14. Sully #2
“Hello to you, too.” She raised a brow at me, though her lips were crooked—a hint of a smile. “Want me to be your neighbor again, Sul?”
“You always were the best neighbor, El,” I said softly, trying and failing not to grin at her.
I’d found myself doing that a lot today—smiling at random.
There were still unresolved matters between us. Matters that would not be going away. Those things would need to be talked about because they had very real ties to what we were facing now, today.
But so much of my anger melted away yesterday when she stood in the kitchen at Maple Street and told me she was here because of me.
She hadn’t come back for me, but she’d come back because she wanted to do this with me. She’d uprooted her entire life again so that we could do this together. She’d moved across the country because she knew raising my child here was my dream. And fuck, if that didn’t change everything.
She’d left.
But when it mattered—when it really fucking mattered—she’d come back.
For today, I just wanted to let myself believe there was a reason to smile again. Especially when Ellie stood there all rosy-cheeked, wearing a little red sundress and old Chucks from high school while the breeze sifted through her soft, dark hair.
Fuck, I wanted to throw her over my shoulder in the exact way I had in the elevator in Boston. I wanted to cart her off somewhere, strip her down, lay her out bare. Lay myself out bare, get her to see me again. Really see me.
“I’ve been living in apartments for a few years now,” Ellie said thoughtfully, “and I think I’d like a break. I think I’d like to feel grass under my feet again when I walk out the front door.”
I strode to the suitcases on either side of her, frowning as I wondered how they’d made it out here.
There weren’t any main-level bedrooms in my mom’s lake house, so Ellie would have had to carry these up or down the stairs.
I didn’t fucking like that, but there was nothing I could do about it now.
Except make sure it didn’t happen again.
“Makes sense,” I acknowledged. “I was just kidding, anyway.” I hadn’t been kidding. “I was only thinking about how many miles I’m going to be putting on my car, considering I’m coming over every night to do your dishes and read you a bedtime story.”
Ellie’s eyes rolled up. “And I was kidding about that.”
When her gaze settled on me again, there was a look of warning in it, and I delighted in the knowledge that she knew I was half-serious. Grabbing the handles of both suitcases before she could dare to take one, I chuckled under my breath.
It might be dangerous, this slice of happiness.
I strode back to my car, tossing both pieces of luggage—which were heavy, for the record—in my trunk. When I turned around, Ellie stood at the side of her car, parked in front of mine in the driveway. I examined its spots of rust and thought—again—about how it needed a jump the other night.
“We should get you a new car.”
“We should not do anything about my car. I got a tune-up the other day. It’s fine.”
“I can research options tonight,” I said, “After I read you a bedtime story. How does The Hobbit sound, by the way?”
“You will not be doing any car research, and you will not be buying me a car,” she said, a little more stern.
Noticed she didn’t have any opposition to The Hobbit, though.
Excellent.
“It’s not just for you. It’s for both of you,” I pointed out. I was worried enough about her driving that car before I knew she was pregnant. Now it definitely had to go.
“Sawyer…”
I was smiling again. There was something about the way she gritted my name out between her teeth like that.
“You know, my brother’s a millionaire.” I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t help it. “Maybe I’ll tell Noah you need a new car. You can’t reject a gift, now, can you? Just ask my mom.” I gestured to the house behind her.
“I sure can.” But she didn’t sound so certain, and she dropped her voice as she added, “Don’t you dare say anything to Noah about my car.”
I cocked a brow. “You know he would.”
“I do, which is why I need you not to say anything, Sawyer.”
I grinned harder, unable to stop myself.
“Fine.” And then, sobering a bit, I asked, “Are we saying anything to anyone?”
She shifted on her feet, leaning a hip on the curved, rusty exterior of her Corolla. “I mean, we’ll have to eventually, right?”
“Yeah, eventually, we will.” I mimicked her, leaning my own hip against my car door. “Eventually, we’ll have a blue-eyed, black-haired baby to explain.”
Ellie’s eyes shone at my words, and I knew she was picturing it. I knew she wanted it.
She wanted this with me.
She came home.
“Eventually,” she whispered, a sheen over her pretty brown gaze. “But maybe not yet.”
I nodded because that was fine with me. I didn’t really feel like sharing her or this or anything yet. “So, just to clarify…my mom knows nothing?”
“Your mom knows nothing,” she confirmed.
“And yours?”
She stiffened a little before shaking her head.
“Nothing.”
“When you told them you were coming home, what did you say?”
“Nothing, really.” She shrugged and looked away, making me wonder if her mom even knew she was home. “When I stayed with your mom, she didn’t pry much, either.”
“That’s a miracle,” I snorted.
Ellie looked shy, a little sheepish all of a sudden, as her eyes moved back to me. “I think she was hoping that there was a reason I wasn’t telling her, and that reason involved you.”
“Well, there was a reason you weren’t telling her, and it did involve me.”
She laughed and then looked over her shoulder as though she expected my mom to appear out of nowhere in front of the house, ready to collect gossip, steaming loon mug in hand. “Yeah, but I doubt she suspects I’m pregnant.”
“Mm.” I smiled. And then I just stared at her like an absolute goon.
Because Eleanor Summers was pregnant, and I was going to be a dad, and for a single split second, everything was right in the world.
She was home, and she was gorgeous, and she was—well, not mine.
Not quite, but something like mine. Because she was growing a child that was mine, and I—
“Sully?”
I shook myself out of it. “Hm?”
“You’re looking at me funny. Do you think your mom suspects I’m pregnant?”
I blew out a breath. Fuck me, I was going to have to figure out how to do a better job acting neutral and not stare at her like I wanted to eat her alive.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” I said. “Annie is wise beyond reason.”
It did make me feel a little better, though.
I’d assumed my mom had known more things about Ellie that she wasn’t telling me, but it didn’t seem like that was the case.
And while I doubted she actually suspected the pregnancy, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d known that Ellie had needed her and needed family, support, and she’d stepped up.
She’d made sure Ellie had somewhere to go when she’d landed back in Minnesota, and she’d taken care of her.
And for that, honestly, I owed her a thank-you.
Eventually.
Because I didn’t hate the idea of keeping this to ourselves for a bit. It was a lot to process without involving my family on top of it, and didn’t most parents wait to tell others? Even parents who had been expecting this, who’d been planning for it?
Most importantly, if that was what Ellie wanted, I couldn’t ever say no. I didn’t ever know how to say no to Ellie, which was the reason for everything anyway.
I’d carried Ellie into her hotel room that night, thrown her on the bed, and when she’d looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said so very clearly, “I want you to fuck me,” I hadn’t been able to do anything but that.
I hadn’t wanted to do anything but that.
And now…well, now she was using the word coworkers while I sat here wondering what that all entailed.
I wondered what would happen when more hormones flooded her system, and if it would make her more sensitive and needy—even needier than in Boston—and if she was going to need someone to take care of her over the coming months, to satisfy all her cravings, to help her get through this.
Was that something a coworker would help with?
Because I would be employee of the fucking month—
“Sully?”
Shit, had she said something, and I’d missed it?
“Yeah?”
“Meet you over in Rosewood?” she asked, and I nodded.
“I’ll meet you there,” I said and then tried to discreetly adjust myself before getting in my car.
Get. Your. Shit. Together. Sullivan.
Maybe one day, I would have it all figured out.
Maybe.