“Mad?” She shook her head. “No, I’m not mad,” she said.
“You’re not?” I asked confused.
“I’m disappointed in you, Riggs,” she informed. “Which is much worse than being mad at you. I get angry and then I get over it but once I’m disappointed in someone, I give up on them,” she explained, shrugging her shoulders.
“I’m sorry I let you down, Kitten,” I tried, reaching for her hand. I wanted to pull her onto my lap and erase the look in her eyes, the look that reflected all the ways my actions failed her.
“It doesn’t matter, Riggs,” she said, sighing heavily. “I’ll get used to your disappointment, probably even come to expect it, but I won’t let you disappoint Pea. I won’t sit back and watch you make promise after promise to our baby, only to break each one. I won’t throw you under the bus but I won’t make excuses for you either, and then there will come a point where I won’t tolerate it anymore,” she declared.
It wasn’t a threat, it was a promise, a promise that she would not let anyone inflict pain on our kid, least of all Pea’s dad. While I was failing miserably at impending fatherhood, Kitten was becoming one badass mother.
“I didn’t mean to miss the appointment, Lauren. After the funeral I was going to head straight to the doctor’s office but Pipe got the call that Blackie woke up from the coma,” I explained. “We almost lost him, fuck, I’m the one who found him half dead. I needed to see him alive and well, needed to erase that image of him dying from my mind,” I continued. “I lost track of time.”
Her eyes softened, and she cocked her head to the side. “Is he okay?”
I nodded. “Got a long road ahead of him, but he’s a fucking bull. Blackie will pull through,” I said, leaving out that he wouldn’t actually pull through if Jack found out whatever the fuck was up with him and Lacey.
I didn’t get that one. He was like twelve years older than her, but hey, who was I to judge anyone.
“How’d it go at the doctor?” I questioned, giving in to my urge to touch her and reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Baby is good, perfect actually,” she smiled widely. “I heard Pea’s heartbeat,” she said, biting her lip and shaking her head as if the words amazed her. “It’s so strong,” she whispered, her smile reaching up to her eyes.
I stared at her and I envied the look in her eyes, the pride and love reflected in them. Since I realized I had missed the appointment I had been feeling guilty but now, looking at Lauren I was actually jealous I missed a chance to feel the way she did. I missed out on something big and I was feeling it.
“I have a picture, do you want to see it?”
I nodded.
“Absolutely,” I said, as she stood up and walked toward the kitchen. I followed her, surprised by how much I wanted to see Pea.
She pulled the sonogram picture off the refrigerator and I was never happier about a purchase than I was at the moment and I realized something else—furniture wasn’t going to make this place a normal home.
But Lauren would.
Putting Pea’s first grainy photo on the front of the refrigerator made these four walls a home.
I took the photo in my hand and tried to make out a head, two legs and two arms but all I saw was something that looked like a dot.
“That’s Pea,” she said, pointing to the dot. “And these lines, on this picture is the heartbeat,” she added, showing me the lines that traveled up and down the photograph.
“Wow,” I said, more to myself than to her, looking back at the dot, at Pea, before glancing over at Lauren. “Cute kid,” I teased, winking at her.
She smiled at me and I stared at her for a moment, my eyes dipping to her flat stomach as I tried to picture what she’d look like in the next few months as Pea grew inside of her.
How fucking crazy was that? Lauren was growing a human inside of her.
Without thinking, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and tugged her into the crook of my arm.
“I’m sorry I missed this,” I said, holding up the photo. “But I won’t miss anymore,” I promised.
And I wouldn’t.
Because I didn’t want to.
Wow.
Funny, what one little picture could do to a person, how one little dot could mean so much.
I leaned down and kissed her forehead, dropping my arm from her shoulders and placed Pea’s first photo back where it belonged.
“Did you eat?”
“No,” she said, glancing at the bag of groceries. “What’d you get?”
“Sorry they were all out of cottage cheese,” I lied. That shit was vile, and I wasn’t about to subject Pea to that crap. I walked over to the bags and pulled out chocolate pudding, a gallon of milk, cookies, a rotisserie chicken, a tub of ice cream and lastly a jar of pickles.
All the necessities.
I may not know much but wasn’t it some cardinal rule that all pregnant chicks craved pickles and ice cream? Tada!
“Riggs?” She asked, picking up the jar of pickles.