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“We’ll get you home to him. You’ll be with him soon.” I look at her and realize that I’m in love with her and she has this whole other life elsewhere. I don’t say anything to her. Instead, I just nod and kiss her neck and go into the bathroom before I say something else neither of us is ready for.
29
ZARA
“Good morning,” I say as Colson walks into the kitchen. “How are we feeling this morning?” I smile at him as I rush around the counter to help get to him. The blue cast from the middle of his upper arm to the tips of his knuckles is on full display. “Come and sit on the couch and I’ll bring you breakfast,” I tell him nervously looking back at Gabriel, who is hiding his smile under his coffee mug. “Breakfast that your father is going to make because no one needs the house to burn down,” I joke with him as I get him situated on the couch. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“A toastie,” he replies, which I’ve learned over the past three days since I’ve been here is a fried egg, melted cheese, and bacon between lightly toasted pieces of bread.
“You got it, kiddo.” I hand him the remote and walk back into the kitchen.
“Okay, I’m going to try to do it, and you watch,” I tell him, and he just looks at me. “I have to learn how to do the simple things.” I walk over to the fridge, grab the pack of bacon, and then reach for two pans. I put the bacon in the small pan at the back before turning it on medium-low. “Is that right?”
“Yeah.” He nods at me, and I stop to kiss his neck before going to the fridge and grabbing the eggs and butter.
“Okay, so do I do the bread first or the eggs?” I ask him.
I place a bit of butter in the pan to melt, then put the bread in the toaster, before going to crack the egg. I follow his instructions for that part and break the egg into the pan, breaking the yolk before grabbing the tongs and turning the bacon over to the other side. I watch the edges of the egg sizzle a bit, moving back to the fridge to grab a slice of cheese. I move the pan back and forth, seeing the egg isn’t stuck to the bottom of the pan before I try to flip it. Something I didn’t do yesterday, and the egg was runny in the sandwich, which made it gross. The bread pops out of the toaster, so I place it on the plate, putting the cheese on top of the egg to melt a bit before I place it on the bread and then add the bacon. “Oh my God.” I look at Gabriel. “Did I do it?” I ask, shocked that not only did I do it, but it looks good enough to eat.
“You did it, Sweetheart,” he confirms, wrapping his arms around me, placing his hands on my stomach. “Colson, come eat.”
Colson gets off the couch, coming over and pulling out the stool with his good arm before sitting on it. “I made it with love.” I wink at him before taking a step back and waiting for him to try it. “If it’s good, I’ll make myself one. If it’s not good, I’ll eat that one,” I mumble to Gabriel, who leans against the counter, the both of us waiting for his reaction. “Maybe he shouldn’t be my taste tester?” I suddenly get nervous. “What if my cooking makes him sick?”
“Sweetheart,” Gabriel says at the same time as Colson takes a bite of the sandwich I just made.
“It’s good,” he announces, smiling. “Really good.”
“Better than Dad’s?” I side-eye Gabriel and laugh at the same time.
“Almost,” he says and he eats his sandwich while Gabriel makes me mine.
He places it on the plate right in front of me before he looks over at Colson. “Get dressed.” He looks at the clock. “We leave in twenty.”
Colson nods at him, and brings the plate to the sink before coming back to me. “Thanks for breakfast, Zara.” After we told him I was having our baby, I told him he needed to stop calling me Miss Zara.
“You’re welcome, big guy.” I take a bite of my sandwich as he runs to his room. “Can we not get hurt when you are here?” I ask him as he tries to jump up and touch the ceiling halfway there. “I just met your mother, and I need her to like me,” I say to the empty doorway as Gabriel just chuckles.
“Boys will be boys,” he says, “and she likes you.”
“She won’t like me if her kid gets hurt on my watch,” I point out to him, when he puts his cup in the sink and comes to kiss me before walking to our bedroom to get dressed, “because I would not like me.” I met Patricia when we got in and went straight to her house. I wanted to sit in the truck since I didn’t feel like it was my place, but Gabriel wouldn’t hear of it. So awkwardly in her entranceway she met the woman who is pregnant with her ex-husband’s baby. Never thought I would be the one to say that, I laugh to myself. I also am never going to admit I secretly checked her out to make sure I was prettier than she was. At least to me. But it was like night and day. She had dark brown hair and brown eyes, which is the opposite of my light strawberry-blond, ginger hair with green-gray eyes. I am also a couple of inches taller than her.
Twenty-two minutes later, I’m getting a kiss on the lips from Gabriel and a side hug from Colson as they rush out of the door. “Call you when I drop him off,” Gabriel says before rushing out the door. I walk over to the window, watching both of them get into the truck and drive off. I smile to myself as I turn around and head back to the kitchen, cleaning it up from breakfast. For the past three days, this has been our routine. A routine I didn’t even know made me happy. It’s almost a glimpse of what my life could be, and I have to say it’s pretty much even better than I imagined it would be. My heart speeds up, and my stomach twists and turns when I think of maybe bringing up that I could move here. But he hasn’t brought anything up. When I tried to talk to him about it, he said, “We’ll figure it out.” I don’t know what that means, and I’m too chickenshit to ask him. What if this is what he wants? What if he doesn’t want me here full-time but wants me to visit on occasion? I mean, I don’t even know if he wanted me to come with him this time, I just packed my bag and came along.
After finishing the kitchen, I walk into Colson’s room, seeing that he threw his cover over his pillows as I make my bed, so I just leave it, but I do pick up the dirty laundry, tossing it into the basket before going into my bedroom, where his father has made the bed in the same manner. I fix it the way I like it before going to my bag and grabbing something to wear for the day.
I place my computer on the table, going through e-mails when my phone rings. “Hello.”
“Zara,” the woman says, “this is Gaby from Dr. Sperling’s office.”
“Hi.”
“We have a cancellation on Friday morning, and we can see you then.” I look, seeing that it’s three days from now.
“That works,” I reply, hoping Gabriel will be able to come up with me.
“Perfect, we’ll see you then.” She hangs up the phone with me, and I immediately call Gabriel, who answers after five rings, sounding out of breath. “Hey, sorry for disturbing you, but the doctor called.”
“And?” I hear him walking away from the noise.
