“I don’t want any of those plans anymore,” I admitted. “I don’t want to stay here to study more after my bachelor’s degree … not when I’ve got a baby.We’vegot a baby. I don’t want to be half a country away from my mother. From my family. Your family. I want us to live in a little cottage in Garnett. I want the desert. Want our baby growing up with its uncle, who I’m thinking we’re going to have to refer to as his or her cousin so it doesn’t get too weird.” I chewed on my nail, thinking about that. Mom was right … our lives were prettyJerry Springer.
“What I really want is … to have no plans,” I continued. “I want a home with you. Want to wait for life to happen with you. I want the future to figure itself out.”
Elden stared at me for a long time, his eyes crinkled in the corners. “Yeah, I want that too.”
I scratched my head. “My professors said they could make it work with me finishing most of my classes remotely,” I told him. “Everything is online these days.”
Elden didn’t say anything, he didn’t look surprised either. Shit, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had talked to my professors.
“I think … I want to go back to Garnett,” I announced. “Be close to my family, not waddling around campus.”
“You think?” Elden repeated.
“I know,” I stated firmly. “I want us to go home.”
His whole expression softened. Elden would’ve gone anywhere with me, I knew that. And he wouldn’t have resented whatever choice I made because that was him. But he’d wanted Garnett.
I beamed at him. “It’s settled Now, I would like to discuss those fantasies I mentioned,” my eyelashes fluttered. .
Then we proceeded to do that.
All night.
The second I finished classes before the winter break, Elden and I went back to Garnett. I’d missed it. He missed it … even though things were still likely to be tense between him and Swiss. A weight lifted off my shoulders the moment I’d made the decision to move back.
Of course, another weight, a new weight, took its place. Concern over where we were going to live, what my day to day would look like with a newborn baby and a … baby daddy at twenty-one years old.
Sariah promised she would be there as soon as she finished with classes. She was now allowed to use the coffee machine at Oliver’s. She didn’t seem in any rush to get a ‘real’ job, and it seemed like her parents were happy to continue financing her life even though she hadn’t seen or talked about them in all the times I’d known her.
My mother was happy with Sariah living with her and Swiss for as long as she needed, but Sariah had already been looking at rentals in the area.
Mom also told me during one of our phone calls that the nursery was already being set up at their place.
She sounded excited, happy. And it broke my heart to delicately remind her that Elden and I were a package deal right now, so it would not be in our best interests, or in the interests of the structural integrity of the house, for him and Swiss to be under the same roof.
My mom had understood, but I could tell she was hurt. Not because of the Elden and Swiss thing. Because it was clear that although she was my mom and my friend and I needed her greatly, we were entering a different phase in our relationship. One whereIbecame a mom. I would be someone’smomwhen I still called my own asking for advice on the best way to clean my cashmere, if my rash was caused by stress or if I was actually dying, how to get red wine stains off the sofa.
It felt odd. I definitely didn’t have that illusive ‘Mom knowledge’ about anything and everything. I still thought I was going to die if I ate hummus that had been expired for a week.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, confused as we got off the bike at Mom and Swiss’s old cottage in Garnett.
I was also confused about my car being in the driveway. The last time I’d used it, I’d parked it at the clubhouse. Not that I used it often. Whenever we went anywhere, it was on the back of Elden’s bike. And I didn’t go many places alone these days. Everyone was still on high alert with the murders that still hadn’t been solved. As expected, Sariah had been following it very closely.
I’d assumed that we were going to the clubhouse since that was where we’d been living before. I’d liked living at the clubhouse. Liked living at the clubhouse with Elden. Liked the parties and the midnight taco runs that he did because I was pregnant and which Colby and Lucas weaseled their ways in on because they loved tacos.
I liked the warmth there.
My birthday was tomorrow. Twenty-one. It didn’t feel like the milestone it should’ve. Sure, I was old enough to legally drink, but I’d been drinking long before that, and I couldn’t even drink if I wanted to. All thresholds to adulthood had been crossed.
Well, except marriage. Elden hadn’t mentioned it again since that night at Mom and Swiss’s.
“We’re living here,” Elden gestured toward the house.
I looked from him to the cottage.
I had a scary sense of déjá vu, remembering pulling up here for the first time after a long flight, only knowing that my mom and dad were getting a divorce. I’d thought that my world was shattering because a boy had hit me. My father had been alive. He was problematic, but I still loved him.
I’d been pregnant and didn’t know it.