“Pity.” I blurted out the single deplorable word. “Because he feels sorry for the lonely, single pregnant girl, who’s living with her parents and can’t even decide what she wants to do with her—” I clenched my jaw and pushed away from the table. “I can’t talk about this right now. I just want—" I stood up, and immediately a sharp pain sliced through the bottom of my belly, making me cry out and double over. “Oh my God.”
“What is it?” My mother had jumped to her feet, too. “What’s wrong, Willow? What’s happening?”
My father came around to my other side and slid his hand under my right elbow. “Sit down, honey. Maybe you just—"
A terrifying wetness gushed between my legs, and I cried out again.
“Something’s wrong,” I moaned. “Something’s really wrong.”
“John, we need to—"
“I’m getting the car right now.” The urgency in my father’s voice terrified me. “Just stay here, and I’ll come back in to carry her out.”
“Do you think we should call the ambulance?” My mother wrung her hands.
“No.” My father’s voice was already growing distant. “The hospital’s close, and we can get her there faster than they can mobilize the ambulance at this point, I think.” The door slammed.
“It’s going to be all right, honey.” My mother stroked my hair. “Just relax. It’s going to be fine.”
I groped blindly to grip her hand in mine. “Mom.” I panted, the pain making it difficult to speak. “Mom, get Dean. Please. Please get Dean.”
ChapterFifteen
Dean
“You’re doing it again.”
I shifted a little on the bed, keenly conscious of not shaking the mattress too much. “I’m not doing it again. As a matter fact, I never did it in the first place. You’re imagining things.”
Willow lay down her cards and gazed at me with wide eyes, bright with unshed tears. “Are you telling me that you think I’m crazy? Are you saying that I am making things up?” Her voice, rose.
“No, no, no!” I took a deep breath. “I’m just saying that I’m not letting you win. I’m not doing anything to try to… I don’t know, placate you or make you feel better.” I held up my single remaining card. “See this? If I were letting you win, I’d still be holding five more cards in my hand.”
“But you could’ve gone out just then, and you didn’t because you didn’t want to upset me.” Willow pressed her lips together. “Do you think I’m delicate or something, and you’re just pulling your punches so that I feel better about myself?”
“I promise, I absolutely did not do that, and there was no way I could’ve gone out on my last turn.” I shook my head. “But if playing cards is upsetting you, then—”
“Playing cards is not upsetting me at all.” All of the pitiful waiver had left Willow‘s voice, the tears had vanished, and she now wore a grin that I recognized as one of victory. “Because your ass is mine, pal. Read them and weep.”
So saying, she laid down four aces and placed her final remaining card on the discard pile.
“Holy shit.” I growled, tossing down the king of spades in my hand. “You little card shark.”
Willow cackled. “Totally played you. I’d think you’d know better by now than to believe anything other than I’m in it to win it when it comes to rummy.”
I scooped up the remaining cards from the pink flowered sheet that covered Willow to her waist. Or where her waist used to be.
“Yeah, you’d think,” I groused. “But playing the sad pregnant lady card really was unfair, Will.”
“Hey, the true card shark plays any card in her hand.” She rubbed her hand over her belly. “And if I have to pull my child in to help me win, so be it.”
I shuffled the cards, grinning at Willow despite myself. “Are you up for another hand?”
She hesitated, and then shook her head. “First of all, I need to pee again, surprise, surprise.” She nudged my hip with her foot. “Can you move for a second, so I can get out of bed without flashing you?”
Without even thinking about it, I mock-leered at her, wagging my eyebrows. “Hey, if I had known that flashing me was an option, we wouldn’t have been playing cards. Or maybe we’d have been playing strip rummy.”
Willow stared at me for a long moment without moving, and my heart sank.Shit, I’d crossed that line. That invisible line that was always between us, the one where we didn’t acknowledge feelings that we had for each other. The one that required that we keep up the façade of friendship only.
