Surrounded by her friends, Kat still felt lost and confused.
Trace and Wind collapsed at the foot of the bed, dropping old-fashioned magazines in the center, and Jewels settled by her side with a tub of ice cream and a handful of movies.
“It’s like we’re back in eleventh grade.” Kat lifted one of the movies. “Sixteen Candles. You’re pulling out all the cheering-up tools.” She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Wow, the memories.”
Wind opened up the tub of ice cream, and Trace retrieved four spoons from her bag and stuck them each into the melting mint chocolate chip. To Kat’s surprise, the smell made her hungry instead of making her want to run from the food. She took a small bite and savored the cool sensation on her tongue.
Trace scooped out a heap of green goodness for herself. “We’d started to worry he’d chained you to the bed.”
“Might as well have.” Kat stuck the spoon back in the icy goo and leaned back against the pillows Wes had fluffed twenty times.
“I know people,” Trace said. The scary thing was that she probably did after her issue with the death of her assistant and what happened with the lawsuit, but she was only teasing. Probably.
“I know. You’re my girl if I ever need a body hidden.” Kat laughed for the first time in a week. “But no need. He’s not being the problem here. It’s me. I’m irritable and tired and sick, not only my stomach but sick of lying around all the time. He’s been amazing. Amazingly suffocating. I mean, he follows me to the toilet and cleans my house and cooks me food and won’t let me out of this bed.”
“Oh, the horrors of an attentive man who cares,” Wind said with a hint of bitterness.
“What’s going on with you?” Kat looked to Wind, but she only lifted a spoon and shoved ice cream into her mouth.
“Not my day,” she mumbled, a drip of green oozing from the corner of her mouth.
Kat lifted a magazine and flipped through it. “I know he’s being amazing, but I don’t know how to process all of this. I’m used to being in control of everything around me, and so is he. I don’t know this man.” She swatted the picture of some hot model with her palm. The smack echoed between the wide white walls. “He sold his company because he thought it would give us more time together to travel the world when I had a break from work. And now…”
“And now you feel like you’ve stolen that from him.” Jewels nodded. “I get it. When I found out I was pregnant with Bri after high school, Joe insisted we get married, but I didn’t want him to give up his life to be a father.”
“But Joe would’ve done anything for you. He worshiped you until the day he passed. You know that.” Kat saw their relationship clearly, unlike the muddy shores of her own with Wes.
“I do. And the man I saw leaving here wasn’t running away from you or avoiding what’s going on, but he’s struggling with processing all of this as much as you are. He’s scared.”
“So am I. He’s not the one who has to carry the baby for the next seven and a half months, and that’s only if I don’t miscarry.”
“But he has to worry about you, and he feels helpless to make you feel better. Men want to fix everything,” Trace said in the most sympathetic tone Kat had ever heard from her.
She tossed the magazine aside and fell back again, her head throbbing like it had on and off the last few days. “I hadn’t thought of that. Still, he shouldn’t have sold his company. He said he wants to concentrate on philanthropic work but has no plan on how to do that. I mean, I can’t run away with him even if I wanted to, and that’s the problem. He was ready to abandon his life’s work for me, but I couldn’t lie to him. I like my life. I like work. I like being around all of you.”
Jewels stroked her arm. “And that’s why he bolted. He was hurt.”
She could only nod. “He saw the doubt in my eyes when he declared he’d give anything and everything up for me.” She reached for her spoon again to drown her misery in green goo. “Maybe I’m too selfish to love anyone like that. Maybe I have too much of my parents in me.”
“Hogwash.” Wind shoved the magazines aside and scooted closer as if Kat couldn’t hear her from the end of the bed. “You listen to me. You’re nothing like your parents. You’re going to make an amazing mother and an even better wife. You both need some time to process everything. Talk about how to handle things.”
Kat had always appreciated Wind’s counsel, especially since she was Kat’s opposite in every way. “But what if I hurt him again? I’m desperate to make him happy but also not to lose myself to do it. Not to mention, I’d never want to trap him into marriage.”
Jewels passed her the tub of sugary goodness. “Take it one day at a time. Don’t think about next week or next month or next year. Live in the now.”
“Easier said than done. I’m not you.” Kat looked at her belly. The connection she felt with something pea-sized she didn’t want was mysterious and scary and wonderful. “How can I face a pregnancy and a future as a mother if I could lose it tomorrow?”
They all swooped in for a Friendster hug. “We’ll all be here to help you pick up the pieces.”
And she knew they would. They’d always been there for her even when they’d been apart all those years. Deep down she knew she could call on any of them and they’d come running, as she would’ve for them. But where did that leave Wes? He wanted all her attention and all her time. That wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with. She didn’t know this man. He was a workaholic with no job.
The girls put the movie in the player and settled on the bed to watch.
“You really think Wes’s just in shock and needs time to process?” Kat asked, hoping to hear the answer she wanted, not the truth.
“Yes. And he needs to see you get better,” Jewels said in her motherly tone.
They watched half the movie. Not that Kat comprehended five minutes of it, because she couldn’t help but think about how Wes looked when he’d fled the room. She’d broken him—an unbreakable man who handled everything in a soft but unyielding way.
Kat drowned her sorrows in more ice cream and settled back, her eyes drifting shut until her stomach shimmied and shifted and stormed up her throat. Shoving Wind off the bed, she ran for the bathroom.
The ding of the front door alarm sounded, but she couldn’t stop expelling the ice cream. She heard his steps up the stairs and the girls greeting him before she finally managed to recover.
Shaking, with watery eyes and an unsteady gait, she managed to return to the room, where Wes stood drenched in sweat and an angry furrowed brow.
“Ice cream?” He shook his head. “I think Kat’s had enough company for one day. If you ladies don’t mind…” He helped her back to bed.
The girls shuffled out her door. “Call us if you need anything,” Wind said over her shoulder as Wes ushered her out the door.
“I’m sure you can see yourselves out since you saw yourselves in,” he said in an unwelcoming tone.
Ouch. Kat cringed. Usually she’d scold him for speaking to her friends that way, but exhaustion and fatigue stole her words.
When he turned around, she saw what Jewels had tried to tell her. He was being torn apart by worry for her health. "I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Kat said between yawns.
Wes removed the magazines and the ice cream, then tucked her in. “Later. Right now you need sleep. Can I trust you not to get out of bed long enough for me to shower?”
She rolled over, knowing she had no energy to argue. “Yes. I promise.”