Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Autumn
Inside the tiny restroom at the corner pharmacy, my hands shake as I rip open the pill’s packaging.
I suck back a yelp when I nick the fleshy bit between my thumb and index finger on the hard plastic edge that is as sharp as a knife, and I dance around on my feet until the pain passes and my vision stops swimming.
Bringing the bottle of water I purchased to my lips, I drop the pill on my tongue and…
and I don’t want to swallow it. Standing beneath the flickering yellow fluorescent lighting, I’m shocked by my reflection in the mirror, whose edges are rotting and desilvered with time and humidity.
I look as worn out and dingy as it does.
Forest won’t have to worry about me making his life any harder.
With that thought, I force myself to chug half the bottle of water in one go, choking and coughing some up and out into the sink when it nearly goes down the wrong tube.
Suddenly, I go flying back when the door swings open, slamming against my shoulder.
“Sorry!” a woman yells when she speeds past me, crashes to her knees in the accessibility stall, and pukes her guts up between heaving sobs.
“Bailey?” I rub the back of my head, having cracked it against the deteriorating tiled wall, and I stumble into the stall.
“It’s not fair,” Bailey whines before she heaves again. Forgetting the pain in my hand and head, I bend over Bailey and gather her mid-length hair away from her face. “Shayla never had morning sickness.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, rubbing her back.
“And it’s never just the mornings! It’s all d—” She lurches forward, gripping the edge of the public toilet bowl. Gross.
I hum and continue to rub her back until she’s finished, then help her stand on trembling legs where she towers above me, as always.
Already blessed to be five-foot-eight, she still wears the most ridiculous high heels that are even taller than mine.
Granted, her husband does top out at six-foot-five, so she still has to crane her neck when they kiss, but not as much.
Bailey swigs and spits out the rest of the water from my bottle. After we’ve washed our hands for a good five minutes each, I wet a paper towel and blot the back of her neck.
“Thanks,” she says, still trying to catch her breath. Something snags her attention when she starts to turn, and she lifts the jagged plastic packaging, her brows lifting to her hairline. “When did you start having sex?”
“I—”
“Was it with Forest? Oooh, tell me it was with Forest.” She cackles. “Dad will be so pissed when he finds out.”
“You can’t tell—”
“How was it? Is he big? I bet he’s packing a—”
“Oh my god.” I slap a hand over her mouth. “Shut up.”
She slaps my hand away. “You shut up.”
It’s like we’re teenagers again, fighting over some invisible slight. If she weren’t pregnant, I’m sure we’d already be on the floor in an alligator death roll, until one of us got the upper hand. And you know what? I kinda miss this.
“Oh my god, uncle, uncle!” I squeal when she gets me in a headlock and sticks a wet finger in my ear.
“Ha!” With a victorious smirk, Bailey lets go of me and helps to finger-comb my messy hair. “Now, really, tell me everything.”
I stuff the plastic packaging in the trash bin, then hold the door open for her. “All you need to know is that it was a mistake—one I will not be making again.”
Bailey’s face falls, and she’s quiet—other than her big giraffe heels clicking across the flooring—as she follows me out of the pharmacy.
“Was it small or something?” she asks, tucking her chin to her chest when we get to her fancy SUV, which is parked two spaces down from Dad’s.
I was nervous he’d ask me why I needed his keys, but thankfully, he’d been distracted with a phone call.
Bailey waggles her brows. “You know, his…”
I suppress an evil little smile and pout. “Tiny.” I hold up a pinky finger.
“Damn. That small?”
“Smaller.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I were.”
“But he still…”
“Yeah. One pump. That’s it.” Partially true.
“No freaking way,” Bailey says, shaking her head.
“Are you free for lunch?” I ask, since I could use any excuse not to see Forest just yet.
“I was actually on my way to the office to ask if you and Dad wanted to go to the deli. I only stopped here so I wouldn’t have to throw up on the side of the road.”
“Perfect,” I say, crossing to Dad’s car, though I wish I could drive back with her. “Meet you there.”
Dad did exactly what I didn’t want, but should have expected anyway: he invited Forest to come along.
Just great. The wind picks up as the clouds darken on our short walk to the deli two blocks from the office, and it starts to sprinkle.
The men offer Bailey and me their jackets, and I jump to accept Dad’s so I won’t have Forest’s masculine cologne scrambling my senses, making me want to push my nose against his neck to smell it directly on his skin.
It seems to prick Forest’s irritation that I don’t want his jacket, since he thins his lips with disapproval. When Forest offers it to Bailey next, who has only grown curvier throughout her pregnancy, she can hardly get it up over her shoulders. And when she does, she can’t raise her arms.
“Thank you for the offer, but it’s a little on the…small side,” Bailey says, cracking a one-sided grin when she shrugs the jacket off.
A quiet laugh escapes me, and I roll my lips, biting down on them.
Bailey’s shoulders start to shake, attempting to maintain a straight face. She’s been so much happier recently, and I love this positive change in her after so many years spent stuffing her immense feelings deep down, thinking she needed to hide her mental health struggles from us.
Unfortunately, we make the mistake of looking directly at each other when I half-heartedly offer to switch jackets to be polite, and she unfortunately takes me up on it.
As soon as we make eye contact, the laughter bursts out of us.
We’re clutching our stomachs, laughing so hard that we can’t speak, tears starting to stream.
It reminds me of the times we would laugh so loud and long in our old bedroom that our stomachs cramped, and our parents had to come into our room to tell us to keep our voices down. I miss that most of all.
The men stop as one in front of the deli’s door, turning to face us. Their confused expressions make us laugh that much louder.
“What’s so funny?” Dad asks.
“Nothing,” Bailey and I say at the same time, gasping for breath. Then, “Jinx, double jinx.”
Oh god, I’m losing it.
“We really shouldn’t laugh,” Bailey says, wiping her cheeks that likely ache as much as mine do from smiling so hard.
“Laugh at what?” Forest asks, holding the door open for us.
“Nothing,” Bailey says, then pats Forest’s arm as she passes, giving him a sympathetic smile.
Forest’s brows crease when I pass him next. “What’s the joke?”
“Don’t worry about it, Big…Dawg,” I tell Forest, which makes Bailey snort unladylike and cross her ankles. The other customers at the deli turn toward us and the scene we’re making.
“Seriously, what’s so funny?” Dad asks, joining us in the long line to place our order.
Bailey waves her hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s really not that funny.”
My humor immediately fades when Forest saddles up beside me and places his hand on my lower back. I move away from him to stand with Dad, hooking my arm in his, perusing the menu that I already know by heart.
Try as I might to avoid sitting next to him, Forest outmaneuvers Dad and Bailey, claiming the seat beside me at the black booth as we wait for our sandwiches and soups to be delivered.
While Dad talks to Bailey about the companies she and Isaiah are researching to have a pool added to their backyard, Forest drops his voice to ask me, “Did you get it?”
“Yup,” I snap, all too aware of the lengths of our thighs pressed together. I scoot closer to the pony wall that separates our booth from the one opposite, and I tug his jacket—which, I was right, does smell amazing—tighter around me like a shield.
Forest blows out a long, relieved sigh.
It makes me want to cry.
“You all right, honey?” Dad asks me, doing a double take.
I give him a flash of a smile before looking away, my attention caught by a group of women seated at two tables pushed together.
Most are holding a small child on their laps.
The others are keeping an eye on the infants sleeping in their strollers, probably hoping the noise in the bustling deli won’t wake them.
Some kind of Mommy and Me group. Maybe that’ll be me, one day, far, far, far into the future, with a man who would be thrilled to have a child with me.
I push my sandwich away; my appetite vanished.
Toward the end of lunch, tension mounting on my side of the booth, Dad says to Forest, “We’ve reserved the neighborhood pool pavilion for Autumn’s birthday in a few weeks, since the heat is supposed to hold out.
We’re going to Bailey and Isaiah’s house afterward for cake and all that, and we’d love to have you join us.
” Dad looks at Bailey, then me. “Right, girls? I bet the kids would have a blast.”
“The more the merrier,” Bailey says genuinely.
“Then we’re hosting Thanksgiving at our place,” Dad says. “You’re more than welcome to come too.”
“Wow, yeah, that would be great,” Forest says enthusiastically, pushing his empty soup bowl to the edge of the table for our server to pick up. “It’s been a long time since we spent Thanksgiving with fam—” Forest clears his throat. “With anyone.”
Bailey crosses her arms over the table. “What about your parents?”
Forest tugs his collar. “My dad passed away when I was ten from a heart attack.”
Dad tuts when Bailey and I both give him a long, hard look. He doesn’t take his health as seriously as he should.
“Then it was just my mom and me ‘til she passed right after I graduated high school,” Forest says.
My heart drops, and Bailey’s chin quivers when she says in a rush that grows more hysterical, “Oh god, now I feel even worse for laughing at you. I’m so sorry.
It was awful. Just awful, and immature, and horrible, and mean, and it’s not even your fault, and we shouldn’t have done that.
Please, I hope you can forgive us.” Then she slaps her hands over her face and sobs into them.
Dad hurries to squeeze her against his side, letting her cry on his shoulder.
Forest goes very still and remains that way until it’s time to leave, then drags his feet behind us on our walk back to the firm.
My heart aches, jittery with guilt and the need to explain myself when we get back to the office.
Since we took our lunch early, we return as most of the other employees are leaving for their breaks.
Forest is almost a full ten minutes behind me when he finally makes it into our office, shutting the door behind him.
He kicks the toe of his shoe against the carpet, ducking his head with his hands in his pockets. “So you and Bailey were laughing at me.”
Choked up at his dispirited expression, I whisper sincerely, “Yes. I’m sorry.”
He nods, approaching my desk. “What was the joke?”
I shrink into myself. “We ran into each other at the pharmacy. She caught me taking the pill. Guessed that it was because of you. And I—” I wince, biting my bottom lip.
He quirks a brow up. “You what?”
“I kind of told her you had a, uh…” I hold up my pinky finger. “A small dick and were a one pump chump,” I finish with a squeaky rush. “I’m so sorry. It was a dumb joke that I took too far.”
Forest drops his head back on his shoulders and squeezes his eyes shut. “So she wasn’t making fun of my weight.”
“No, never. We wouldn’t do that—to you or anyone else,” I say, twisted up inside over unintentionally touching a nerve about his weight.
Forest sucks his teeth and shuffles to the door.
My stomach bottoms out. I need to make things right. “I really am sorry,” I say, standing from my desk. “What I did was wrong. I’ll make sure she knows it was a bad joke, I promise.”
He shakes his head, his hand on the doorknob.
Panicking, I say, “Please don’t leave. Whatever I can do to make it up to you, I will.”
“Yeah?” he asks, squeezing the doorknob.
“Yes,” I answer with relief that he won’t hold this grudge against me when I would, shamefully, so easily do the opposite.
“Very well. I won’t leave.” He twists the lock and turns around. “And neither will you.”
I wring my hands, my head going hazy as his brow darkens. “What?”
He crooks a finger, beckoning me closer. When I’m within arm’s reach, he tells me, “If you want to make it up to me, then kneel.”
My jaw drops, and I freeze.
He raises his brows as he unbuckles his belt. “You really want to apologize? You can do so by getting on your knees for me, Ms. Fischer.”