Here we go.
“I’m moving in with Steven McAllister.” I pushed the words out and backed up a step like I had tossed a grenade.
James snorted. “Haha, Chloe. Very funny. Now tell me what’sreallygoing on.” She looked at me. I looked back. Her eyes widened. “Oh, shit…you’re serious? But you…you hate him, Chloe.” That was so like James, to think about my feelings before her own. “Are you—holy shit, are youdating?”
“No!” I said, the word coming out louder than I intended. “No. He’s…I don’t know what he is, to be honest. We’re not friends, exactly. He’s just always around.” Getting me food. Making me take a pregnancy test. Holding my hand during a sonogram. I shook my head. “I can’t explain it.”
“Okay. Okay. Okay,” James chanted, like she believed that if she said it enough, she could magically make it true. “Start from the beginning.”
I tilted my head back to contemplate the ceiling. What was the beginning? Was it before James’s accident, when I thought maybe he might be worth talking to? Or was it the first time he walked into Jo’s after James’s accident and I told him to leave? “So there was this pig…”
James was quiet while I told her all of it. Rescuing Junior, the 3 a.m. conversations, finding out he was working with my dad, the pregnancy test and doctor’s appointment, and then how he offered to let me stay with him.
Her silence held for a long moment after I stopped talking. I waited, my heart in my throat.
“So…you don’t hate him?” she asked finally.
“I…” I blew out a long breath. “I hate what he did to you. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. People make mistakes. What he did was terrible, and he can’t take it back, so now what is he supposed to do? Yeet himself off a cliff?”
“I’m not opposed to that idea,” I said reflexively. My chest tightened and I frowned. Apparently Iwasopposed to Steven yeeting himself off a cliff. When had that changed?
James squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to hate him on my behalf, Chloe,” she said gently. “He’s giving you a place to stay. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself and your baby.”
I worried my lip. “But Adam…”
“Yeah.” James sighed. “That’s a problem. Adam isn’t going to forgive or forget. I can’t…He would be furious if he found out I was anywhere near Steven, and quite frankly, I don’twantto be near him. I’m not going to waste my time hating him, but I’m not hanging out at his house, either.”
A big, fat tear rolled down my cheek. “It’s just until I can find something permanent. I can go to you at Lodestar. We can still do the sewing circle together, too, right?”
“Of course.” James pulled me into a fierce hug. “I’m going to be your baby’s favorite godmother. We’re friends. Steven won’t change that.”
“It’s temporary,” I whispered again, snuffling into my sleeve. “I’ll find a place of my own.”
“It’s going to be okay, Chloe. I promise.”
I wanted to believe her, but right now, nothing felt okay at all.
I officially movedto Steven’s the following Sunday. It took all morning and a good chunk of the afternoon, but I got it done with the help of my friends. Janie, Essie, and Hannah—notJames, for obvious reasons—had each loaded up their cars with boxes.
Things had been…tense…between my friends and Steven. Essie, being Essie, had deliberately shoulder checked him more than once. To his credit, Steven had simply apologized for being in her way, even though we all knew she had goneoutof her way to bump him, but I saw the muscle flicker in his jaw each time.
This is temporary, I reminded myself. Steven wasn’t my boyfriend. They didn’t have to get along or like each other. They just needed to be minimally civil for a couple months. Surely everyone could do that, right?
Ellis, Garret, and Cole claimed the bigger furniture I couldn’t take with me, like the couch and dining room table, on the agreement that they would return them when I found a place of my own. It had been a little awkward keeping my pregnancy a secret, and once I almost let it slip when Steven wouldn’t let me carry a box of books to my car.
“Trust me,” Garret had said as he and Cole went by with the couch. “She’s stronger than she looks.”
“Don’t even think about it, princess,” Steven growled in my ear. “If you carry that box, then I’m carrying you.”
It had to be the pregnancy hormones that made me feel light-headed and flustered at the mental image of Steven carrying me out of there with a box of books in my arms.
When the last box had been unloaded and my friends and family were gone, I collapsed onto the couch with a groan. “I’m going to be so sore at Jo’s tomorrow. It will be a miracle if I can steam the milk.”
“You work at Jo’s?” Amy asked. She was star-fished on the floor, as worn out as I was. Steven’s little sister had truly busted her ass for me today and I was grateful.
I nodded. “For about the last four years or so.”
