And all the craziness was compounded by the fact that she didn’t feel like she should tell anyone else before Caden. She’d resisted calling her best friend, Jen, who was out of town on a Christmas shopping trip with her mom anyway. Besides Jen, her other closest friends had been college roommates, none of whom lived in the D.C. area. At any rate, she wasn’t so close with them anymore that she would’ve felt comfortable calling and dropping the Hey, I’m pregnant and scared my boyfriend is going to freak out conversation on them. In this moment, part of her wished she had more girlfriends, but she’d always had an easier time making guy friends. She’d always blamed that on growing up surrounded by men.
Which had her wondering what she was going to tell her family—and when. Patrick had always been a great sounding board for her. Because he was so much older than her, Ian, and Collin, he’d helped his dad out a lot when they were all young. Later, he became almost a mentor to Makenna as she made decisions about college and careers. And her dad had never been anything but incredibly supportive, even when she was the first in the family to move out of the Philadelphia area. But telling one James man could be akin to telling them all, and that definitely wasn’t something she was ready to do yet.
Which was why at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon she was still in her pajamas and an entire pound bag of peanut M&Ms lay demolished on the end table next to her.
At least peanut M&Ms had protein.
Sorry lil’ nut. I’ll do better.
Makenna sighed.
And then she decided she’d had enough.
A woman on a mission, she turned off the TV and marched directly to the shower. Once clean, she awkwardly worked to apply Aquaphor to her tattoo, which had moved from being sore to being itchy. She threw on some comfortable clothes, stuffed her feet into boots, and grabbed her purse and coat. And then she headed to the store.
She had a care package to put together.
At the very least, she needed to see Caden, even if she didn’t stay.
Thinking of what she liked to have when she didn’t feel good, she roamed around the supermarket picking up chicken noodle soup and crackers, popsicles and ginger ale, tea bags for hot tea and bread for toast, among other things. As little as Caden had stayed there over the past two months, he couldn’t possibly have much food in the house, which made her feel bad for not doing this sooner. She threw in pain medicine and throat lozenges and Pepto Bismol.
And then she passed the aisle full of holiday items. Gift wrap, decoration, candy, and toys made it look like the North Pole had exploded in the middle of the Giant. Makenna grabbed Caden a bag of peanut M&Ms, because he liked them, too. A shelf of stuffed animals caught her eye, and even though it was a little corny, she was drawn closer.
What said Feel better! more than a cuddly stuffed animal? The fact that she was considering giving it to a big, tattooed, pierced, and scarred guy made it kinda funny, too—and anything that might make him smile seemed like a good idea to her. Besides, Caden might look a little rough around the edges, but he was a big teddy bear inside. And she’d always loved that dichotomy about him.
And then she saw the perfect little guy.
He was a brown bear with black stitching here and there like he’d been hand-sewn or put back together. He had a sweet face and an even sweeter red patchwork heart on his chest. And something about all that stitchwork and the heart reminded her of Caden. Without letting herself overthink it, Makenna grabbed him and threw him in the cart.
It was a short trip from the store to Caden’s townhouse. She’d always loved where he lived in Fairlington. Built in the 1940s to house workers for the then-new Pentagon office building, the neighborhood was all red-brick collections of townhouses grouped around small cul-de-sacs. They were charming and close to everything and some of the units were surprisingly spacious, including Caden’s, which had two bedrooms and a finished basement.
As she parked her Prius in one of the visitors’ spots, that got her to thinking.
Here she’d been wondering why he didn’t get rid of his place. Given the baby, it would make much more sense for them to get rid of hers. Caden’s house had easily twice the square footage of her apartment, and he didn’t even use the room next to his bedroom, which would make a perfect nursery.
As she stared at the front of his house, her belly did a little flip. Obviously, she was getting ahead of herself. But thoughts of where the baby would live represented just one in about a million things she now had to consider. Well, they. They now had to consider. She had to stop thinking about this like she was on her own.
She had Caden.
And right now, he needed her.
Makenna collected all the bags from the car and hefted them up to his front porch. She had to sit some down to knock on the door.
It opened in less than a minute.