Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Van
A few days had passed since the kiss that would make the next two months and one week feel like ten years.
Ten years of wondering if she was soft everywhere, if she tasted just as sweet everywhere.
Ten years of knowing that my brother knew the answer. He’d experienced it. A permanent sour taste stained my tongue.
Ten years of admitting I was no better than him.
The hurt in her eyes… It had been my fault. My goddamn inner asshole reared its ugly head.
It wasn’t Clover’s fault. She was a desirable woman. Attractive, smart, and funny. Adorable and sexy. Unless she had bodies buried all over the property, she was the whole package, and even then, I’d think long and hard about justifying those graves before I turned her in.
But she wasn’t a serial killer. I was keeping my distance as if she was one, though.
The atmosphere in the house was cold and quiet.
We didn’t talk. I slept on the couch, claiming that it was my shoulder.
My joint was fine. So was my knee. I didn’t deserve the bed after the hurt I’d put in her eyes.
I was in my office for the tenth hour. I’d made more progress in the last few days than I had in three months living with my demanding parents. Amazing how productive I could be when I was avoiding the woman of my dreams.
My stomach cramped for the eighth time in the last half hour. I had skipped lunch, and it was well past dinnertime. I needed food, and I’d have to walk by Clover to get it. Whether she was at the table behind her two massive monitors or if she was watching TV, this house was too small to avoid her.
I pushed a hand through my hair. Shit. Grow up, Van. I didn’t avoid my brother this much when he was being a peak narcissist.
With a sigh, I rose. The dining room light was off, but a dull glow flickered from the room.
When I turned into it, my stomach sank. She was curled in her chair with her knees to her chest. A blanket cocooned her, and she stared at her screen.
Her wan smile was a punch right to the sternum, and it wasn’t aimed at me.
Why wasn’t she curled up on the couch? “What are you doing?”
She didn’t glance at me. “Watching Sweet Home Alabama.”
I stopped before the kitchen and turned to look at the dark living room. “At the table?”
“You’re sleeping on the couch. I don’t want to—”
“Jesus, Clover. Have you been spending your entire day in that chair?” It wasn’t even padded. I was supposed to be the uncomfortable one. I was the asshole, and I wasn’t pregnant.
“You spend all day in the office.”
“In my gamer’s chair. The one specially designed for long periods of time.” I raked another hand through my hair. Not only that, but I also got up a lot during the day. My knee hurt if it was bent too long. “Go sit on the couch.”
“No, it’s fine.” She clicked her screen off. “It’s almost time for bed anyway.”
“I’ll put the TV in the bedroom.”
“Van, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.” If it was, she would look at me. She’d smile at me. She wouldn’t sound distant when we were feet apart. I put my hands on my hips. Was that too confrontational? I crossed my arms. That wasn’t better. Hands went on the hips again. “I’ll sleep in the bed tonight. Go be comfortable.”
She hugged the blanket tighter around her. “I know you don’t want to sleep in the same bed with me. It’s okay. I can make compromises too.”
“No.” Frustration scratched over my skin. “No, Clover. I crossed a line and made you uncomfortable, all for a stupid kiss.”
Her lips formed a troubled line. “The kiss wasn’t that bad.”
I paused. It was fucking amazing. For me. “Wasn’t it good?” I squeezed my eyelids shut and shook my head. Her sweet moans. Her soft curves. Good was an understatement. I opened my eyes. “Never mind.”
“Are you afraid I’ll compare you and Elijah? Rate each of you on a scale from one to ten?” Fatigue was scrawled over her face. “Do you want to know the results?”
“It’s not like that.”
She flung her arms out. “All of this is like that. He got a zero out of ten for loyalty. You get a ten out of ten for cleaning up his mess. He gets a six for how he treated me before he fucked another woman, but so far, you’re at a ten.
I’ll keep you at a ten if you don’t want to pick pumpkins because I don’t blame you for how you reacted about the kiss, and you don’t make me feel like shit about myself otherwise.
When it comes to this baby, I’m sure Elijah’ll be at zero, and I know you will be too, but again, I don’t blame you.
But he really should be in the negative.
As for the kiss, his were a seven, but yours was an eleven out of ten. There? Better?”
The numbers banged through my head, and each time I came out ahead, even when I was at a zero with him when it came to the baby.
My throat was closing up. I never beat Elijah at anything, but she just rattled off a list from the top of her head.
No one had made me feel so seen. No one had so thoroughly stripped me down either.
“You shouldn’t give me a ten for how I treat you,” I said thickly. “That should be the base. It should be zero. And I should be in the negatives for how I’ve acted since the kiss.”
She sighed and gathered her blanket. “No, I get it. I’m your brother’s ex. I didn’t even have the good sense to break up with him. He ran off on me. Now I’m pregnant with his kid, and you’re stuck with me. I’m sure the kiss was a solid minus eight for you.”
“No, Clover.” She shouldn’t be brushing herself off like that. Of all the people in the world, I should understand. “You were a hundred out of ten.”
She scoffed and hugged the material tighter to her. “You don’t have to make me feel better. I’m a big girl, and you’ve been honest with me from the beginning.”
“I’m still being honest. Why do you think that is? Because I want to keep finding out where else you score an infinity.”
Her lower lip puffed out, but the vulnerability shining in her eyes gutted me. “You don’t mean that.”
“I haven’t lied to you yet. Except about my shoulder. It doesn’t hurt, and it’s not why I was on the couch, though you’re smart enough to guess that. I’ll sleep in the bed tonight. And I’m going to go pick goddamn pumpkins with you.”
A small smile played over her lips. “That’s the name of his patch. GD Pumpkins.”
I chuckled. Evander looked like a guy who’d say that.
A loud silence fell between us. I was glad we could reach this point. We were talking, but it didn’t make up for how I behaved. I was better than Elijah when it mattered, and that was because of how I treated Clover. “I have a lot of baggage when it comes to my brother.”
She barked out a laugh. “I don’t want to turn it into a competition, but yeah. I might have more.”
I didn’t smile. I wasn’t digging into the weeds about me and Elijah, but I wasn’t going to tell her everything. A guy had his pride, and Elijah had smashed it enough.
She poked her thumb over her shoulder. “I should get to sleep anyway. I have my appointment in the morning, and then I’ll work a little later than normal.”
Her first prenatal appointment, and she was going alone. It was unfair. If it was my baby, I wouldn’t miss a thing. “Do you, uh…need any help?”
Sadness streaked across her face. “No,” she said quietly. “I know any of my siblings would show if I said something, but I need to get used to doing all this alone. Thank you, though.”
“I’m not going to be a zero.” That rating had bothered me. It wasn’t about the competition with my brother. It was about her and a little bean who was my family. “With the baby. I won’t be a zero.”
“I appreciate that.” Her tone said she’d believe it when I lived up to my word. So I would make sure of it. She lifted her chin to the kitchen. “There’s some spaghetti and meatballs left over.”
My stomach clenched. “Sounds good.”
“It was, if I do say so. A solid eight out of ten.” She continued to the hallway. “Good night, Van.”
It would be now that I could sleep in the bed next to her.
Clover
I put my jeans on and winced. These were getting snug. I took them off and tossed them in a pile of clothing that I wouldn’t be able to wear for a while, if ever again.
I stepped into my loose shorts from the summer. Well, looser. Those were getting snugger too. My stomach wasn’t any more rounded than before, but my body was already changing and shifting.
Time for my first prenatal visit. Alone.
It was just another doctor’s appointment.
If I kept telling myself that, maybe I’d feel it too.
Anxiety, trepidation, and a large dollop of excitement swirled in a small tornado in my gut.
This appointment was the most major one I’d ever had, but that also meant I was fortunate.
I’d get to learn about this baby and my pregnancy. I could do this. It’d be fine.
I clipped my hair up and bypassed the makeup.
I wouldn’t need to impress anyone, but I had more color in my cheeks than in the last few days.
Talking with Van last night had eased a lot of anxiety that had settled into my bones since the kiss.
I’d also gotten the deepest sleep of my life as soon as Van’s weight was next to me in bed.
I left the bedroom and went to the kitchen. My stomach protested. No, I could not eat this morning.
Van was munching on a breakfast sandwich. He shoved the last bite in his mouth and dusted off his fingers. “Hungry?”
“I’ll get something after I’m done.” I pressed a hand to my stomach. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“Nervous?” He dug his keys out and twirled them on his finger.
“Yeah. Kinda excited too, I guess.”
“Let’s go so you’re nice and early.”
Was he… No. He couldn’t be. Yet he was dressed in jeans and a polo when he normally wore shorts and a T-shirt in his office. He had his shoes on. Elation could’ve lifted me off my feet, but I had to be misunderstanding this. He wouldn’t miss work for this. Would he? “Where are you going?”
“With you.”
Stunned, I stared at him. “What?”
“You shouldn’t have to do this by yourself.”
And I’d told him that I didn’t expect my family to hold my hand. Did he think I would stress myself too much? I was too inept? “You don’t have to.”
“Bean is my niece or nephew. Consider me checking in early for uncle duty.”
Oh. He wasn’t going to be a zero, and this baby was a part of his life—if he wanted it to be.
“You don’t have to, but thank you.” Heat poked the backs of my eyes. I didn’t realize how anxious I was until a tremble ran through my body, ending in my hands. I hooked them on my purse so he didn’t see them shaking.
“My pleasure. We can take my truck.”
“There might, um, be a physical, and it’ll involve stirrups.”
He winced. “If you said that to a dude about what his appointment would be like, he’d be running.”
“Wait until you see the speculum.”
Color leached from his face. “I don’t know what that is, but I don’t like that word.”
Laughing, I headed into the garage, and he followed me.
It didn’t take long to drive to the clinic.
Walking in with Van should’ve been weirder than it was, but I was grateful to have someone by my side.
We’d been living together for three weeks.
Perhaps that was why. He’d met my whole family.
All of them. He’d played kickball with us, we’d slept next to each other, and we’d even had our first fight.
I checked in at the counter, and we sat in the waiting room. Since Coal Haven was small, the clinic was for everyone. It was big enough to have a doctor who took obstetric patients, or I’d have to drive to Bismarck.
We scrolled through our phones, sitting side by side. He bounced a leg, and that was the only sign he might be nervous. A familiar face popped out of the door to the patient rooms.
“Clover, hi,” Emery Barron said. Her hair was in a clip, the strands fanning out behind her. She wore purple scrubs. “You can come on back.”
Her brows lifted when she saw Van next to me, but understanding filled her eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if news got back to her through the Duke, Knight, and Barron grapevine.
Relief flowed through me, and I smiled as I rose and followed her. Van’s presence was a secure wall behind me. Once we were in the exam room, Emery shut the door and sat by the desk.
“You know my situation, don’t you?” I rubbed my hands together. “It’s okay if you do. The less I have to explain, the better.”
Her smile was just as comforting as being with Van. “I heard the story, but trust me, lots of stories have walked through these doors. Dr. Abdallah is only concerned about you and the baby. Whoever you’re comfortable with having with you is fine with us.”
“This is Van.” I clasped Van’s strong hand and let go like I touched a hot stove. “Van, this is Emery. She’s married to a cousin of Evander’s.”
Emery grinned. “Holden’s also the cousin of the guy married to Eliot’s sister.”
“Lily’s husband.” His smile was friendly. “I don’t know all the cousins yet, but I’m guessing the pumpkin day will clear it all up.”
“Or make it more confusing,” Emery said with a laugh. She fired up the computer on the desk. “Because all the kids will be there. I’m glad you’re coming. It’s a legendary weekend.”