I barked with laughter. “All right. Hopefully I’ll see you sooner rather than later. Want me to go ahead and place our order so it’s ready once you get there?”
“If you could do that, it would make my day.”
“Consider it done, handsome. I fervently and anxiously await your arrival.”
“Nice use of words. I’ll have to put that in a book somewhere.”
I slipped my panties down my legs. “See you soon.”
He blew me a kiss. “See you soon, beautiful.”
After blowing a kiss back, I hung up the phone. It took me no time at all to place an order for Chinese. Especially since we got the same thing every single time. Vegetable lo mein and crab rangoons for me; orange chicken with white rice and three egg rolls for him. They practically knew us by heart. If we walked in, the woman at the cashier knew exactly what to ring us up for. If we called and someone recognized our voice, they’d simply recite our order to make sure that was what we wanted.
We’ll have to get a new Chinese place when we move.
I tossed my phone onto the bed and took off the rest of my clothes. I was ready to get comfortable. Ready to get into a nice pair of pajamas and relegate myself to another evening of Chinese, packing, and snuggling with Clint. I reached for my flannel pajama bottoms tossed over a chair in the corner and hopped myself into them before rummaging around for one of Clint’s shirts. All these years later, and I still loved wearing them.
I didn’t quite get it over my head, though, before my stomach jumped.
“What the--?”
My body contracted and I took off running, with Clint’s shirt dangling around my neck as I rushed into our bathroom. I shoved the door open with my shoulder and fell to my knees in front of the toilet. And as the searing pain of my kneecaps trickled up my thighs, I vomited into the toilet.
“Holy shit,” I gurgled.
I groaned over the toilet bowl. My stomach rebelled against my exis
tence as it jumped into my chest. It was like my body hadn’t digested anything from the day. And suddenly, my head began to spin. I closed my eyes, willing the nausea to go away.
Come on, I thought we were done with all this.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time I’d been suddenly sick. It had happened on and off for the past two weeks. I sighed as I sat down, wiping at my mouth with the back of my hand before wiping my hand off on a towel on the floor and placing it against my forehead. My neck. My cheek. Trying to see if I was running some sort of fever. Maybe I was exhausted. Burning the candle from both ends. Maybe this was my body’s way of telling me to slow down. Or maybe the excitement of the move was finally getting to me.
“Or maybe not,” I whispered.
I slowly opened my eyes. It wasn’t possible, right? I mean, Clint and I had been careful. Very careful, in fact. I crawled over to the bathroom cabinets, opened them up and started rummaging through them. Did I have a spare pregnancy test available? Clint and I had a scare a couple of months ago. Maybe I had one of those tests left.
I didn’t find one.
“Shit,” I hissed.
If Clint saw me on this bathroom floor, he wouldn’t stop until he knew what was wrong. So I pulled myself up, gargled with mouthwash, and forced myself back into the living room. I needed a distraction. Something to take my mind--and my stomach--off some things. Even though I told Clint I’d wait, I finished packing the box of fragiles I started last night. I wrapped up a decorative vase his stepmother had gotten me for graduation. I reached for a picture still hanging on the wall of us standing with the acceptance letter from the publishing company regarding his novel. I smiled as I ran my fingertips across the photo. I remembered that day. Clear as crystal. How excited Clint had been. How proud I was of him.
How proud I still am of him.
I placed the picture into the box and reached for the clear container at the bottom. A very unceremonious way of storing pictures. But I hadn’t yet gotten actual photo albums to slip them into. I sat on the couch and smiled as I popped off the top. Pictures from our high school graduation floated around. Clint and Michael hanging all over one another. Me and Allison hugging each other tight. The four of us jumping into the air. Throwing our graduation caps around before flashing tongues and peace signs for any camera that snapped a picture of us.
Then I found our travel pictures.
“Oh, my gosh,” I giggled.
I pulled out a picture of Clint posing in front of the Parthenon. Beneath it was a picture of me at the Temple of Apollo in Pompeii. There was a picture of the four of us standing in front of the Tower of Pisa. All of us smiling and hugging one another.
It would be wonderful to see everyone again after we got moved.
Especially Mom.
“Honey! I’m home!”