Chapter 20
Her finger poised over the phone, Angie turned to Brit. “Are you okay with this plan?”
Her throat felt like she’d swallowed a brick. She wanted to talk to Desiree. Really she did, but not right now. She’d figured on having time to work up to it, plan what she intended to say, even make some notes.
But there was no getting around it. She needed advice on navigating a single-woman pregnancy ASAP. Desiree was the most qualified person in town, maybe in the state or even the country, to give that advice.
Her upcoming marriage and honeymoon would put her out of reach for at least three weeks and by then…. yeah, it was now or never. Brit nodded. “If she’s willing to see me tonight, I need to go for it.”
“Alrighty.” Angie made the call and her mother suggested they come over in an hour. Angie disconnected. “See? I knew she’d make the time.”
“That’s very generous of her.” Except it left her staring at her bowl of spaghetti sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan and the ginormous helping of salad she’d dished for herself. She literally didn’t have the stomach for any of it.
Trent glanced over at her. “Problem?”
“I hate to say it, but I’m too nervous to eat.”
“Aww.” Angie put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think this through.” She glanced over at Trent. “I didn’t mean to screw up dinner.”
“The rest of you go ahead.” Needing to move and release her tension, Brit pushed back her chair. “I’ll just?—”
“No worries.” Trent got up. “You and I can have leftover spaghetti after you come back.” He took both bowls and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll mix the pasta and sauce together and stick it in the fridge.”
“I feel like a jerk after all the work you went through, Trent.” Angie left her chair, too. “But we should do the same with our meal.”
“Yeah, absolutely. We can eat later.” Dallas didn’t sound happy about it, but he followed her lead and stood. “We’re not going to sit here eating if you two?—”
“You absolutely should,” Brit said. “I’ll bet you’re starving after working on that bandstand all day.”
“Dallas told me that on the phone,” Trent called from the kitchen. “Stay there and eat your dinner. You put in a long day.”
“But if you’re not eating,” Dallas shot back, “that’ll be weird.”
“Brittany and I will go sit on the porch.”
Angie glanced at her. “Did he just call you Brittany?”
“Oh, yeah,” Dallas said. ‘I forgot to tell you he calls her that.”
Angie’s brow puckered. “Why?”
“Because it sounds prettier.” Trent came in and picked up their salad bowls. “I’ll stick these in the fridge, too.”
“I agree it’s prettier. I’ve just never heard you called that and I was startled. I assume it’s the name on your birth certificate?”
“Yep.”
“How do you feel about him calling you that?”
Warmth rushed to her cheeks, since the first time he used it they’d been in bed. “I like it. It seemed strange at first, but it does have a nice ring to it. Softer. My mom called me Brittany when I was little, but once I got to school I became Brit and now she uses that, too.”
Angie nodded. “Mom called me Angelique, even after I got a nickname. I asked her to stop because when you’re a kid you don’t want something that’s so different. Now I wouldn’t care.”
“Do you want me to call you Angelique?” Dallas sent her a questioning glance. “It’s kinda cool.”
“Maybe. Let me think about it.”
“Think about it while you’re eating.” Trent returned from the kitchen. “Please sit down and enjoy the meal and the fire. I wouldn’t mind having a chance to talk to Brittany before you head over there.”
He wanted a private conversation? She couldn’t imagine why. Well, she could, but she thought he’d invited chaperones to avoid tempting situations.
“Okay, if you insist.” Angie returned to her seat.
“Thanks, bro.” Dallas sat, too. “I’ll admit I’m really hungry.”
“Enjoy. We’ll be out on the porch if you need us.” Trent picked up a knit afghan from the back of the sofa and handed it to her. “It’s getting chilly.”
“Thanks.” As she took the soft blanket, she caught Angie and Dallas exchanging a look. Chances were they’d start talking about her relationship with Trent the minute the front door closed.
She’d be talking about it with Trent, too, once they made it out to the porch. He was acting way more like a lover than a friend. And she was enjoying it far too much.
He opened the door and ushered her out into the cool evening. The sun had dipped behind the mountains and the clouds drifted in the pale sky like shredded cotton candy.
She let out a sigh of pleasure. “This is gorgeous.”
“My favorite time of day.”
“Mine, too.” The fresh air and scenic view calmed her.
“Table or swing?”
A table and four chairs took up the space on the left side and a brown wicker swing hung on the right. “All things considered, I should choose the table, but I’m a sucker for a porch swing.”
“Then go ahead. I was planning to stand, anyway.”
“That’s silly. You told them we’d sit on the porch.” Wrapping the afghan around her shoulders, she took a position on the swing that would give him plenty of room without having to be right next to her. She patted the green cushion. “Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He faced her and propped his hips on the porch railing.
“I meant on the swing. Now you can’t see the view.”
“I have the view I want.”
Her heart fluttered as she basked in the warmth in his brown eyes. Being alone with him felt good. Too good.
“I probably wasn’t supposed to say that.”
“And I’m not supposed to like that you did.” Damn, he looked gorgeous propped against the railing, his broad shoulders slightly hunched as he gripped the railing with his strong, talented fingers. “What are we going to do about this?”
“This?”
“My mom said we give off sparks like the Fourth of July. Angie and Dallas are probably discussing that very topic right now.”
“I’m sure they are. And the short answer is, I don’t know what we should do in the long term. For the time being, I’m sitting on this railing instead of snuggling with you on the swing. I’m resisting the urge to haul you into my arms and kiss the living daylights out of you.”
The flutter in her chest turned into a rapid drumbeat. “I didn’t anticipate I’d react this way. I’ve had sexual relationships before. They were manageable. I never felt like….” She waved a hand in the air. “Like this.”
“Like you were going to combust any second?”
“Yes. And that needs to change. If we’re going to parent this baby as friends and not lovers, we have to be able to occupy the same room without being tempted to sneak into the nearest closet and rip off our clothes.”
He sucked in a breath and looked away. “Thanks for burning that image into my brain. Now wherever we are I’ll be scoping out every available closet.”
“It’s not a joke!”
He met her gaze. “I’m not kidding. If there was a closet on this porch?—”
“Trent.”
“See, that’s one of the reasons we give off sparks. We’ve ditched the condom requirement, so we can do it on the spur of the moment anywhere we choose because we don’t need anything but each other. My body vividly remembers being connected with yours and wants more of that. I’m doing my best to control that urge but it’s not easy.”
She gulped.
“You want it, too. I can tell. But instead we’ve chosen to make this a platonic friendship because it’ll be in the best interests of our baby.”
“Which, for the record, I still believe.”
“And I support you in that, despite the missteps I’ve made so far.”
“Like what?”
“I shouldn’t have put our chairs so close together tonight.”
“But you invited Angie and Dallas, which was a good thing. It also meant we had to sit closer so everyone could see the fire.”
“I’m glad I invited them.”
“So am I, even though I had a moment when I wished you hadn’t.”
He groaned. “Which means you might have considered?—”
“No! I want to believe I would have just enjoyed your company and then driven home.”
“I want to believe that’s the way it would have gone, too.” He was quiet for a moment. “I guess Desiree didn’t have this problem.”
“What makes you say that?”
“All the guys left. If they’d felt about Desiree the way I feel about you, they would have stuck around.”
“Some did, according to my mom. At least for a few months.”
“Oh? Even after she was pregnant?”
“I got that impression.”
“But in the end, everyone did leave. Why?”
“Turns out either they weren’t into parenthood, which might be the reason she picked them in the first place since she wanted custody, or they proposed and she rejected them.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and studied the porch floor for a few seconds. Then he glanced up, his expression bleak. “Whereas I’m totally into parenthood and I have no intention of proposing. Or leaving town.”
“I knew that when I asked you. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”
“You also didn’t think we’d have enough chemistry to set fire to our neat little plan.”
“I didn’t figure on that at all.”
He braced himself as if for a blow. “Maybe you picked the wrong guy.”