I'm worried about you," she said.
"I'll be okay," I reassured her. And myself.
I would be okay. I'd have to be.
"Listen, I know that I gripe about him a lot, but J.J. is a good guy." She stood and cleared her throat. "Don't tell him I said that because his ego is gargantuan enough already. But, if he says he wants to help, that he wants to be involved in the pregnancy and the baby's life, he means it." Her eyes darted toward the house. "He's had two excellent examples of parenthood, plus Brody is an amazing dad, so he'd probably give him some good advice, too."
I glanced toward the house as well and realized I could see J.J. through the thin curtains over the windows. He was moving around in the living room, playing with Jacks. They were both laughing.
"I know," I said as I watched them. "What I don't know is how we're going to make it work."
Cam shrugged. "The only way to figure it out is to sit down and talk about it. Together. It sounds cheesy and very self-help of me, but it's true."
"Yeah, we do need to talk," I murmured.
J.J. must have noticed Cam and I standing in front of the window because he stopped chasing Jacks and sent her into the dining room, probably to find her dad. Then, he sauntered over to the front door and opened it.
"Why are the two of you standing out here in the heat?" he asked, joining us on the porch.
Cam squeezed my hand and did exactly what I figured she would—she abandoned me. "Work stuff. I'm going to go in and see if Mom needs some help with lunch. Maybe y'all should talk."
I sighed as the screen door slapped shut behind her when she went inside. Great, now that she'd planted that little suggestion, I was sure her brother would follow through.
J.J. turned toward me. "You're pale. Are you feeling sick?"