Brat (14 page)

“Don’t forget your juice.” He inclined his head toward the glass I hadn’t seen beside my plate.

I scowled at the glass. “That is not juice. It’s green. Juice is not green.”

He smirked. “It is when there’s kale in it. Come on, it’s good. I used the juicer and sweetened it with grapes so you can hardly even taste the veggies.”

I took the glass and eyed it suspiciously before sniffing its contents. “And we’re back to hate.”

Chase leaned closer and gave me a stern look that only made me want to jump into his lap and grind my hips against his. “Kale is full of iron, which pregnant women need more of. We don’t want you getting anemic. You need your energy if you’re going to start a new job. Drink up, princess.”

Watching him over the rim, I took a careful sip. Surprisingly, the juice wasn’t all that bad. “There, I’m drinking it. Happy now?”

Chase leaned in and took my lips with his, the kiss slow, thorough and lingering. “I am now,” he said huskily as he pulled away. “I’ll see you this afternoon. Go out there and kick some ass.”

“I’ll try,” I said, attempting to sound more confident than I felt.

Chase stood and left, his cute little butt tantalizing me from beneath his khakis. Once he was gone, I finished eating and forced myself to leave the bed. Kinsley had already gone to her first class, and Christian was downstairs with Luke and Jenn, so I had the entire bedroom and bathroom to myself as I got ready for my first day of job hunting. After showering and blow-drying my hair, I chose my outfit with care. Settling on a black Donna Karan suit that I’d never worn, and a crisp, white blouse, I flat-ironed my hair and applied my make-up. I barely managed to button the pants or the blouse, which was a depressing reminder of all the changes that were happening to my body. Willing the top button of my blouse to stay closed over my oversized boobs, I left the apartment.

The morning was mild, warm and sunny, which I took as a good sign. I was determined now, more than ever, to prove to my dad that I was actually good for more than spending his money.

By the end of the day, I’d filled out six applications and scheduled three interviews for later in the week. I made it back to the apartment just in time for my classes. I was tired and hungry, but proud of myself.

This independence thing wasn’t going to be so hard.

Three weeks later, I still didn’t have a job. Who knew getting employment could be so hard?

“They want me to have experience,” I griped to Chase. We were sprawled across his bed, filling out the mountains of paperwork we were given by the adoption agency we’d chosen to handle placing Blob in a good home. “How the hell am I supposed to gain experience if no one will give me a job so I can get some?”

Chase paused and set his paperwork aside, taking one of my feet and settling it in his lap. I sighed as he started rubbing, slowly and deeply, his thumbs applying the perfect amount of pressure to the arch of my foot.

“You’re doing great,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll find something. Jobs are scarce right now, but the right one for you is out there somewhere.”

Frowning at the paperwork in my lap, I absently chewed on my pen. “They want to know if we want an open adoption,” I mumbled around the pen.

“What’s that mean?” he asked, continuing to rub my foot.

“According to this, if we choose an open adoption, we get to meet the birth parents in person. We can even choose to give them our addresses so they can send us updates about Blob, and pictures and stuff.”

Chase found a tender spot near the ball of my foot and applied gentle pressure. “How do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know, it seems like it would be harder that way, you know?”

“The easy way isn’t always the best way,” he countered. “People look good on paper, but you can’t get a true sense for who they are until you meet and get to know someone face to face.”

“God, I hate it when you’re right.”

“I’d think you’d be used to it by now.”

Dislodging my foot from his hold, I aimed a kick at his chest. “Smart ass.”

Catching my foot, he moved it aside before reaching for the other one. A perfectly applied stroke near my heel made me docile as a kitten. “Admit it, you love me.”

I stared up at him, my pen pressed to the paper and creating a rapidly spreading ink blotch. Chase’s eyes widened as silence passed between us and his joke became something else entirely. He cleared his throat and lowered his gaze back down to my bare foot.

“Chloe—”

“Oh my God!” I cried, almost leaping a mile in the air when my stomach quivered. I felt as if something was jabbing me from the inside.

Chase jumped up, worry already lining his face. “Chloe, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” I cried, pressing a hand to the little bump that had started to show in my middle over the last few weeks. “Something’s wrong with Blob.”

“What?” Chase grabbed my arm, his eyes searching me for any sign of distress or injury. “Are you in pain?”

I shook my head, but then the weird feeling happened again and I yelped. “There it is again!” I screamed. “Call 911, or something!”

“First you have to tell me what’s wrong so I know what to tell them. What’s the matter?”

I gestured toward my stomach wildly, leaping to my feet. “There was this weird
feeling!
Like something slithering around in there!”

Chase’s worry turned into shock, and then amusement. “A slithering feeling, huh?” He came forward and pressed his hand to my belly. “Hold still.”

I obeyed and stared down to where his hand rested on my middle. My heart raced as I thought of all the things that could be wrong with the baby. “I did everything right,” I insisted. “I’ve been taking my vitamins, and eating good and drinking that nasty kale juice … no alcohol, no caffeine … I didn’t do this, did I? There it is again! What is it?”

Chase’s eyes were wide with awe as he stared up at me. “Sweetheart, there’s nothing wrong. This is perfectly normal.”

I blinked back the tears that had been building up and breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Really?”

He nodded, smiling as he cupped my face in his hand and pulled me toward him. “Blob is just saying hello to you, that’s all. His first little kick.”

“That’s what it feels like?” I wondered aloud. “I had no idea. Oh, there it is again. Wow, he’s a busybody isn’t he?”

Chase knelt in front of me and pulled up my shirt, exposing the little bump and putting both hands over it. “That is the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt,” he whispered.

I stared down at them both: Chase kneeling in front of me and the little life making its presence known inside of me. “Once you get used to it, it feels less like an alien life form is going to burst out of your belly button, and more like a little butterfly beating its wings in there.”

Chase chuckled, pressing a kiss just below my belly button. I trembled at the light caress of his lips.

Suddenly, the door to his room swung open, and Christian and Kinsley stood on the other side, peering in worriedly. When they saw Chase on his knees in front of me, and my shirt pulled up to expose my belly, they faltered. Christian covered his eyes and Kinsley gasped.

“Oh man, our bad,” Christian said, backpedalling away from the door with his eyes averted. “We didn’t know you guys were …”

“We heard screaming,” Kinsley added, “and thought something was wrong.”

“It’s okay, guys,” I said, waving them into the room. “Nothing is wrong, and we weren’t doing
that
. I just freaked out for a second but everything’s okay. Blob just kicked for the first time!”

“Really? That’s amazing!” Kinsley squealed, her dark eyes wide as she came into the room and pressed her hand to my stomach.

“Wait, he’ll probably do it again in a second,” Chase said, making room for Kinsley’s hand on my belly.

“Well, now it’s a threesome,” I said wryly as they both continued groping my stomach and waiting for something to happen.

“Oh, there it is!” Kinsley cried excitedly as Blob kicked again. “Christian, get over here, you have to feel this.”

Christian leaned against the doorframe and watched us from the hall. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Seriously, dude, this is so cool,” Kinsley said. “Come
on
!”

“Might as well make it an all-out orgy,” I muttered, waving Christian into the room.

He came in reluctantly, his hands deep in his pockets as he approached. He reached out slowly, finding a spot just above Kinsley’s hand. We must have stood there at least five minutes just waiting for something to happen.

“Maybe he’s tired now, guys,” I said when the sixth minute passed without another kick. “He’s not a performing monkey, you know.”

“Shh!” Kinsley admonished. “It’ll happen, just give it a minute!”

“My uterus, my rules,” I groused, “now get off.”

“Wait, there it is again!” Chase said. “Whoa, that was a big one.”

“Wow, that was pretty cool,” Christian remarked.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

All four of our heads swiveled toward the door where Luke and Jenn were standing and watching us, confusion creasing their foreheads. I smiled sheepishly and jerked my shirt down, forcing everyone to pull their hands away.

“Things have been weird around here since we moved out,” Jenn mumbled. With a shake of her head, she turned and headed back toward the stairs.

Chapter 9

“How about this couple? He’s an army captain, and she’s a nurse. They’re stationed at Fort Hood.”

Glancing up at Jenn from across the kitchen table, I mulled over the proposed couple. After turning in our paperwork with the adoption agency, Chase and I had come home with binders full of information sheets on families, couples, and even a few single people, who were looking to adopt.

“Well, having a nurse for a mother would be good,” I said. “If Blob gets hurt or sick, she’ll know what to do. An army dad would know what to do in the case of a zombie apocalypse or something.”

“We’ll put them in the maybe pile then,” Jenn said, removing the sheet from binder and setting it on top of the other family we’d set aside. “Family three-seventy-two, meet family three-sixty-nine, your competition.”

Kinsley shuffled through the stack we’d given her, her cheer skirt making a perfect circle on the floor around her. Looking at her now, I could see that she’d lost at least ten pounds. It didn’t look bad on her, but I was still worried. She seemed to be in a good mood today, though, so I didn’t want to upset that.

“Shouldn’t Chase be helping you with this?” she asked.

“I told him to go home for the weekend,” I replied, flipping past a family who listed ‘basket weaving’ as one of their hobbies. I could practically hear baby Blob yawning at the thought. “He hasn’t been in two weeks and his mom needs him more than I do. Besides, I think we need a break from each other. I mean, I’m pregnant, not handicapped. He’s driving me nuts telling me what I should eat and making me juice and bringing me eggs.”

Jenn rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I totally hate it when a guy acts like he cares about me.”

“You know what I mean,” I countered, reciprocating the eye roll. “I don’t hate it. Actually, I like it. A lot.”

Kinsley grinned. “Maybe you even love it … and him?”

I shrugged, pretending to be nonchalant about it as I paused on the next page of potential parents. “Maybe,” I said. The truth was, my insides were a storm of emotions. It was hard to sort them out and focus on any one at one time. Now I understood what pregnant women meant about being hormonal. I felt like my emotional meter was all over the place and could turn on a dime at the slightest provocation.

“What’s this?” Jenn teased. “Chloe, in
love
?”

“It’s the baby,” I argued with a shrug. “It’s making me so emotional and irrational.”

“You’re like a real woman now or something,” Kinsley quipped. “Ooh, this family looks promising. They’re both doctors.”

“Two doctors in the family means they probably work too much,” I replied. “I won’t put Blob through what my dad put me through. Pass.”

Kinsley went back to her stack. “Anyway, I think you and Chase make a cute couple. It’s okay to admit it if you love him, you know. You guys are going through this huge thing together and it’s only going to bring you closer together.”

“Yeah, but if it wasn’t for Blob, we probably wouldn’t even be a couple,” I argued.

“And if I’d never started dating Dain, Luke would have never started acting like a jealous ass, and I would never have known how he felt about me. I would never have realized that I felt the same way. Things happen for a reason, Chloe.”

“You know I’ve never really believed that. I’m a cynic, and with good reason, especially when it comes to relationships. Chase is amazing, but he’s far from perfect.”

“He doesn’t have to be perfect,” Kinsley said, her voice low. “He only has to be perfect for you.”

During the long pause that followed, I pondered that. According to my mother, my ex-boyfriend, Eric was perfect for me. Connected, rich, handsome … everything a girl like me is supposed to want. Of course, we all know how that turned out. Still, Chase had more than proven himself to me. The only thing holding me back from telling him exactly how I felt was me.

“We have a problem.”

I looked up from the pile of homework surrounding me on the bed as Chase barreled into my bedroom. After spending my entire Saturday pre-screening families for Blob, I was way behind on my homework for the weekend, so I’d dedicated Sunday to catching up.

“Shhh!” Kinsley admonished from where she sat in front of her laptop, churning out an essay. “Some of us are trying to work here.”

I glanced up and frowned at the look I found on Chase’s face. Pure terror mixed with panic. “What’s going on? I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

“Yeah, about that …” he trailed off, running a hand through his curls. “My mother is here.”

“Here?” I screeched. “As in, in our apartment?”

He nodded, his expression turning sheepish. “If I’d had time to call ahead and warn you, I would have, but things didn’t really work out that way. She wants to meet you.”

Panic tore through me as I stood and faced my reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall. My hair was in a messy bun on top of my head, my shorts were indecently short, and my baby bump was showing through the bottom of my tank top. Blob gave me a little kick, which only combined with my nervousness to make me feel sick.

“I can’t meet her looking like this!” I hissed, peering past him and down the staircase. I couldn’t see her, but I could
feel
his mother’s presence. “I’m not dressed and I’m not wearing any make-up.”

Chase grabbed my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. “Chloe, you’re beautiful. Calm down. I told her about the baby because I figured she has a right to know she has a grandchild out there somewhere. She asked me about the mother, and then insisted we come over here so she could meet you. She has work all next week and won’t have time, so it had to be now.”

I forced myself to take a deep breath. “Your mother. What’s she like?”

“A female version of me, basically,” he said.

I groaned. “Oh God, she’s going to hate me!”

Chase chuckled. “Maybe at first. But hey, you won me over didn’t you? It’ll be fine. Put some pants on and come downstairs.”

He kissed my forehead, then backed out of the room, closing the door behind himself. I pivoted toward Kinsley, positive my eyes were bugging out of my head in shock. “Help me!” I wailed as I dashed toward the closet, rifling through its contents for something to wear.

Kinsley stood, shoving her laptop aside. “Oh my God, your hair is a mess,” she mumbled as she yanked at my bun and sent my hair cascading down my back. Running a comb through it, she followed me around the room as I tossed outfit after outfit aside.

“How could he do this to me at the last minute? I am so not good with parents!”

“My parents like you,” she offered.

“I meant the parents of the guys I’m dating.”

“Yeah, but you don’t date.”

“I haven’t in a very long time, but let’s just say once upon a time there once was a girl named Chloe, who always said the wrong things at the wrong times to her boyfriends’ parents. We’re talking highly inappropriate stuff here, Kins.”

“Just relax. Wear the black maxi dress, it still fits you and it’s pretty without being too dressy. Remember to smile, and to think before you say anything. Just be yourself.”

“Didn’t you hear Chase say she’s a feminine version of him? I can’t be myself.” I pulled my clothes off quickly and slid into the dress. I cringed at my reflection—not a drop of make-up. I was a hot mess, but there wasn’t much I could do without keeping Mrs. Watkins waiting for too long. “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

“Cool, leave the door open so I can listen in.”

“Kinsley!”

She shrugged as she climbed back onto her bed, reaching for her laptop. “What? Since Luke and Jenn moved out, and you and Chase became a couple, nothing juicy ever happens around here anymore. I need entertainment.”

Shooting her a dirty look over my shoulder, I made my way to the stairs. I paused on the landing to collect myself again before descending. I could hear Chase’s voice coming from the kitchen and the clink of cups. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I paused in the doorway of the kitchen.

A woman—who I estimated to be about in her mid-forties—sat at our kitchen table with a ceramic mug between her fingers. She was curvy and tall, with a tanned and weathered face that suggested she spent a lot of time outdoors. Tiny smile lines surrounded eyes so identical to Chase’s it was scary. Her hair was the same rich mahogany color, though instead of curls, she was sporting waist-length dreadlocks. There was definitely an Earth mother vibe happening here. Both her wrists were covered with colorful, braided bracelets, and she was wearing a T-shirt with the outline of a snowman on the front that said “Snowmen against Global Warming” across the chest. I could see where Chase got his sense of style from.

She stood as I entered the kitchen, her eyes sharp as she sized me up. Chase paused in pouring hot water into a mug and set the pot aside, coming toward me. His hand found the small of my back and he gently pushed me forward.

“Mom, this is Chloe.”

She stepped toward me, hands on her wide hips as she looked me up and down. “Well, Chase, she doesn’t look at all like the stuck-up snob you described.”

My eyes widened at the insult and I found my hand reflexively going to my belly. I cleared my throat, trying to choke back my response before it could come out … but damn it, fish gotta swim. “Chase, you didn’t tell me you were related to the Marley family!” I exclaimed with mock surprise.

Chase’s eyes widened, but to my surprise his mother actually laughed. It was boisterous and loud, a lot like Chase’s. “Okay, you were right,” she said to her son with a huge grin. “I like her already.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, I told myself to relax. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Watkins.”

“Please, call me Laura.”

“You want some tea, Chloe?” Chase offered, gesturing toward the pot.

“Sure.”

I took the chair across from Laura as she settled back in. I finally noticed that the television was on and tuned in to the Cowboys game. A teenage boy with broad shoulders and a mop of cinnamon-colored hair sat rocking back and forth, his eyes fixated on the screen.

“That must be Shannon,” I said.

Laura nodded. “That’s my baby boy. He’s obsessed with football and he loves the Cowboys. I figured if we put the game on, it would keep the guys out of our hair so we could talk.”

Oh God, please don’t leave me,
I thought as Chase approached with my cup. No such luck, though.

“Thank you, Chase. Now beat it,” Laura demanded with a smile. “Time for girl talk.”

“You ladies be good,” Chase said teasingly, shooting me a pointed look over his mom’s head.

“I won’t hurt the girl, Chase. Geez.”

I forced a laugh as Chase disappeared into the living rom. Clapping Shannon on the shoulder, he plopped onto the couch beside his brother and the two became lost in man land.

“Now,” Laura said, fixing her astute gaze on me, “we can really talk. I don’t want my son hovering over us. He’s worried I’ll say something mean or hurt your feelings, but you look like a big girl.”

I lifted my chin as I held on to my mug, its warmth suffusing into my palms. “You want to talk about the baby. I don’t see any reason why we can’t cut to the chase.”

Laura nodded, taking a quick sip from her own mug. “All right then. I can’t say I was all that ecstatic when Chase told me he’d gotten someone pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I did want to be a grandmother someday, but Chase is just getting started in life. My son is going to be someone, he’s going to change the world. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that. If it were up to me, he’d still be in Bryan, not here busting his ass to take care of his brother and me.”

“He’s a good guy,” I said. “He told me why he came to Austin, and I think it’s very honorable. I don’t see why he can’t do the decent thing and still save the world. If anyone is capable of that, it’s Chase.”

Laura nodded, a few of her dreads falling over one shoulder. “You’re right about that, but becoming a father, taking care of his single mother and autistic brother, and
still
living all of the dreams he has for himself? I just don’t see that panning out.”

“Then I’m sure you’re relieved about our decision to put the baby up for adoption,” I countered. “Trust me, it didn’t come easy, but we think we’re doing the right thing.”

“Oh, I know you are,” she replied, one eyebrow raised. “My concerns over the baby are no longer an issue. Chase is a smart boy, and you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders, so I know you’ll find a suitable home for the little one.”

I folded my arms over my chest, not sure I liked where this conversation was going. “You’re worried about Chase being involved with me after the baby,” I stated, narrowing my eyes at her. “You don’t think us being together is a good idea.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” she said slowly, carefully, “but it’s hardly practical. Other than this child, you have nothing in common.”

“We care about each other.”

“No one doubts that,” she said with a shrug. “I hear the way my son talks about you, and I know he’s head over heels. My worry stems from the way this relationship started. A fling that led to a pregnancy. How do I know you two won’t hop into bed as soon as you’re healed from childbirth, and have another little accident?”