Page 29 of Yours, Forever

"Darling," he said, "someone wanted coffee and I messed it up. I tried looking up how to use an espresso machine, but I'm not sure I did any of it right…"

"Oh, no." I hoped that was him giving me an excuse to hang up. "Okay, I'm coming. Tell the customer I'll be there in a sec. Mom?"

"Should I come visit?" My mom tried.

"No need. I gotta go."

"You two could come!" she insisted. "Meet Todd and me for dinner. I can't believe you haven't met him, either."

Todd was my mom's boyfriend, and I had no interest in meeting him. If my mom could put the clues together, she would have figured it out sometime in the past three years, since she got together with him. "Gotta go, Mom. I'll call you."

"If you're pregnant, honey, I can take care of the baby—"

"Bye, Mom! Talk another time. Byyeee."

I hung up.

I put the phone back in my pocket and touched my shaved side; then massaged my temples. Restless, heavy energy moved through my limbs, like I needed to shake the call away.

"Are you okay?" Max came close and put his hands on my shoulders.

"She left, and she thinks I'll let her take care of our child?"

He took his hands off. "Excuse me?"

"Hypothetical. She thinks I'm pregnant."

"Oh. Well…"

"Forget about it. The thing is, I think someone from your dad's team called her trying to get information about me. Us."

A swear word flickered in his eyes, but he didn't say it. "Did your mom say anything?"

"Thanks to her fear of embarrassment, she pretended she knew about our marriage all along. I think she gave the picture of a great celebratory thing, that we got married."

"That's not too bad."

"Still. Seems your dad is trying to find any leads he can, to point out… what?" I crossed my arms.

"That we're not happy together. That you'll leave me." His statement sounded matter of fact.

"Or looking for ways to make me want to leave you?"

"Maybe."

"You're not too bad to be around. Maybe I'll stay married to you for two years. Really show your dad that he should think better of you."

The concern on his features gave way to one of the most brilliant smiles he'd ever given me. "Darling, I'm just happy you think better of me these days."

Stress over my mom's call disappeared as well, replaced by tingling in my belly that, overall, felt much better. Even if they were the dangerous kind.

I shook my head. "Now, please tell me you were joking about trying to learn how to run my espresso machine off the internet in three minutes."

"Well…"

Chapter 9

Max