Michael and I have been living in his apartment for the past six weeks, and I pretty much gave up on looking for a place of my own about three weeks ago.
Between business planning, finding a place to set up shop, designing a clothing line, finding new suppliers in Boston, and being pregnant, the idea of moving was just too much for me to handle.
At least I reached the second trimester, and despite my bump popping out overnight, I actually feel lighter. No more morning sickness and extreme fatigue, even my bizarre craving for steamed beetroot with yogurt and lemon disappeared.
And Matt Thorne, Carrot Top’s head of accounting, agreed to take on the initial setup of S.A.S.S. and help us find a suitable accountant, which was a God-sent gift. Of course, that may have more to do with Hattie than anything else, and Hattie has yet to call him nice, so there’s definitely potential there.
I hear Michael shifting around, taking off his shoes and putting his bag down, and part of me wishes it weren’t so comfortable between us, that living together, running a household, didn’t feel so natural. It makes it too difficult to understand if staying is the right choice.
“Hey.” He bends down and kisses the top of my head, and I don’t even bother with my no kissing spiel anymore. “How was your and Gremlin’s day?”
I roll my eyes at the nickname he pinned to our unborn child. It may be accurate, but it isn’t cute. “It was good. Got a lot of work done.” I point at the finished sketches on the table.
“Those look great.”
“Thank you.” I smile up at him to see his eyes are full of warmth and affection. But as our gazes connect, heat invades those tawny irises, and his hand moves to play with my hair as pulses of awareness start thrumming through my body.
“We need to leave soon if we want to make it to your sonogram on time,” he reminds me with a deep voice, as if I’m planning anything other than stare-sex, and even that is well out the scope of my plan. Not that my plan is holding up so well. These moments keep happening more often and heat up more quickly the more time we spend together, not to mention second-trimester hormones, which keep making me forget that we’re just friends now.
It was easy at first, between me randomly getting sick to just wanting to sleep all the time. And when I finally got some energy back when hitting week fourteen, I put most of it into S.A.S.S.—incorporation, brand registration, bank runs, finding a place to rent, late-night meetings with the girls.
But as things started easing up, Michael and I fell into a rhythm of daily cooking and dining, movie nights, and family meals. Not to mention morning cuddles with our coffee, but only on the sofa. Never in bed.
“Lore…” His tone is both warning and inviting, and I hum in response, Michael’s eyes flaring with heat, which finally forces me to break the connection.
“We shouldn’t do this, Mikey,” I whisper in an almost pained voice. I hate pushing him away, but I have everything to lose if I don’t. The family I’ve found here, the place I see as my home, my heart. But most of all, I stand to lose the chance to give Gremlin everything I never had, and that’s what scares me the most.
Because, despite his best efforts, part of Michael is still closed off. This is the first time he’s come with me to a doctor’s appointment. It’s true that most were in LA while he was in Boston, but he didn’t come to the initial meeting with my new OBGYN here, stating he trusts Emily’s judgment and whatever I decide he’ll support. He didn’t make time to show up to the doppler scan either. His only reaction to the photos of the ultrasound I showed him was, “it looks like a Gremlin if you feed it after midnight.”
Part of me wonders if he isn’t tagging along due to getting his head chewed off by Maddie. She seems to be the only one who can get through to him a bit.
“I know.” He strokes my chin with his thumb, his eyes turning soft. “Let’s go, Rockstar.”
It hurts my heart when he pulls away, even though I told him to, and I watch as he goes about getting things together for the OBGYN visit.
And I know that if something doesn’t change soon, I’m going to have to start looking for a new place to live.
* * *
Michael
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud
“Mikey?” My name being softly spoken registers somewhere in the back of my mind, which is consumed by the strong and rapid pounding coming out of the sonogram machine.
The words “right on track” and “feisty little guy” penetrate, and I look at the sonographer.
“A boy?” I ask, and she nods with a radiant smile. My eyes go back to the screen, tiny hands and feet clearly visible, a giant head with a nose and lips.
Lauren squeezes my arm before turning her attention back to the measurements and other technicalities the sonographer is relaying, but I can’t bring myself to care. I just want to listen to that steady heartbeat, make it the metronome that determines the beats per minute of my heart, my mind, the pace at which I inhale and exhale.
The entire way back, Lauren looks at me with worry, her hands resting on her stomach as if she’s trying to comfort Gremlin from some future hurt. I want to tell her she doesn’t have to.
She thinks I’m crashing, spiraling with the thought of Naomi, but my mind is consumed by pictures of what our family life is going to look like—sleepless nights, celebrating holidays, kissing a little toddler goodnight, and falling asleep with Lauren tucked safely in my arms, waking up with her every morning when a little person jumps into our bed way too early, having her all big and round with another one of my children.
I was so scared by how easily I forgot about all the bad things that happened to me when she was around, terrified that if I caved in to the emotions she awakened in me, I’d forget about the family I almost had. I was so caught up in the fear of losing old memories, that I failed to notice that Lauren never prompted me to forget but rather to remember all the things I’ve always wanted.
She gave me something to live for again.