Chapter 12
Twelve
“You stole medical information?” Remy sets her glass of water on Mom’s kitchen table, aghast. “Are you insane?”
“Will you keep it down?” I whisper-snap, glancing down the hall toward Mom’s bedroom. “Mom doesn’t know about the baby.”
“The baby that you’re getting injected with after stalking sperm donors?” Rue asks. “How are you going to hide that?”
“I’m not stalking,” I correct. “I’m being thorough.”
Rue snorts. “Do you remember how judgy you were when I went on the treasure hunt to save the antique store?”
“How could I forget? That’s when I saw the books for the store and realized how much smarter I am than you.”
She rolls her eyes. “So smart you’re stealing information to have a baby. I have so much to learn.”
Remy’s solemn. “She’s right, Ree. This is completely unhinged.”
“Your book earrings are unhinged,” I snap back.
“I’m a school librarian,” she defends. “And don’t deflect by making fun of my clothes.”
I look at said clothes—she’s a school librarian and looks like a school librarian. Her color palette could best be described as Vomit de Crayola. Somehow, despite all the colors, with Mom’s wild blond hair on her head and big blue eyes, at thirty-nine, she’s still a knockout.
“I don’t care what you two think, this is a good idea.” At their judgmental looks: “It’s called due diligence.” Then: “And can you two honestly tell me if you were in my position, you wouldn’t do everything you could to ensure your kids came out with every advantage they could possibly have?”
They’re quiet because I’m right. Sure, my approach is a bit unethical, but any parent worth the title would want to guarantee the best genetics if they could.
Remy has never looked more conflicted. “What about dating, Ree?”
I lift my chin. “Maybe I will date one of them.”
I have no intention of doing that, but her expression makes it worth it.
Rue opens a bag of potato chips and pops one in her mouth as she says, “I’ve always heard felonies are the best way to start a relationship.”
I scowl at her. “Well have you ever heard of processed foods negatively impacting egg quality and ovulation?”
She shoves her mouth full of chips and smiles at me. “At least my eggs aren’t going to hatch in prison.”
I flip her off.
Remy says, “Ree isn’t going to prison,” but I think it’s more for her than me.
Rue wipes her hands. “Give me the list.” I pass her my phone, the picture from the computer filling the screen. She pinches her fingers to zoom in. “Dylan White?” She gasps. “No.”
I snatch the phone back and zoom in on his photo. “Why not? He’s thirty-six. An engineer. Good looking.”
“That photo doesn’t show his dandruff the size of snowballs,” Rue says. “Or the fact he comes into Old Vines nearly every week for action figures.”
I grimace. I would never screw a flaky-scalped action figure collector. He’s out.
“See? This is why I did this,” I say, haughty. “On paper he looked fine.” They’re quiet. “This is a good plan.”
Remy takes the phone, looking at the nine remaining contenders before handing it back. “I’m serious about dating, Ree. What if instead of doing all this you try to find someone? Get your happily ever after, you know?”
“Like you and Darren?” I sneer.
Her expression crashes.
“Jesus, Reese,” Rue barks.
Shit.
“I’m sorry.” My tone’s too aggressive to hold any real meaning. To Remy, more sincere, “I’m sorry, Rems. I didn’t mean it. You know that.”
“I know,” she says.
“It’s just—” I blow out a long breath, and look out the kitchen window, fixing my gaze on the old oak in Mom’s front yard. “I don’t know how to find someone. I’m busy with work, but it’s not just that, it’s . . .”
The whole truth is, I don’t know if I’m made to have a love like that—if someone exists who I want to let love me like that.
Yes, I’m busy, but I’ve never met a single man I’ve felt compelled to be less busy for.
Who doesn’t hold my drive for excellence over me like it’s a rash to be dealt with.
Maybe that’s not how it works, but it seems like it should.
Like there should be at least one man on this earth who can love me in a way that makes me want to run home to him every night and leave work at work until the next day.
Someone I want to get close to and let get close to me.
If there is, I’ve yet to meet him. And I can’t admit this to them, but my baby will love me because that’s what babies do.
Because it will be part me. I’ve never met a man I’d slow down for, but I will for my child.
I know it in my bones and the empty space deep within me where cells will evolve from zygote to fetus.
Yes, I might have gotten here because I don’t know how to turn it off and lied, but I want to be here.
“I don’t know if that man exists.”
My sisters exchange a look that says we think this is stupid but let’s not argue with her.
“Fine,” Remy relents. “If this is what you want, I support you. But let the record show, I do not support the stealing of medical information.”
I snort. “Noted. But I might’ve had a dandruff baby if I hadn’t.” To Rue, I ask, “What about things with Nash? Are you really trying for another?”
She smiles, wicked. “We are committed to the effort.”
Remy cackles at this.
“Tell me, sis,” I say, “is it your husband’s ridiculous shirts that get you all hot and bothered?”
“Who’s hot and bothered?” Mom, that sneaky rat bastard, takes slow steps around the corner and enters the kitchen. She’s out of pajamas and there’s peach fuzz around her incision. At just over three weeks post-op, she looks incredible.
She’s nearly slept herself healed.
“Will you ring the damn bell and use the walker?” I bark. “And stop sneaking around.”
“It’s my house,” she snips, taking a glass of water Rue offers.
“And I can’t lay in that bed all day, it’s hurting my back.
I’m supposed to get up and move.” She pins me with a look before smiling at Rue and Remy.
“What are you two doing here? Where are the kids?” She cuts her eyes to me.
“Or is this a scheduled visitation where Reese forbids them?”
They laugh at this.
“Funny,” I say flatly. “Post-op protocol suggests minimal visitors, in case anyone cares.”
“Same as when you bring a baby home from the hospital.” Rue retrieves a bag of grapes from the fridge. “Which reminds me, Mom, Reese has to tell you something.”
If I wouldn’t have to clean up the mess and dispose of her body, I’d kill my sister with a smile on my face.
“I knew it.” Mom sets her water down and glowers at me. “I knew there was more going on with you.”
I’d also kill her.
“Fine.” I fold my arms over my chest. “After being told I work too much, I might have said—” The doorbell rings, stopping me midsentence and turning my voice to a shout. “There’s a damn sign!”
I march to the door and swing it open.
And find Gavin.
Standing on the porch in the only clothes he seems to own, blades of grass confettied on his pant legs and boots. But also, his smile is there, as are his eyes. Bright and bottomless.
My response starts as an annoyed list of grievances in my chest, but by the time it crosses my tongue and escapes my lips, it’s a single: “You.”
He grins. “Me.” He raises a foil-covered casserole dish. “Brought you and your mom something.”
“You should have stopped by the elementary school for a reading lesson,” I say, pointing at the obvious paper taped over the doorbell. “You might have noticed this.”
“I was too busy admiring the perfectly cut grass to read it.” He looks over his shoulder at the lawn then back at me, his face scrunched so one eye is nearly closed. “Your mower must have really come to life.”
“Didn’t it though?”
His lips twitch. “I was rooting for you.”
“Bad.” I fight a smile. “And doesn’t change the fact you keep not knowing how to read my signs.”
Remy, Rue, and Mom fill the entryway behind me.
He gives them an acknowledging smile but says to me, “Reading’s always been tricky for me.”
“Clearly.” There’s stifled laughter from the peanut gallery behind me. I look at the covered dish. “What do you have?”
“After weeks of staring at you, figured I needed an excuse to ask you out again. Brought lasagna.”
That jolt of awareness is back, accompanied by my mom sucking in a delighted breath and heat sweeping my cheeks.
I’m going to kill him.
“I’m not going out with you.” To my sisters and Mom: “I’m not going out with him.”
My sisters have smiles so big that I slam the door in Gavin’s face.
“Reese Conway,” Mom gasps. “What is wrong with you? That’s Gavin.”
“I don’t care if it’s Gavin. And why do you keep saying his name like that?” I don’t give her time to answer. “I’m not going out with him.”
Like the traitor she is, she reopens the door; Gavin is standing in the same spot on the porch, lasagna in hand, smiling wide.
Mom says, “As you can see, Gavin, some things never change. Ignore Reese and c’mon in.”
His smug gaze finds mine. “Why I’d love to, Iris.”
He sidles around me in the doorway to walk with Mom, Rue flanking his other side.
Next to me, Remy says, “You’re kind of scary, sis.”
“He makes me scary,” I whisper. “He keeps asking me out, and—” Gavin sets the lasagna on the counter and hugs Mom, angling his head to inspect her incision.
She’s smiling. “Telling bad jokes. And mowing Mom’s yard when she’s trying to sleep and ringing doorbells where there’s clearly a sign saying do not ring. ”
“Tell me you’re kidding.”
I wordlessly tell her how not kidding I am. “Does this look like my kidding face?”
She snorts. “All your faces kind of look the same.” In a more excited whisper: “But he’s been asking you out?” She looks from me to him, wide-eyed. “What did you say? You and Gavin?” She squeals. “What a full-circle romance that would be!”
“Full circle, my ass.” I don’t even know what that means. “I literally slammed the door in his face, what do you think I said?”
In the kitchen, Rue and Mom are fawning over him. Remy leaves my side to give him a brief half hug. “Good to see you, Gav. Had Addie in the library this week.”