Chapter 17 Grace #2
Now I had to work not to tear up. Thankfully, I managed to keep it together while we finished.
Virginia paid and left me her number before heading out. When she was gone, I played over our time together, hoping I’d made a good first impression.
That was when my phone when off.
Dean
How is your day going?
I didn’t expect him to check in . . . but then again, I didn’t know what I expected from him anymore. He was younger. He was a playboy. Yet he’d handled parts of this with more maturity than I’d expected.
I met your mom.
Dean
Did she seriously come into town? I should have known she would do something like that.
She did. She’s sweet.
She is until you get on her bad side. But that’s more of a me thing. Is she still in town?
She just left. I think she has a client tomorrow so she can’t stay.
She’s probably admiring the town square. I’m gonna try to shove some money in her car. If you hear screaming, I got caught.
I laughed and put my phone away. I liked this side of him. He was both playful and nice. It was a far cry from the man I’d run into on the streets of Knoxville.
A moment later, I had another text from him.
Dean
Mission accomplished. I’m so glad she takes forever to do things.
Have you eaten anything?
I had breakfast AND lunch. Thanks a lot for checking, Dad.
I realized my mistake just after I hit sent.
I meant Dean. Sorry. Maybe I should wait to call you that until our child is born.
Dean
You can call me Dad when I’m being overbearing. Daddy is better overall, though.
My face was flaming.
Any chance you’ll forget that happened?
Nope.
“Are you sure you’re still up to this?”
I was in Jade’s car and we had just pulled up to Mollie’s farmhouse.
As the owner of Bennie Grove Farm, she had one of the nicest houses in town.
And a couple of weeks ago, she had invited us to a girls’ night, the first one since she’d had her baby.
At the time, I didn’t know my life was going to blow apart, so I said yes.
Now I was regretting it.
“No idea,” I said. “I have no clue if I can even pretend things are fine.”
“Still no word on the glucose test?” she asked.
I blew out a breath. “Nope. It feels like this is the only thing that’s on my mind. I have no idea if I’ll be any fun today.”
“I could make up something for you and drive you home,” she offered.
I immediately knew I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to have fun.
I also wanted to see Mollie in action. She’d just had a baby a few weeks ago. Would watching her be a peek into my own future?
“No, I wanna stay.” I looked at the house, which had the lights on. Inside, I could see two figures setting things up. “Would it be the end of the world if they knew?”
Jade’s eyebrows raised, but she didn’t immediately turn it down. “It’s your secret. You can tell who you want.”
“Mollie just had a baby,” I said. “And Wren knows Dean better than the rest of us.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me. I think it makes sense. I know next to nothing about all of this. Expanding your support group is never a bad thing as long as you trust them.”
I bit my lip, but nodded. “Will you defend me if they get weird?”
“To the death, girl.”
I let out a sigh of relief and got out of the car. The door opened as we got to the porch.
“You got Grace to come!” Mollie looked great for someone who just had a baby. She was glowing still. I wanted to be like her when I had mine.
“I did. Now, where’s Jasmine?” Jade wiggled her fingers. “I haven’t gotten to hold her yet and I’m dying to.”
“Cain took her to give me a break,” Mollie replied. “Which was very sweet, considering no one would have been upset if she were here, but he said he wanted baby time.”
“Has he been helpful?” I asked as we walked in.
“Cain’s been the best,” she said. “But don’t worry about him. I won’t bore you all with baby talk. I promise I still have a life.”
“She never stops,” Wren said. “It’s making me tired.”
“What? I also have berries to think about! I doubled my fields.”
“And had a baby?” I asked.
“It’s what I used my nesting energy for.”
Would I get nesting energy? It sounded nice. I was still tired all the time.
“Oh, I should get the lemonade.” Mollie had sat on the couch and then shot back up.
“You literally gave birth a few weeks ago. Sit down.” Wren got up.
“I could help too,” I offered.
“You’re a guest.” Mollie waved me off. “Just relax.”
I was not good at that. My leg bounced as I resisted the urge to get up and help anyway.
Wren was already walking out of the room. “And sorry if either of you wanted alcohol, this girls’ night is gonna be sober since Mollie is breastfeeding.”
“No problem,” Jade said. “It was like that the last time too.”
I’d come to that one. Back when my problems felt smaller.
“I can’t have it anyway.” I said it without thinking.
“Do you have one of those allergies?” Mollie asked. “Because if you do, I’ll make sure we never have it.”
“I didn’t agree to that,” Jade said.
“Let’s just say it’s a temporary thing,” I replied. “For a few months.”
Mollie raised her eyebrows and glanced at Wren as she returned with the lemonade. She opened her mouth and then shut it just as fast. I could tell both of them had questions, but neither wanted to pry. At least they weren’t trying to drag it out of me.
I gave Jade one glance and she responded with a smile and a nod. This was terrifying, but it was only a taste of what things would be like when I told the town.
“I’m pregnant,” I said, ignoring the way my fists tightened.
Wren ran straight into a wall and Mollie’s jaw dropped.
“I’m sorry, what?” Mollie asked.
“It’s a secret!” I rushed to say. “I’m trying to figure out how to tell the town. But, yeah. No alcohol for a while.”
A silence stretched out between us as both of them processed. I thought of all the things they could say.
You, of all people?
How did you mess up this badly?
You know this is gonna ruin your reputation, right?
All of those might have broken me.
But then Mollie slammed her hands down on the table. “Finally! Someone to talk about this with! Oh, I thought I was gonna be the only new mom forever.”
“There’re a lot of moms in town,” Wren reminded her.
“Not fresh ones! They’re all too old to remember the struggle.” Mollie turned to me. “Please tell me you’re throwing up everywhere.”
“Don’t wish that on her,” Wren said with a shake of her head.
“Wait, not like that! I just need to know I wasn’t alone.”
Finally, I loosened. This was going better than I thought it would. “Will you hate me if I said I didn’t know I was pregnant the whole first trimester?”
Mollie’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? So, it was just normal?”
“I was a little tired.”
“I’m . . . so happy for you,” Mollie said through clenched teeth. Then she shook her head and smiled. “I mean, really, I’m happy for you.”
“Is there anyone else in the picture?” Wren asked. “Or is it just you?”
I looked at Jade again. I hadn’t told her that things were going tentatively well with Dean. She didn’t know that he was slowly opening up, or that he’d held me while I cried about the glucose test.
“You know,” Mollie said, “if anyone can raise a baby on their own, it’s you.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Wren said. “And if you need help, I can build whatever. Cribs, toys. Ooh, what about a rocking chair?”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m not . . . entirely alone.”
“The jury’s still out on that,” Jade muttered. “Can I tell them about your lovely baby daddy who I might murder?”
“I love a good murder,” Wren replied.
“Things aren’t that bad,” I said. “It was rough for a bit, but we’re working things out.”
“Or you’re working things out. Grace here has a terrible habit of doing whatever she can to make others feel comfortable.”
“We can also add that she doesn’t love accepting help from others,” Wren added. “It took Dean sneaking off to fix a step because she kept insisting she would do it.”
Jade blinked and turned to me. “Dean was at your house?”
“My heat didn’t work and it turned out to be an electrical problem.”
“You can’t forget the part where he asked you out,” Wren added. I stared at her, silently begging her to shut her mouth.
“He what?” Jade nearly yelled.
“Is that a bad thing?” Mollie asked. “Being pregnant doesn’t mean you can’t live.”
Jade pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t reveal who he was, but it was clear we would be having a long talk about this.
“It was just to get to know me,” I rushed to say.
“Oh, I bet he does want to get to know you.” Wren laughed. “But not in the way you expect. He’s been into her for four months.”
I winced when she said it. Neither Mollie nor Wren were dumb, and after the words were out, I could see Mollie’s gears turning.
“Wait, how pregnant are you?” she asked.
“A-about four months.”
Wren gasped. “Wait a minute. No. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I could but . . . I’d be lying.”
“So, is Dean the dad?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Wren made a distressed whine.
“No, no. Dean is not—he told me he stayed away from you!”
“We kept it a secret.”
She groaned. “But he’s not dad material! He’s all charm and sleeping around.”
“We know,” Jade said flatly. “Hence the threats.”
“He told me he was sick yesterday!” she snapped. “Was he really? Or was he running from his responsibilities?”
“No,” I said. “He drove me to redo my glucose test because I was worried about it. I told him he didn’t have to, but he was there when I got the call and I cried and—” I paused when I realized I was rambling, and my cheeks grew hot. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“Hang on a second.” Jade’s voice was calm, but it shook in the way that told me she was not happy. “You mean to tell me he did all of that and I didn’t know?”
“I’m still processing it.” I shrugged. “It’s not every day that I think I have a read on a guy and then he flip-flops out from under me. He’s been . . . surprisingly mature lately.”
“Mature?” Jade scoffed. “I love you, but you and I have very different opinions on mature.”
“Why don’t you tell us what he’s done?” Mollie offered. “We can give some third-party advice.”
I nodded and told them about our dinner, where we’d agreed we were different but could meet in the middle. Then I mentioned all the things he’d done for me while I was worried about the glucose test, even mentioning when he’d snuck money into his mom’s car.
The three women in front of me all listened intently, but their eyes went wide the longer they did so.
“That’s . . . actually kind of mature,” Mollie said.
“Some of it’s the bare minimum,” Jade muttered. “But some’s more.”
“Wren, what do you think?” I asked. “You’ve known him the longest.”
She blinked and shook her head. “I mean, I’ve known him a long time, but only ever in a work capacity. I can say that he’s good at his job. He cares about it and goes above and beyond. That might extend to his personality, but he’s never let me get close enough to find out.”
“Things could change,” Mollie suggested. “Maybe this is the start of something new.”
“Not a relationship, though.” I shook my head. “That’s never gonna happen.”
“I mean, never say never. Henry and I did fall for each other while pretending to date.”
“Hang on,” Jade cut in. “Pretending to what?”
“Our relationship was fake for the cameras. Did you not know?”
Jade and I looked between each other.
“No!” Jade’s jaw was on the floor. “You mean the whole time, you were acting?”
“Not all of it,” she said. “It became real before the library renovation ended.”
She leaned back, hands running through her colorful hair. “I need to reevaluate everything. But you were so cute!”
“And you kissed!” I added.
“Yep. All fake. Until a few weeks after I fell. We hooked up on the exam table in the clinic.”
Jade and I gasped.
“The clinic? Where he does exams?” I was scandalized, yet I was no better. I’d done it in the dressing room and on the counter of the Treasure Trove.
“That’s his precious space!” Jade said. Even her face was red. “You two are freaky.”
“They are,” Mollie said. “I’ve heard too much.”
“So have I, Mrs. Breeding Kink.”
“Whoa!” Jade said. “Grace gets a bedazzled cock, you get a breeding fetish, and Wren gets to do things in public places?”
“And I get tied up,” Wren added.
“This isn’t fair! When will it be my turn?”
“Hang on,” Mollie said, putting up a finger. “I think we need to circle back to the bedazzled cock.”
“I think Grace would too if it hadn’t gotten her pregnant.”
“Jade!” I hissed. “You are the worst.”
“But you love me!”