“Not enough chrome and glass for your taste?” she asked. “Industrial chic isn’t exactly my thing. I get enough concrete and steel walking around Manhattan every day. When I got my own place after college, I decided that I wanted something softer and more comforting to come home to.”
“It’s nice. Certainly more inviting than my place, but I’m more about function than anything. Here, I keep expecting a chicken to run across the hallway.”
“You quit it,” she chided, taking the bag away from him and unpacking cartons of Thai food onto the butcher-block countertop. “I don’t have any pets, and that includes chickens. I think that’s against the co-op restrictions,” Emma added with a chuckle. “This is still the Upper East Side, you know.”
They both made plates and bypassed the dining table to sit together in the living room on the couch. As they finished their food, Jonah found himself more curious about Emma’s personal hideaway. He wanted to see it all and gain more insight into her.
“May I have the rest of the tour?” he asked as she set her mostly empty plate on the coffee table.
Emma shrugged. “If you want. There isn’t much left to see. Two bedrooms, one bath.” She got up and he followed her down a little hallway where she pointed out the black-and-white retro bathroom. “This,” she said as she opened the opposite door, “used to be my office. I’ve cleared all that out to uh...for the nursery.”
That was right. This wasn’t just a cute bachelorette pad any longer. This was where she intended to raise their child. They stepped inside the room together. There wasn’t anything in it yet.
“I thought it was too early to buy much. I had the walls painted a soft gray. I thought that was neutral enough for whatever I...we end up having.”
“It’s a pretty small room, Emma. The baby is going to outgrow it fairly quickly.”
“I know,” she said with a sigh. “I didn’t buy this place expecting to raise a child in it. When the baby needs more space, I’ll look at something larger. I want to save money while I can. If my parents haven’t disowned me, perhaps they can help with a down payment.”
It baffled Jonah how she continued to talk about the baby as though she was having to do this entirely on her own. “Or I could.”
“Well...yes, maybe. I’m just not used to thinking about it that way. Up until a week ago, the baby’s father was not in the picture. I had no idea how to find you, so I was having to make plans to do this all on my own.”
“I may need a new place, too,” Jonah said, thinking aloud. His loft didn’t have any walls. How was a baby supposed to sleep without walls to block out noise? “Perhaps...perhaps we could look at getting something together.”
Emma froze on her way out of the nursery. She looked at Jonah with wide eyes. “You want to move in together?”
“Uh...” When she said it that way, it was a little terrifying, but still accurate. “Yes. If we both need a bigger place, we could look into something large enough to accommodate all of us. Then the baby doesn’t have to move back and forth between us. We could even look for something where you could have your own room, if that would make you more comfortable.”
She took a ragged breath before pushing past him into the hallway. “That’s something we could talk about,” she said in a noncommittal tone he’d gotten used to with her. It was better than a complete dismissal. “We have time.”
“Do you have a due date?”
“The doctor told me it would be November twenty-first.”
With every detail, the baby became more and more real in his mind. Now he knew when to expect his life to change forever—before the holidays rolled around again. “A Thanksgiving baby?”
Emma nodded. “Seems like a long time from now, but it will probably be here before we know it.” She continued down the hallway to the last door. “This is my bedroom.”
They stepped into a room that was much larger than the nursery. A queen-size bed sat along one wall with a white wooden headboard that was worn and gouged to reveal the darker color of the wood beneath the paint. The bed had an eyelet coverlet and easily a dozen pillows, all different. An antique oval mirror, a dresser and an old cedar chest at the foot of the bed finished it off.
The place was nice, but the addition of a baby, plus a stroller, high chair, bassinet, toys and all the other accessories a child came with, would eat up the space she had left. It was a lovely, spacious apartment for a single woman, but that wasn’t what she was anymore.
“We need to get a new place. This just seals the deal. Your apartment is too small and mine is too impractical. I’m going to call a Realtor next week to have him start looking for apartments. How do you feel about the Village?”
Emma turned around to face him and placed a cautionary hand on his chest. “Slow down. I’m not ready yet, Jonah.”
“Not ready to get an apartment or not ready for everyone to know we’re together?” He asked the question knowing the answer. Emma and her blasted reputation. “When?” he pressed.
“Once the FlynnSoft deal is done. And we tell our parents. Then, if they haven’t killed us, it should be okay to let others know about us and about the baby.”
“It can’t happen soon enough. I don’t like hiding. I’m used to living my life out in the open. I can’t wait until I can touch you whenever I want to. Kiss you whenever I want to.”
Emma turned to him with a sigh. “It won’t be too much longer. Until then, you’ll just have to take
advantage of your opportunities when they arise.”
Jonah sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her. He had an opportunity right now he wasn’t going to pass up. “Come here.”