Chapter 53
Carla
Water runs down me as I quickly rinse off.
“I’ll wash your back.” Magma grins at me.
“I don’t think so.” I giggle. “We’ve had sex three times already this morning, and after last night, I’m a little tender down there.”
His face changes.
“I’m fine. All good, but I’d better get ready, or it’ll be lunchtime when we finally make it to The Mug and Spoon. I’m so hungry it’s making me feel a little dizzy.”
“We can’t have that.” Magma kisses me sweetly on the side of my mouth as he takes my place in the shower.
I towel off and get dressed in two minutes flat, with my wet hair twisted up in a towel on top of my head.
There are muscles in my body filing formal grievances right now. Muscles I didn’t know I had.
I smile.
I’m so happy I want to scream it out to the world. I can’t get this stupid grin off my face.
I’m just plugging in my hairdryer when my doorbell rings.
I put it down and go to the door, towel turban and all, expecting a delivery, or possibly Mrs. Henderson from across the hall coming to have words with me about last night.
My neighbors may never look me in the eye again.
They won’t have to try because I’ll be looking at the ground when I walk past them.
I open the door and smile when I see who it is.
“What are you doing here?” I take Robyn by the wrist and pull her inside before she can answer.
“You got married yesterday. You should be having honeymoon sex right now. Or packing for honeymoon sex. Or recovering from honeymoon sex so you can have even more honeymoon sex.”
“We did, and we are, and we will.” She looks entirely too pleased with herself. “But I had to check on you first. I’m worried about you.”
“Check on me? Robyn, you’re the bride. I’m supposed to be the one checking on—”
Magma starts singing in my shower, and the man can actually sing. His voice rolls down my hallway, deep and warm and completely shameless.
I look over my shoulder and then at Robyn’s amused expression.
Shit.
“Oh. Um. Okay. Is that…um…Magma by any chance?” she asks, grinning.
“It is indeed,” I tell her. “He came over last night so that we could talk.”
“Talk.” She lifts her brows so high they nearly vanish into her hairline. “Really now. You talked?”
I laugh. “We did talk. We talked everything through, and Magma told me he’s in love with me.”
Robyn gasps and grabs my arm. “What?”
“And I think I might be a little in love with him, too.” I bounce on the soles of my feet. “He isn’t seeing Brook. They’re just friends. That whole performance at the wedding was Brook trying to make me jealous in order to help Magma. I was doing a bit of that with Malachite, as well.”
“Ridge mentioned something along those lines.” Robyn nods a few times. “Oh, my gosh, Carla. This is huge. I came over expecting to find you sad and down in the dumps.”
“I’m so happy.” I’m grinning from ear to ear, and I can’t stop. My cheeks ache. “So we talked, and then we didn’t talk much after that. I think my neighbors might lodge a complaint. Possibly a petition. With signatures.” I snort-laugh.
Robyn laughs right along with me.
“Okay, well, I’m glad it’s all going well. I’m going to leave you to it and get back to my husband.”
I squeal and grab both her hands. “You’re really married. How does it feel?”
“I’m even more in love today than I was yesterday,” she says, and it warms my whole chest.
“You’d better get going. Enjoy your time on the beach. It’s going to be awesome. I can’t believe you’re taking a whole week off work. The office will be dull without you.”
“At least you’ll have Magma to keep you company after hours.” She checks her watch. “I’d better run. What do you two have planned for the day?”
“We’re supposed to be going for brunch, but I’m going to try to convince Magma to go to the corner bakery instead.
They have this apple danish I’ve been craving ever since I started this health kick.
They serve it warm, with whipped cream, and—” I make a face.
“Actually, I might have to skip the cream after last night. I’m still not sure if it was the creamy sauce or the Cosmo that did a number on my stomach. ”
“Are you giving your diet a break?”
“Magma loves my curves.” I sigh like a martyr.
“Despite sticking to my diet religiously, I’ve put on another five pounds since the dress fitting, and I swear half of the weight went straight to my boobs.
” I look down at them, and they’re huge in this tank top.
It’s having to stretch hard to fit around them.
Robyn squints at my chest. Then she looks me in the eye. Then back at my chest.
“You are looking quite busty, Carla. And you say your jeans won’t close?”
“Yeah. I’ll get back to my calorie deficit tomorrow. I will, I swear, and I’ll skip the whipped cream, even though just thinking about it makes me salivate.” I groan. “The apple and the cinnamon, too.”
“I take it you had unprotected sex on Mistveil, and that you straight-up lied to me during your exam the other day.” She puts her hands on her hips and glares at me.
Oh.
Shit.
“I’m so sorry, Robyn. I didn’t want you to know what happened between Magma and me. I really thought it was over and done with. And surely whether I had sex or not makes no difference? You would have given me the shot either way, and we would have been done.”
“I might have recommended you take a pregnancy test first. Just to double-check.”
I laugh.
She doesn’t.
My face falls. “Why aren’t you laughing? That’s a joke, right?”
“Look, Carla. Here’s the thing.” Her voice slides into doctor mode. “I’m not saying you’re pregnant. What I am saying is that you very well might be.”
Everything in me starts screaming but on the inside, where she can’t see it.
I shake my head, because no way.
“You have weight-gain despite watching what you eat.” She tugs on one of her fingers, pulling it back a little.
“Your breasts are definitely bigger. They might even be a little more tender than usual.” She pulls back another finger and raises her brows.
“You were exhausted for weeks after you got back from Mistveil.” Another finger.
“You threw up after drinking alcohol yesterday. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you never touched your champagne while we were getting ready.
That is not you at all. And now you’re standing here talking about cravings. ”
“No way.” A snort-laugh comes out of me, too loud in my quiet living room. “I would know. I mean, surely I would know?”
Except my brain is already doing the thing I don’t want it to do. It’s lining up every item on her list and ticking boxes next to each one. The jeans that won’t close. The champagne that tasted wrong. The danish I’ve been dreaming about for weeks straight, with a devotion that borders on religious.
The screaming in my head gets louder.
“Get a test. It’s a long shot, especially since you take your shot every two months like clockwork. There’s less than a one percent chance that you will see two lines, but you do have a few symptoms that can’t be ignored.”
“I’ll get the test, but I’m sure it’s nothing.”
I cup my breasts right there in the middle of my living room, and yes, they’re tender.
But that might be from Magma’s devotion to them.
And I have felt queasy on and off for weeks now, but I blamed the stress and the new diet and those workouts from hell.
I was exhausted after Mistveil, but who wouldn’t be, after everything that happened over there?
“You can stop freaking out already,” Robyn says, gentler now. “I’m more than likely completely wrong.”
“And if you’re not?” My hand goes to my stomach before I can stop it. “If I am, did taking the shot hurt the baby?”
I take my hand off my belly, because I am not pregnant. There is no baby. There’s just no way.
“No, it wouldn’t have.” She smiles in a reassuring way, even giving my arm a squeeze. “Don’t worry about that. In fact, don’t worry at all. Take a test and put your mind at ease. Then call me immediately with the news…either way.”
“What news? Hi, Robyn. Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?”
Magma walks into the living room wearing his suit pants and last night’s dress shirt, the sleeves shoved up his forearms, black markings on display, his hair damp from my shower. He looks obscenely good. There is a part of me that wants to drag him back to bed, even now.
“I was just leaving,” Robyn says.
His eyes move to me. “We might have to swing past my house before we hit that breakfast spot you mentioned,” he tells me, tugging at his collar. “I’m not sure that this is Sunday morning breakfast attire.” He looks down at himself.
Robyn is already moving. “I need to go. You two have fun.”
“Have a wonderful honeymoon.” I hug her hard.
“Call me,” she says against my ear as she pulls back, and there is a whole second conversation packed into those two words.
“I will.”
“Bye, Magma. Take care of my friend.”
“Oh, I will. Have fun.” He smiles, and his whole face softens as his eyes find mine, and if I weren’t quietly losing my mind, that look alone would have melted me into the floorboards.
Robyn gives me one last meaningful glance, and then she’s gone.
I close the door and put my back to the wood.
Magma is watching me from the middle of my living room.
He tilts his head at me. “What? You’ve got this strange look.”
“We need to talk,” I tell him, and I work very hard to sound like a woman who is not freaking out.
Because it’s nothing.
It has to be nothing.
It is nothing.