Chapter 28
AMARA
“I don’t remember the last time I was bent over with my ass in the air without a man standing behind me.”
I bite back a laugh at Electra’s words, nearly falling out of downward dog. I don’t think the rest of the room—a room of pregnant women all doing prenatal yoga—appreciates her humor, but I’m so happy to be hanging out with her again that I don’t really care who’s annoyed with us.
“Seriously, how long do we have to hold this?” she mumbles, and the instructor, a thin older woman with the bending capacity of an uncooked pretzel, shushes us.
Electra bites her lips and we both muffle our giggles. It’s the first yoga class I’ve gone to, and when I told Electra I was going, she signed up too, even though she’s not pregnant.
“Listen, I’m curvy enough. Who are they to tell me I’m not with child?” she said, and I just laughed. She’s nuts and I love it.
Honestly though, between this and getting to work in the office again, life has been bliss.
Well. Other than the occasional unannounced threats I get from Jenica.
And the night sweats. And the half-asleep scares I’ve had in the middle of the night when I could have sworn I saw Tristan standing outside my window.
But all of that aside? Life is starting to look up. Except for right this moment, when life is looking down at the ground because we’ve been holding downward dog for no less than three solid minutes.
“Every drop of blood is in my head…” Electra says dramatically. “I think I’m going to pass out.”
On cue, whether the class is supposed to be over or not, the instructor has us shift into lotus—aka cross-legged sitting. We press our palms together and bow forward with a namaste.
“Thank God,” Electra says as we roll up our mats. “I really need a mimosa.”
It earns her no less than five dirty looks.
We make our way out of the studio, into the sunlight, and pause. I’m not ready to go back to the house yet. And I know Ransome’s rules. Yoga and home, no stopping in between.
Of course, we got out early today. And I really do need to eat.
“Let’s grab lunch,” I tell her, pivoting towards a Thai restaurant.
“Hell yeah. Now you’re talking.” She sighs dramatically. “All that bending in half has me starving. Who knew that yoga was actually a workout?”
“All the fit people who do it…” I trail off.
She just rolls her eyes in my direction before flipping me the bird.
After we get our food—pad thai for me and pineapple fried rice for her—Electra just smiles at me from across the table and shakes her head.
“What?” I ask, dabbing my mouth with a napkin.
“I just can’t believe you’re knocked up,” she says.
My hand moves to my belly. “Neither can I. And it’s almost over.”
“That's a good thing, right?” she asks as she loads a pile of rice onto her spoon. “I mean, I hear pregnancy really blows.”
“It actually hasn’t been that bad,” I say. “Other than the morning sickness at first. That was pretty bad. By the way? The name is deceiving. It doesn’t only happen in the morning.”
“Shit, really?”
“Really. Then there’s the leg cramps. The night sweats. The mood swings. And don’t get me started on sciatic nerve pain. I literally thought I was going to die.”
“Sounds amazing,” she smirks, and I laugh.
“Okay, but other than that, it really does feel pretty cool. Like I’m growing a human being. A little boy.”
Tears sting the back of my eyes. I guess I forgot to mention the involuntary waterworks.
“It will be kind of cool seeing the little guy running around,” she admits. “Playing in the dirt. Ice cream all over his face. It’s an excuse to go to Disney World, which has always been on my bucket list.”
“You just want to drink your way around the world,” I tease, and she puts her hands up.
“Don’t you? And once he’s born, we can do that.”
I smile at the thought of a wavy-haired little boy with bright blue eyes and a temper to boot.
But it quickly fades. I don’t know what my future looks like. If I had to guess, it’s not going to be your everyday perfect family scenario. It can’t be. Not with Jenica in the picture. Not with me still being a secret.
“So tell me about this guy you’re seeing,” I say. “Does he have social media?”
“No,” Electra answers casually.
“Well then, how did you meet him?” I ask. “You always meet men on dating apps.”
“Thanks. But no, I actually met this one in person.”
I gasp in faux shock. “An organic connection?”
“Yes. Can you believe it?” She laughs. “We actually met at a speakeasy. I was there alone. Well, I was there because the bartender is a snack and I was trying to get his number. Or at least a free drink. That’s when Sean came in and stood next to me. Stacked. Blonde. A devilish grin.”
“How was his nose?” I tease.
“Straight,” she fires back.
“A man who has never had a broken nose. That does sound like a step up from some of the men you’ve been with.”
“You’re not funny. But tease me all you want. He’s a catch. And he lets me spend his money, which he has a lot of.”
“As long as he’s a good guy,” I say. “So… if he’s all that and a bag of chips, when do I get to meet him?”
Electra crinkles her nose a little. “Well. I’m not sure. He’s not very social.”
“Yeah, but I’m your best friend,” I say. “It’s mandatory before it gets too serious for me to meet him.”
“Only if I get to meet your baby daddy in a setting where he isn’t shoving you off into an alley during a blind date,” she says with a finger pointed at me.
I giggle. “Fair enough.”
After Ivan drops me off, I curl up on the couch with a blanket and a book. As much as I truly am enjoying being back at Apex, I am exhausted. The third trimester really is the sleepy trimester.
I get about four pages into the first chapter when my phone rings. When I see the caller ID, I gasp, tossing the book aside and accepting the call immediately.
“Gianni!”
“Hey sis,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“How are you?” Fuck, I already need a tissue. “Oh my God, I miss you guys so much.”
“We miss you too,” another voice comes over the phone.
“Eliza! Am I on speaker phone? Is Bella there too?”
“She’s home, but she’s sleeping,” Eliza answers.
My eyebrows stitch together and I look at the wall clock. “Sleeping? It’s like, 2 P.M. On a Saturday? Jesus, do you guys let her sleep until 2 P.M.? Wake that girl up.”
“She was up earlier,” Gianni says. “She says she hasn’t been sleeping well at night, though.”
“Oh.” My smile dials down a couple of notches. “I hope everything’s alright.”
“How are things with you?” Eliza asks. “How’s the baby?”
“Is he taking care of you like he said he would?” Gianni asks.
“He is. The house is really nice. And your nephew is doing great. We did prenatal yoga today!”
“Oh! I hear that’s so good for you,” Eliza gushes.
“Are you safe where you are?” Gianni asks, less excited for me and more protective.
“I am, G. I’m staying at his estate.”
“Oh, an estate,” he says but his words are dripping with sarcasm. “A step up from the penthouse.”
“Be nice. She sounds good,” Eliza snaps at him. “You’re good, right?”
“I am,” I say. “But I miss you guys. Is anything new there?”
“We live in a town where the most exciting thing that happens is a new brand of beer hitting the taps at the bar,” Gianni mutters.
“Not that you should know,” I say. “You’re not twenty-one.”
“But they don’t know that.”
I sigh. Leave it to Gianni to take advantage of his brand-new fake identity to sneak a sip.
Mercifully, Eliza changes the subject. “Things have been good, sis. But we miss you too. So much.”
“Me too,” I echo as my throat tightens. “So, so much.”
“Who are you guys talking to?” a third voice, a cranky one, comes through the phone, and I perk up again.
“Bella?”
“You’re talking to Amara and you didn’t tell me?!”
“You were sleeping,” Eliza says.
“Yeah, and we weren’t about to wake the beast,” Gianni jokes.
There’s some rustling around and then, a moment later, the speaker phone is clicked off and the storm door closes.
“Okay, it’s just me now,” she says.
“Hey.” I smile. “How are things?”
“Shitty,” Bella answers with all the unfiltered angst that only a teenager can muster. “I broke up with my boyfriend.”
“Oh?” I ask. “What happened?”
“He was an idiot. He asked me to homecoming.”
“Oh. What a… terrible guy,” I say.
“Homecoming was on the same night as the Trash Pandas concert in Missoula! He took me out to dinner, well, pizza anyways. And I thought he was going to tell me he got concert tickets because he knew how hard I was trying to get those tickets. And then he got all weird and choked up and nasty and asked me to prom instead. Can you believe that?”
“God, no. Nothing nastier than a romantic man.”
“I know, right? So cringey.”
A giggle escapes my throat. “So how is everything else? Eliza said you haven’t been sleeping well?”
“I’m sleeping fine,” she snaps. “I just… keep waking up and have a hard time falling back asleep sometimes, that’s all.”
“I understand that.” I sigh. “Any reason why? For me, if I’m overthinking—”
“I’m not overthinking,” she cuts me off. “It’s more…” Bella stops and I wait. I’m not going to press her. Despite our age gap, Bella and I have always been able to talk to each other, even if it does take some patience on my part. “I keep seeing things, you know?”
“What kind of things?” I ask.
“Like… shadows. People? I don’t know.”
My stomach drops a little and I sit up straight. “Where?”
“Outside my window. Like, I woke up the other night because I was thirsty, so I went and got a glass of water. And when I came back, I could have sworn I saw a man outside. Standing in the backyard. It was creepy as fuck.”
My heart is racing in my chest. “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. It was dark, obviously. So it was more like a silhouette. But when I looked again, he was gone.”
“Maybe just a tree or something,” I reassure her. “Did you tell G or Eliza?”
“Nah,” she brushes it off as Bella often does. “They’ll think I’m being a baby. For all I know, it’s them trying to scare me.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say. And yet, I doubt it.
After we get off the phone, I stay on the couch for a while just staring at the window of the estate.
I wanted to ask her more questions. I want to know what the man looked like.
I want to know how often it happens. When the last time was that it happened.
But I also didn’t want to press. She’s under a lot of stress and the mind does funny things when it’s stressed.
Still. The idea of her seeing shadows—seeing men—outside her window at night, like someone’s watching her, following her… I don’t care for that.
I don’t care for that at all.