“You’re right. Jesus, I feel a little . . .”
“Sick?”
“Not exactly. Off. I never figured on anything like this. It’s out of . . .”
“Owen’s Order of Events. Adjust,” he suggested, giving Owen a light punch on the shoulder.
“Adjust. Yeah, I can adjust.” His face darkened, his eyes glinted. “But I’m not the only one who’s going to.”
He waited an hour, decided he’d calmed down, steadied up. He walked over to Vesta in the unrelenting rain, and into the warm, into the scents of sauce and spice.
Behind the cash register, Avery rang up a customer, sent Owen a sassy wink.
A wink, he thought, heating up again. This wasn’t the time for cute little winks.
“Good timing,” she told him. “Things’ve just slowed down. I was going to run over and see what you guys have demolished so far.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Sure, have a seat. I’m going to get Franny to take over. Do you want a slice?”
“No. And I need to talk to you upstairs. In private.”
“Oh. Crap. Is something wrong in the new place?”
“It’s got nothing to do with that.”
“Then what—”
“Avery.” His tone flattened, had her eyebrows drawing together. “Upstairs, now. In private.”
“Fine. Fine, but you’re screwing with my really good mood.” She stalked to the doorway between the kitchens. “Franny? I need to run out.” She pulled off her apron as she spoke, tagged it on a peg. “I really want to see the new place,” she began.
“You can go after if that’s what you want.”
“What are you pissed about?” she asked as they went through the side door. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Maybe not doing is the problem.”
“Really screwing with my mood,” she repeated and shoved open her apartment door. “Now, what the hell is the problem?”
His carefully planned, thoroughly reasonable approach fizzled away. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
“What?
“Don’t give me that shock-and-awe crap, Avery. I saw you at the drugstore. I saw you buy the pregnancy test.”
“You . . .” Her hands fisted on her hips. “You were
“Don’t be stupid. I was out running errands, and went into the CVS. And there you were pulling one of those tests off the shelf and tossing it in your basket. Goddamn it, what’s wrong with you that you don’t tell me? That you don’t trust me, or respect what we are to each other enough to tell me you’re pregnant.”
“Maybe because I’m not.”
“Not?”
“I’m not pregnant, you moron.”
Something odd worked inside him, but he couldn’t identify the sensation. “The test was negative.”
“No, the test was positive.” She yanked out her phone.
Now his heart jumped several beats and landed hard in his throat. “If it was positive, then you’re pregnant. Who’s the moron?”
“You.” She turned the phone around to show him the picture of the test stick, and the PREGNANT. “Because this is Clare’s pregnancy test. The pregnancy test I picked up for her this morning when she asked me to.”
“I saw Beckett ten minutes ago. Clare’s not pregnant or he’d have told me.”
“She hasn’t told
“I won’t say anything to him, for Christ’s sake. I won’t spoil it for them.” Unsteady, unsure, a little light- headed, he shoved both hands through hair just damp enough to stand out in tufts. “But, Jesus, what was I supposed to think when I saw you buying the thing?”
“I don’t know, Owen. Maybe the solution might’ve been to walk the hell up to me, say, hey, Avery, fancy meeting you here, and why are you buying that pregnancy test?”
“I have to sit down.” He did. “I’m going to remind you, you owe me a break.” He breathed for a minute. “I couldn’t think. And then you were just walking off. You were so damn casual about it, and I just couldn’t think.”
She said nothing as she studied him. He looked so perplexed, so confused, as Owen rarely did. “You wigged.”
“In a manner of speaking. Maybe.”
“And you jumped to conclusions.”
“I . . . Okay.”
“You never jump.”
“I’ve never seen you buy a pregnancy test before—especially when I’m the only one having sex with you.”
She considered. “That’s actually sort of understandable. Sort of.” When a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth, she let it come. “You totally freaked.”
“I semi-freaked,” he corrected. “I was more pissed, and . . .” Might as well admit it, he decided. “And hurt when I thought you weren’t telling me. We’ve never talked about if.”
She blew out a breath. “That’s a conversation. I don’t know, and it’s not something we can talk out in ten minutes, I guess. We’re fine now, right, because I’m not, and Clare is. And she’s so happy. Beckett’s going to be happy.”
“Yeah, he is. He really is.”
“So let’s just be happy for them, and let me have the pleasure of knowing you were a moron. We’ll talk about ifs sometime, but I really want to see the demo. Then I told Clare I’d get the kids from school and bring them to the shop so she can tell Beckett. She doesn’t want to tell the kids until she’s further along. Probably not until after the wedding anyway. It’s for her and Beckett now, and I guess you and me and Hope and Ryder and your parents and hers. Which is already a lot.”
“All right.” Steadier, he rose. “But we’d both better think about it, and talk it out, in case.”
“You worry about ‘in case’ more than I do, but we’ll do that. It’s a really good day, Owen.”
“You’re right.” He settled a bit more when she reached up, smoothed at his hair. “It’s a really good day.”
“For right now, let’s just be happy for Clare and Beckett. They’re getting married, making a family, expanding one. It’s all exactly what they both want.”
“All right,” he said again, and reached for her, drew her in. “We’ll be happy for them. Sorry I was pissed at you.”
“I’m not, because I get to say
“I’ll find something for you to demo. It’s the least I can do.”
Chapter Nineteen
Hope shifted the clear vase of white roses an inch to the left.
“There.”
Though Avery didn’t see the difference, she nodded approval.
They’d transformed the long table borrowed from Turn The Page with a draping of white linen. With Hope’s focused eye, clear, square vases of newly opened white roses and tiny white tea lights in silver holders graced what
