He’d gotten up and gone out for a breakfast meeting with his agent, and I was on my way to the condo to see Allie, who had gone home to the condo after she’d checked out of the Sunset Tower earlier in the morning. I was surprised when she texted and told me she’d gotten right up and checked out of the luxury hotel, but once I talked to her on the phone, I knew it was because she was a nervous wreck. This was because once again, she hadn’t gotten her period, and the steady diet of excuses she’d been feeding herself wasn’t doing the trick.
When I walked into the condo and didn’t see Allie, I headed to her bedroom. After putting the drugstore bag on her bed, I sat down to wait for her. She came out of the bathroom roughly ten minutes later, looking like something that cat dragged in. Throwing up was funny like that.
“I brought pregnancy tests,” I said, gesturing to the bag on the bed next to me. “I feel like the sounds coming from your bathroom mean the tests are basically only going to confirm what you already know. All signs point to you having a bun in the oven.”
Allie let out a strangled sound as she sat on the bed next to me. “That’s never happened before. I think it might be food poisoning.”
“You look rough, but not need-to-see-a-doctor rough. All signs point to morning sickness.”
She blew out a breath and nodded. “I’m picking up what you’re putting down, but I’m not ready for a test just yet.”
“Allison Marie,” I groaned, throwing in her middle name so she’d know I was serious. “You can’t run from reality.”
“I can’t run from it forever,” she agreed, “but I can avoid it for now. I need a day or two to get my mind around this.”
I didn’t think delaying the inevitable was going to do much for her, but I wasn’t the one who was (probably) pregnant.
“Take my mind off this and tell me what happened last night when you told Gage you wanted to move back here. Your text was light on details but heavy on exclamation points, so I assume it was amazing.”
I couldn’t keep a goofy, dreamy smile from spreading across my face. Still, much as I wanted to share nearly every detail, I didn’t think waxing poetic about how amazing things were with Gage and me was appropriate given the circumstances.
“Things went really well,” I said. It was the most generic and not over-the-top descriptive I could think of.
Allie elbowed me. “Don’t downplay your happiness because I’m going through some shit. I’m still your best friend. Tell me everything.”
Knowing that I’d say the same thing in her position, I caved and gave her the details about everything that happened. As I was wrapping up, describing how I almost hit the floor when Gage told me he loved me, Allie started giggling.
“Did he really text Shawn to say he wanted movers?”
“I never asked, but knowing him, I’m sure the answer is yes. I think he was covering his bases to make sure we would be living together no matter what.”
Allie gave me a knowing grin. “That big lug couldn’t be more in love with you if he tried.”
I figured the answering smile on my face was visible from space.I grimaced when I saw a hoard of paparazzi camped on either side of the road as I arrived at the guard gated entry to Gage’s development. Their presence had been intrusive as hell in the first two weeks after Gage and I went public but since then they’d stopped showing up at the gate and had instead taken to finding us when we were out. There were ways to counteract that—mostly by not going to places the paparazzi were known to swarm—so we’d been getting by pretty well. Seeing them by the gate, close enough that they could get their photos but far enough away that they couldn’t be arrested for trespassing, was frustrating.
Although my window was rolled up, I could hear them calling my name. Fortunately, the guard recognized my car and the permit in front, which meant she waved me through so I didn’t have to stop. I gritted my teeth and silently cursed Kerri Anderson as I made the three-minute drive from the gate to Gage’s house. I figured word of the restraining order had gotten out, which meant we’d be besieged by vultures wanting to know every bit of the story. I’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to stomach.
I was grateful that Gage lived in a gated community because it meant that once I got past the checkpoint, the paparazzi were left twiddling their thumbs. I didn’t know what I’d do if they’d been able to camp right outside of the house.