“My books?”
“Your Brontë books,” he specifies.
“Oh, no, I can’t take those,” I tell him, shaking my head. “They’re too expensive.”
Smiling faintly, he says, “I’d have to unpack them now. Seems like a hassle. Just take them with you. I won’t miss them, trust me. Besides, I bought them for you.”
“When you thought I would be...” I trail off, since Rex is sitting here, and I feel weird talking about this in front of him, given he is a complete stranger to me.
“It’s fine, Laurel,” Rafe assures me. “I bought them for you, no strings attached.”
As I stare at my plate, I’m suddenly hit with a horrible mental image of Rafe all by himself in this giant house. I had abandoned him to run off with Sin, and while Sin and I were finally making love for the first time, Rafe was here all by himself, packing up books he bought me when he thought I would stay with him and we would have a family together.
Both men are equally alarmed when I suddenly burst into tears.
Rafe’s eyes widen and he looks around, as if for something that would have caused this. “What’s wrong? What’s happening right now?”
“I didn’t mean to make you lonely,” I blubber.
He blinks, thoroughly confused. “What?”
“That’s so sad,” I bawl, grabbing the cloth napkin in my lap and wiping my face. “That makes me feel horrible. You packed up my books. Oh, my God, why am I crying so much?”
Looking more lost than he ever has, Rafe tells me, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Rex was initially concerned, but now he resumes cutting into his fish filet. “Pregnancy hormones. One time I met Mateo in his office, and Mia burst into the room, sobbing hysterically. Just sobbing her head off, talking about how horrible she felt for some woman and how lonely this woman would be. Mateo rubbed her back and tried to comfort her, but he had no fucking idea what was happening, you know? He’s just standing there like ‘tell me who I have to kill to make these tears stop’. Finally, she explains it was a commercial. There was a fictional couple on an insurance commercial, and the husband died in a car crash right before they bought their first home. She was so upset, I thought someone she knew died, so when she said it was a commercial, I just thought she’d lost her fucking mind. Crying over these fucking people that aren’t even real. They live in a 90 second commercial. Who cries over shit like that? Adrian explained the situation. The hormones make women emotionally unstable. Apparently pregnancy is pretty hardcore.”
“I am not emotionally unstable,” I say, scowling at him, while also still crying.
Rex lifts an eyebrow and nods at me. “Right. Clearly not. My mistake.”
None of this makes me feel better. Instead of being a normal human being, I get off the chair and go over to hug Rafe. He is understandably surprised, since last night I wanted to stab him, but now I’m crying because he packed up my books all alone in his giant library.
“Kitten, it’s okay,” he assures me, kissing the top of my head and rubbing my back. “You just live across town, not in another country. You’ll see me all the time, for God’s sake.”
Sniffling, I tell him, “I want us to all be friends. I want you and Sin hanging out like you did before you met me, and I want to take the baby in the pool. I don’t know why I’m so attached to this pool scene in my head, but I am. Also, our baby in my head is adorable.”
“You can bring the baby to the pool anytime. My pool is your pool. You’re still the mother of my child, and obviously I’m stuck with Sin, that asshole isn’t going anywhere. We’ll all see as much of each other as we want to see. More than we want to see, probably. We’re good. Everything is good. I promise.”
“I don’t want you to be lonely,” I say, looking up at him.
“I’m never lonely,” he assures me, dragging his thumb across my check to wipe away tears. “You know that. It was one of our problems.”
“I don’t mean stupid, empty hook-ups. It sounds like packing up my books was sad.”
Tenderly brushing my hair behind my ear, he tells me, “You’re making it sad in your head because you want to feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty. I don’t want that. I’m glad you’re with Sin if he makes you happy. I certainly didn’t. It’s not sad. We didn’t even break up; we were never really together.”
“I still feel icky.”
“Stop feeling icky,” he commands, like it’s just that simple.
“That’s not how this works.”
“Well, pregnancy sounds terrible,” he informs me. “I apologize.”
“I’m still mad at you for trying to kill Sin,” I tell him, frowning at him now.
“I know. I won’t do it again. Does that help?”