When April had flirted with him, it reminded me of all the other women he must have talked to before and during his time with me. How some of them may have even been after we’d met. He wasn’t tied to me even though we were a team and I’d been going back and forth on what to do ever since that fateful night after I’d been sick.
He’d seemed so out of it when I mentioned that she was cute, and I knew that he’d been thinking of her.
So, I made my decision.
And I fucking regretted it.
The idea of him doing the things he’d done with me to anyone else made me feel ill. But I had no influence over him. I couldn’t tell him not to see anyone else, and I knew that we weren’t together. We wouldneverbe together.
That had been what he’d told me.
Why was I having such a hard time accepting that? People didn’t change. They didn’t get happily ever afters. I was under the impression that he would only ever see me as a woman he’d been with.
I had no right to be jealous, but I was.
I wallowed in it for two days. But the final straw came in the form of a familiar face walking in the shop.
After only meeting his mom once, I’d hoped I made a good first impression. But then we had our phone call, and had been texting ever since. So when she ran up to hug me, I nearly started crying. I only barely held it together.
“Hello,” she said with a smile. “It’s so good to see you. How do you feel?”
“I’m ...”Losing my mind?No, not a good answer. “Mostly okay. There’s a lot going on ... obviously.”
“No kidding. But look at you. I didn’t know you were showing yet!”
“I feel huge,” I said. “It’s a bit of a habit to try and hide it, even though everyone knows.”
“Don’t worry about hiding a thing. You look beautiful.”
“What did you come into town for?”
“After you sent me those ultrasound pictures, I just wanted to see you. It gets a little lonely living all by myself.” I could relate. The house had been eerily silent ever since Dean left. “How did the most recent ultrasound go?”
“It went great.” With the baby, at least. I didn’t want to think about him not talking to even his mom. “Everything’s normal, though the baby is a bit big.”
“That can happen with PCOS. At least you passed your glucose test.”
I blew out a breath. “Did he not tell you that I failed the first one?”
Her eyes widened. “No, he didn’t. I almost wish I lived near him so I could easily track him down and get all this information from him.”
“He was more worried about making sure that I wasn’t losing my mind. That was terrifying, but everything was okay in the end.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” She pulled me into another hug. “I do have an ulterior motive for being here. None of the pictures said if it was a boy or a girl. Did you mean for that to happen?”
I shook my head. “We still don’t know, actually. Crossed legs.”
“Dean did that to me. We didn’t know until he popped out!” She laughed. “The mystery was kinda fun.”
“That does seem fun,” I replied as I thought about it. “How did you decorate his nursery?”
“A lot of gender-neutral things. We went with yellows andgrays, things like that. Yellow wound up being his favorite color for a while.”
I hummed. Now that that room was free again, the idea of making it a nursery was back on my mind. If Dean was busy with another woman, then I might get started on making it for the baby.
“Have you not started on the baby’s room yet?” she asked.
A sinking feeling pulled me out of my thoughts. I’d been putting this off for a while. “Oh, um. I’m getting to it.”