"Why are you looking at me like that?" I ask.
One corner of her mouth quirks up. "You look handsome, that's all." Her eyes drop back to her menu.
I feel heat flash through me. Get a grip, idiot. It was just an innocent comment. She doesn't mean anything by it. It doesn't mean she wants to tear your clothes off. Friends give each other compliments all the time.
Since I'm all about equal opportunity, I let my eyes sweep her. She's wearing this tight teal blue dress with her tits spilling over the top and no matter how hard I try, I can't help but steal little glances. Her hair is up in an elegant ponytail high on her head. I want to lean across the table and bite her long, feminine neck.
"You look gorgeous," I say. Somehow, it comes out as a growl.
Her eyes snap up to mine. In the twinkling candlelight, I see her pupils dilate. She nervously licks her lips. "Thank you." Her focus quickly falls to her menu again.
There's been a tight energy hovering between us from the minute I picked Penny up tonight. Our gazes have held longer than normal and even the slightest touch has buzzed with innuendo. I don't know if I'm just imagining it but half the night, it seems like Penny feels it, too.
The other half, I can practically see her re-tracing the line between us in the sand. I feel the gravitational force of the friend zone boxing me in. Again. Fuck.
Now that she’s pregnant, she doesn't come over to my cabin after her bar shifts anymore. There's no point. She got what she needed from me. I fulfilled my promise to help her conceive a child.
But I miss her, dammit. My cabin has been so empty and echoey without her these past few nights. Sleepless hours tick by while I stare up at the ceiling, just wanting things to go back to the way they were before.
These past few weeks, I didn't feel alone. I didn't feel angry. I didn't resent the whole damn world. Because despite whatever bullshit happened during the day, I could look forward to the night, when Penny would crawl beneath my sheets after a shift at the bar and I'd be inside her and she'd say my name like it was her most favorite word ever invented.
And now it's just...over? I'm not ready to let her go.
She digs into her little clutch and pulls out a few folded up sheets of paper. I notice the medical clinic's logo printed at the top.
"What's that?" I ask as she peruses the document.
"Oh, nothing," she says absently without looking up. "Just a list of foods I'm not allowed to eat. The nurse from the clinic gave it to me today." Her eyes dart between the paper and the menu like she's cross-referencing the two.
My shoulders stiffen. I feel myself frowning. "Wait—you had an appointment today?"
She finally glances over at me. "Yeah, just to confirm the pregnancy. Store-bought pregnancy tests aren't always accurate. I went in for a blood test to confirm that I didn't get a false positive when I peed on the stick at home a few days ago." Her eyes assess my expression. "...Are you okay?"
I clear my throat. "Well, it's just...you didn't tell me..."
"Tell you what?" She tilts her head to the side.
"That you had an appointment."
"Well, it wasn't a big deal. And I...I didn't think you'd care."
I furrow my brows and lean across the table when she says that. "What the hell? Of course I care, Penelope. You know I do." I know she's been let down a lot over the years and she feels like she's got to face life on her own but I need her to know that it's not like that with me. She can rely on me. Always.
Her expression grows guarded. I blink. Shit. She made me sign a legal agreement promising to back off and let her do her thing. She made it clear that she didn't want me meddling in her single mother journey. Yet, here I am smothering her from day one. I need to respect her boundaries before she forcefully reminds me of them.
Quickly, I qualify my statement so I don't scare her away. "All I'm saying is, of course I care about the things going on in your life. We're friends."
Her features shift as if my words have disappointed her somehow. "Right. We're friends..."
"Look, I want you to know that if you ever need someone sitting there, holding your hand through this, I can be there for you. I want to be there for you."
She twists her linen napkin in her hands. "Well...my next appointment is in a few weeks. The first ultrasound. Do you...do you think you'd wanna go with me?"
The corner of my mouth hooks into a slow half-smile. "Yeah, I wanna go."
She mirrors my smile. “Fine.”
The waiter comes and we place our order. While we wait for the food, she talks a mile a minute about her pregnancy milestones and her upcoming design projects. She keeps up the same level of enthusiasm when the conversation shifts to my dreams of upgrading to greener, cleaner equipment and expanding my network of sustainable greenhouses to continue to feed fresh, organic produce to Crescent Harbor and the surrounding communities year-round.
When the food comes, Penny eats her entire meal—some French beef stew—and then half of mine. I think she'd have eaten the whole damn cow if the waiter had put it in front of her. Doesn't matter though. She could eat an entire farm and she'd still be beautiful. In my eyes, she's the most beautiful woman in the universe.
She's pregnant with my baby.
The range of emotions that statement sparks in me is insane. From terrified to territorial and everything in between, I feel it all. I'd do anything to protect her, to make her happy.
When the waiter comes with the bill, Penny tries splitting it with me. Ha! She must be crazy.
"Walker, this is an expensive restaurant. And 'friends' split the bill. I don't want you feeling responsible for me."
"Let it go, P. You're
