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Danny broke his eyes from dressing my wound in the cramped beige bathroom to glare at me every so often. “You should’ve told him.”
“I don’t see why. If he’s going to run, might as well be now. I don’t want him to stay out of obligation.”
“Would you wake up? You are his obligation, even before the baby came around. He’s your Reaper. He’s bound to you for life. So is Mason. Baby or not, he ditched his responsibilities.”
“A baby won’t fix that. Von is who he is; you’ve been telling me that from the beginning. Now that I’m listening to you, you want me to let him in and cut him some slack? Now who’s the one with mood swings?”
“Yes, well,” Danny grumbled, pulling the bandage a hair too snug around my leg, “you should still tell him.”
“I’m sorry, Danny, but that’s just too tight.”
Danny harrumphed like I’d told him he was an idiot or something. He fiddled with the bandage so it was on correctly, and stood, helping me up off the toilet lid. “Von’s better than no one. Not by much, but still.”
“Go worry about your own fetus. When you pretend to care about what happens to me, you come off sounding like a jerk. Practice growing a heart elsewhere. I’m not interested in investing time in your learning curve.”
Danny stomped off, glaring at me. He flung open the door and looked down the empty hallway. “Well, it’s a moot point anyways, because your prince charming split already.” His shoulders relaxed. “Oh, there he is.”
Von’s voice forced lightness, but I could hear the strain. “Miss me already? I can’t say I blame you. How you all got along without me to brighten the mood around here is beyond me.”
“We managed.” Danny shoved his brother into the suite with me and Boston, and left us with a bang of the door. Boston was snoring in the queen-sized bed atop the thin burgundy comforter, shirt twisted around his torso. He had his hand over his belly, and his lips were parted as he slept off too much vodka and far too much grief.
Von and I just stood, blinking at each other in the dim lamplight. To break the building tension, I reached for the phone, calling down to the front desk for a cot.
“You’re pregnant. You’re not sleeping on a cot,” Von said, his insistence gentle, but firm.
“I know I’m not. You are.” I focused on Boston, who was in the dead center of the bed. I scooted him gently over to the side so I had a place to sleep, not that I’d be able to calm down now.
“I’m not tired. I want to talk.”
“There’s no need. I got pregnant, and you split. Anything else to add?” The whole lie of me cheating on him and sleeping with some random guy made me feel even more alone than usual, but I was firm that Von didn’t need to know what he didn’t want to know. If he wanted to be a dad, he’d have to be around first. Once he managed that, then I had options.
No, this was not covered in any of the baby books. I was winging it, for better or worse. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Brady had never been in this situation before, so I had no role model to pull from who’d been psychically knocked up and abandoned.
Von’s red garage rock band t-shirt was thin and stretched across his torso, giving me a hint at the musculature beneath. It would be a lot easier to keep him out of my head if he didn’t look like that.
Von sighed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “No. That’s about the size of it. You want to tell me who he was? Who was so great you threw us away for?”
“There was no ‘us’. You were clear that you didn’t want anything serious. There was no one to cheat on, because as you made it abundantly clear, you were never my boyfriend.” I stopped myself and held up my hands. “I’m not doing this. I’ve got enough on my plate. You want out? You already know how to make good use of the door.”
“You’re not even giving me a name?”
“What for?”
Von’s hands flew out animatedly. “He should be here! It’s his baby you’re carrying. I’d want to know if it was my child.”
“You would?”
Von blew a loud raspberry, and I could tell he was nervous. “I didn’t even really know Angela, but the day I found out I was going to be a father was the happiest day of my life. Even though it was all a lie, and Penny was never mine, it was the best lie that ever happened to me.” He stared at his sleeping brother, taking a beat to collect himself. “Penny’s the best thing that ever happened to me, apart from becoming your Reaper.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
“Of course I was scared. I didn’t even know if I could be around her. What if she skinned her knee and I lost my head? But I’ve learned how to be there for them as best I can.”
“What about my girl? I mean, you’re stuck with me. Should I be worried about you losing control around her?” I hugged my belly with one hand, drawing Von’s eyes.
“Not in the slightest.” Von sat down on the chair by the mahogany desk in the corner of the room, facing me with his elbows resting on his knees. “Let me get a few things off my chest, yeah? Let’s get it all out so we can move on. Can you handle that?”
Not really. “Hit me.” I sat on the edge of the bed carefully, my back stiff and my leg so sore, I had to limp on my way to the mattress.
“What you did? Sleeping with some random bloke? It broke me, Peach. I loved you, and that’s not something I do on a dime. You were my best friend, and you knew how hard it was for me to stay in one place.”
“Stay in one place? You were never in one place. After we had the best kiss of like, all my lives, you said you still weren’t ready to settle down. If you wanted to lock this down, you should’ve. I would’ve stayed with only you if you wanted me, but you wanted one foot out the door, so I let you go, because that’s what you asked me to do.”
Von narrowed his eyes at me, frustrated but determined to keep his cool. “I was getting used to the idea of being exclusive, and you cheated on me. That’s low. I asked you for time, and you gave me all of five minutes. And Finn? Of all people for you to cozy up with, that one hurts the worst. You know what a dirty tosser he is.”
I swallowed, knowing he was right on that last point. “First off, I’m allowed to be friends with people, especially the ones who need a little help. Finn was lost, and you’re right, he was a bad guy. But he’s grown since you knew him. He’s a different guy off of Banak’s curse.”
Von rolled his eyes. “Please, spare me the details of your love for him.”
“Finn disbanded the harem and helped take down Banak. He saved my life a few times. Last month he kicked out the head of the Kataw Academy who was beating children and replaced him with someone better.” I motioned to September. “And even though he knows who the father of my baby is and hates his guts, he still stuck around for me. I’ve been sending him away for months, but he still comes back. That’s love. What you did? Something’s off with our kiss-o-meter, because I’m pretty sure you never loved me.” The words were harsh, but since we were being honest, I threw away any semblance of peace to get to the guts of it all.
Von’s eyes were practically slits. “If Finn’s so grand, then why aren’t you with him?”
“Because he’s in love with me, and I don’t feel the same way. I like him, but a crush isn’t enough. I’ve got too many problems without adding more relationship drama to my life. I can’t afford to bring someone into my daughter’s world who I know I can’t make it work with.”
“Don’t you get that I wanted to be that guy? The bloke you’re in love with? Now I can’t even find you in my dreams!”
“How long was I supposed to wait and pine? For September to grow up and graduate college? Then you’d for sure come home to me after sleeping your way through my phone book?”
“September?” His nose crinkled. “Is that the baby’s name?” He softened, his shoulders lowering as the name cradled on his sculpted lips. “September. That’s really perfect. Because September comes before October. You’re putting her first. It’s brilliant.”
My mouth fell open in surprise, my heart pinging unexpectedly. “I can’t believe you guessed that. Even Ollie just thinks it’s cute because it’s the name of a month.”
“Yeah? Well, I know you.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, my voice quieting. “I didn’t know that you’d ever come home, Von. I tried to reach you in our dreams for the longest time, but you kept me away.”
“That’s not fair. You hurt me. I’ve got every right not to be with you when you step out on me.”
I took a steadying breath. “Then why are you here?”
“Because after everything you did, I still love you!” He stood and started pacing, worrying his messy tresses and making them stand on end even more. “I wanted to make a clean break, to leave and never come back, but the thought of you raising this baby on your own? It broke me all over again. I knew I needed to find a way to come home, even if it was painful. So I found a new blood supplier who can guarantee I never run low. I quit smoking. I did everything I could to clean myself up so I could come back and help you raise this baby that’s not even mine! That’s how much I love you!”
My mouth dropped open. “You quit smoking?”
“That’s all you got out of what I just said?”
“But you love your cigars.”
“No, Peach. I love you.”
A fist pounded on the door to the adjoining suite, and Von moved to open it. Danny stormed in, his monster of Frankenstein eyebrows pushed together and fists clenched. “I can’t take it anymore! We can hear everything through these paper-thin walls. She made it all up to keep you from feeling trapped. There’s no other bloke, Von. Not even Finn, though he’s tried everything. You’re the father.”
I groaned. “Shut up, Danny! This isn’t your call.”
Danny ignored me. “When you had sex with October in your vision, it knocked her up in reality. I don’t know how it works, but Mariang and I have flukes like that, too. Not as big as this one, but I fell once in our dream, and woke up with a scraped knee that matched the injury in my dream.” Danny grew frustrated trying to explain it all and threw out his hands. “Point is, you’re the father. Not some random bloke. She’s not telling you because she doesn’t want you to stay only for the baby. She doesn’t want to trap you. Plus, she’s afraid you’ll freak out and split again, so man up, quit mucking about, and stop being a child about it!” Then he turned to me, and I couldn’t tell which of us was angrier with our matching sneers. “And you, Von left. Get over it! He thought you cheated on him with his worst enemy. He came back to help you raise what he thought was Finn’s baby! That says more than him checking out and leaving over something that makes no sense to any of us. You can’t nail him to the wall for this.”
“You suck, Danny!” I shouted.
“Yeah? Well, get over it. We’re trying to sleep over here. You don’t want to know me when I’m sleep-deprived.”
“Really? I don’t want to know you then? Is it because you become even more of a pain in the butt than you are right now?”
Danny turned to his brother. “You’re welcome. Don’t say I never did anything for you.” Then he left, slamming the door behind him.
Von was thunderstruck, mouth agape and eyes like saucers, staring at me from his corner of the room. Neither of us spoke as we balked at each other for several long seconds in which I very much wanted to run away from him. When it looked like Von was about to break the silence, I scooted to the right, aiming for the door. “I think I forgot something in the car.”
“Oh, no you don’t! Get back here and settle this, you big chicken.”
“I really need to go!”
“With no shoes? In winter? It’s snowing out!”
“I’ll run.”
“Pregnant women don’t run.”
“Yes, we do! How would you even know what pregnant women do? Watch me! I’m pretty fast.”
Von clutched my shoulders, anger and wonder clashing on his handsome features, making him look unbalanced. “Is it true? Is all that true?”
Danny, Ezra, Lynna and Mariang shouted from the other room, “Yes!” and I cringed. Mariang’s voice sounded like she was bumped up against the wall, her ear pressed to the drywall to take in every syllable.
I nodded, unable to look at him for fear of spontaneously combusting and leaving in my place a pathetic pile of ashes for Von to reason with. “I tried to tell you, but you were gone. And then you stayed away, even in our dreams. I didn’t want you to be with us because you felt some sort of obligation. I wanted you to be with me because you wanted me, and now it’s ruined!”
Von fell back, grasping at his chest as if his heart was in danger of failure over the too much that crashed around him like so many unruly waves. “I’m going to be a father? You’re... My peach is having my baby?”
I choked out the truth, unsure of all my reasons for keeping him away, now that I could see his sincerity. He fell to his knees before me, ripped my stretchy yellow shirt upward to expose my belly and pressed his cheek to the skin, giving me the shivers and forcing tears out of me as he hugged my hips. He rubbed his nose across my navel, peppering tiny kisses across the equator of my stomach. “Baby,” he crooned, attaching to the idea far easier than I’d anticipated.
It was at that exact moment I felt September’s very first kick. It was square where Von’s face was, making me jump. Von fell backward in shock. “Whoa!” I gasped. My hand felt around to replace Von’s face in case she decided to go at it again. “That was her first kick!”
“That was incredible! September?” Von was on his knees again, face pressed to my belly, laughing when she kicked again and again, as if trying to get at him. I let out a muffled laugh into my palm. Von held my hips tighter to keep me from bolting. “It’s like she knows it’s her daddy. I’m here, baby. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t know it was you, or I would’ve been here the whole time.” She kicked him again, and I was afraid if the two of them kept this up, I’d be an idiot and make an emotional decision. “How pregnant are you? How many weeks? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? I’ve been trying to keep track, but now my math’s all off. Man, my sperm is amazing. I got you pregnant with my mind!”
“Twenty-eight.” I covered my face to keep from seeing the sight I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to indulge in. Von was clinging to my baby, trying to get as close as he could to the both of us. “You can be as involved as you want, but you don’t have to. Ollie and I have a plan, so I’m not up a creek or anything if you decide this isn’t for you.”
“It’s for me,” Von growled, his lips stilling on my stomach. “It’s all for me. I’m in. You should never have kept this from me.”
“I called you. I tried to tell you, but you were gone.”
“Today. With your daft story. All I kept thinking was you slumming it with some lowlife at a truck stop named Bubba or something. I didn’t get the chance with Penny. I wasn’t as good at controlling myself when she was born as I am now, and then when the paternity test said she wasn’t even mine? It killed me.” He kissed my stomach, jerking my heart around like it was his plaything. “I want in on all of it. Doctors, backaches, Lamaze classes, everything.”
“You’re sure? I’m really not trying to trap you. I didn’t even know this was possible!”
“Of course you didn’t. The whole thing is beyond anything any of us could’ve guessed.” His eyes widened as he stood. “You’re still a virgin, then?”
I glowered up at him. “Why does everyone keep fixating on that? No, I’ve never had real life sex. We even had that little fact confirmed by the doctor. I’ve been a little too busy growing a human to worry about who I’m going out with on Friday night. I called Truck Stop Bubba, but he didn’t seem up for a piece of this hot mama action.” I motioned to my ballooned form.
Von leaned in and fingered the edge of my face. “Me. You’re going out with me Friday night. Every Friday night. I should’ve listened to you when you told me you hadn’t had sex with anyone. You must’ve been so confused. So scared.”
I bit my lower lip, nodding slowly. He traced the slope of my cheeks as if I was precious to him. As if nothing had changed in the months we’d been apart.
But it had. I had. I closed my eyes. “You left me. You left me to raise a baby and bury my mama.”
“I was confused, too. And I didn’t hear about your mum until I saw her obituary in the papers.”
“You should’ve fought harder for me – for us. You got scared and you ran. I don’t need that kinda guy in my life. Parenting is scary, and I seriously can’t gamble on you anymore.”
Von pursed his lips, chewing on his words before they came out. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have run. And I shouldn’t have been so hung up on keeping labels off our relationship. I was yours from the start. I don’t know why I tried so hard to resist it. I got used to the idea that I was temporary after I was bitten. I was convinced that I couldn’t keep you, or I might accidentally drain you, and kill the woman I love. Can’t you understand that I pushed you away because I was in love with you, and was scared I might be the monster who ended you? Do you know any other half-vampires who grow to be husbands? Most don’t make it a week before they turn.”
My mouth fell open at the depths of agony Von had to go through just to be in a relationship. I probably knew it all before, but to have it all put so plainly shed new light on my anger, lessening my pain by necessary degrees. I massaged my temples as I factored this in to the constantly shifting puzzle that was Von and me. “You took on this job – a permanent job – knowing that same logic. Why did you take up the position of being my Reaper in the first place, if you were so scared of the permanence?”
Von’s eyes shone with sadness and longing. “Because I couldn’t not be near you. Even back then, the first day I met you, I knew that no matter how painful it was, and how much I might have to fight everything wretched inside of me, I had to be the one who made you laugh. I knew any number of Duwendes could do the job, but you were still so innocent, even after being completely beaten over the head by life. I don’t know how you managed that, but I knew that no matter how hard it might be to put myself by your side for the rest of my life, being away from you would be impossible.”
I shook my head, angry that I felt parts of me caving and leaning closer to him. “No! You don’t get to come in here, shrug off all you put me through, and expect me to come back, like some lovesick teenager. You left me dangling, and I’m not interested in a lifetime of that.”
“But I’m here now, and I’m fighting for us.”
I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice, but when I opened my mouth, my words dripped with pain that I couldn’t reconcile. “You slept with Katrina after I asked you to stop sleeping with my friends. You said you would stop sleeping with my friends! You made me a joke, Von.” I closed my eyes, voicing the hurt I still hadn’t made peace with. “Judge said I’d disappointed him. Do you know what that feels like?”
Von nodded, no hint of a fight on his sincere features. “It was one regrettable night with Katrina. I was drunk and lonely. I called her November smack in the middle of the sheets. I couldn’t even finish.” He ran his finger over my cheekbone. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”
I closed my eyes to fend off the pain of his earnestness. “It’s too late.”
He pressed my back to the wall, bringing my face to his so our cheeks were touching. He whispered with a fierce anger in my ear, “Then I guess I’ll just have to keep fighting for us.”