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NINE

MILLIE

Radley dropped one of her boxes on the kitchen island. “Did you pick your room yet?”

I had not picked my room.

The sum of all things I’d done this morning included instructing the movers, holding my temper every time I tried to pick something up only for someone (Tanner) to remove it from my hands, and sitting down on the couch I was currently lying on while people moved around me. On the plus side, I hadn’t been sick.

“Mills?”

By the time I lifted my head and opened my eyes, a deep crease had formed between her brows.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Millie, what is wrong?”

Out of nowhere my eyes brimmed with tears.

Over the past two weeks this had been happening more and more.

The baby had replaced making me sick with making me cry.

Also making me frustrated. Very frustrated.

The more I cried, the more frustrated I got.

And the more frustrated I got, the more I cried.

You see the issue I’m having.

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong at all. I just can’t stop crying for no reason.

” I sniffed. “Less than a month ago I found out I was pregnant with a guy I could barely tolerate, and now I’m moving into an apartment he’s given me, in an incredible building, and the past few weeks he’s been nothing but totally sweet, and supportive, and helpful.

And…” sniff, “it’s really…” sniff, “annoying,” sniff, “and I haven’t even helped at all with the moving,” sniff, “no one,” sniff, “will let me.”

The last part of my sentence came out as more of a wail, but at least I made it to the end before I completely dissolved into a waterfall of tears broken up by heaving sobs. From the corner of my eye I saw one of the movers appear in the doorway only to make a hasty backward retreat.

Radley’s expression morphed into one of those sympathetic ones that came with a head tilt and sad eyes as she knelt down in front of me.

“That doesn’t sound like nothing,” she said gently. “And I’m sure Tanner will go back to being just as annoying soon. They’re leaving for the away series tonight, I’m sure by the time he returns he’ll be back to his truly irritating ways.”

The next sniff came out as more of a chuckle, along with a bubble of snot from my nose, at which Radley turned hers up.

“Gross.”

“Sorry,” I replied, swiping a sleeve across my face and suddenly feeling a whole lot better. That was the other thing super annoying about this whole pregnancy. Everything turned on and off like someone was flipping a switch.

“Hey, what are best friends for.” A twinkle of amusement flashed in her eye. “Seriously though, are you okay?”

I sat upright, hugging my knees to my chest before worrying I might squash the baby.

My feet hit the floor instead. “Yes. I am. It’s a little overwhelming how quickly this has all happened, that’s all.

It was only ten days ago I was trying to find somewhere else to move into, and now we live here.

” I swept my hand around the enormous space, one wall made up entirely of windows and a view stretching up to Central Park and beyond, past Lions Stadium.

Out to the east, the United Nations building was almost directly ahead of us, sitting on the east side of Manhattan.

“This place is insane. We could fit our entire dorm room in the main bedroom.”

“You’ve been in the boys’ apartment?”

“I know, but this is different. There’s four of them and they fill the space, they have their boy crap everywhere. It feels so big with just the two of us.”

“Hey, it’ll be three before long. And this just gives us an excuse to go shopping for cute furnishing, and with all the stuff a baby comes with, it’ll fill up soon.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I glanced around. The boxes that had surrounded us in our dorm were all neatly tucked into a corner. “Where are the boys?”

Radley leaned back, uncurled her legs, and crossed them in front of her. “Packing for the away series.”

She was about to say something else when a loud cough came from behind us. We turned to find one of the movers bending down with a large, heavy box, placing it among the rest of the boxes. It definitely had books in it, because that’s almost all we had to move.

Radley and I were both English students, therefore our coursework and reading material tended to be on the bulkier side, plus we both loved reading.

Because we’d planned to be in our dorms for four years, we’d decided to move both our bookshelves up to school.

Between us, there had to be a couple of thousand books.

“That’s everything, ma’am. We’ve left it all here as instructed.” He puffed, swiping a hand across his damp brow.

Radley jumped to her feet and reached into her pocket, pulling out a couple of hundred dollars we’d taken from the ATM on the way over. Tanner might have arranged for everything to be taken care of, but these guys had busted their ass and they deserved a tip from us.

“That’s great, thank you so much. I know you weren’t expecting it all to be so heavy.”

The guy’s eyes widened as she handed over the cash. “Our pleasure, ma’am. We’ll sign out with security, and let us know if you need anything else.”

“We will, thank you.” She held her hand out to me when he left. “Come on, let’s go and pick bedrooms.”

She pulled me to standing, lacing our fingers together as we wandered from room to room.

The layout was the exact same as the boys—four bedrooms, two on either side of the apartment accessed by long corridors, and separated in the middle by a cavernous living room and kitchen.

The entire floor was taken up by these two apartments, with the elevator opening directly into each.

I’d never realized before that the elevator opened on both sides.

“I think you should take this room,” Radley announced as we made our way into the first door we came to. “Lux has this room in their place. Go and look at the bathroom, it’s incredible. You’ll want the bath to soak in as the baby gets bigger.”

While I’d been in the boys’ apartment, I’d never been in any of the bedrooms, and now I could understand why Radley stayed here so much.

The views from the living room carried through into the bedrooms, with half the wall entirely made of windows.

Against the other side was a king-sized bed that I could already imagine sinking into every evening while I watched the lights of the city below me.

I leaned into Radley as she stopped next to me. “I’m not going to miss sleeping on the lumpy bed at school, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah, imagine getting out of that nine months pregnant.”

A large shudder ran through me. “No thanks.”

The bathroom was accessed by a closet almost as big as my bedroom back in D.C. “Holy crap, Rad, look at these shelves. We’ll finally be able to fit all our clothes in properly. Are all the rooms like this?”

She nodded. “I think so.”

“And you’re sure you don’t mind me having this one?”

“No, not at all. And the baby can have the one next door, I’ll take one of the rooms on the opposite side, and the other can be for guests to visit.”

“You mean my mom?” I laughed, though it came out as more of a groan because it would be impossible to keep her away. She’d told me as much.

“Hey, with the security here, even my mom would come and visit,” she replied.

I didn’t think it could get any better until I saw the bathroom. Radley had been correct. A giant egg-shaped bath sat right in front of the windows, and naturally, the first thing I did was step into it and sink down. Even fully clothed, this had to be the most comfortable bath I’d ever been in.

“Okay, you stay there. I’m going to find our suitcases with all the new bed linen, and the boxes with the comforters and pillows,” Radley called behind her as I rested my head against the stone.

I could almost feel the warmth of the water cocooning my body.

Lifting up my tee, I rubbed my hands over my belly.

To anyone who didn’t know me, it would be hard to tell I was ten weeks pregnant, but I could.

There was a roundness to me that wasn’t normally there, though the amount of chocolate I’d been eating recently could quite as easily be the cause.

“What are you doing?”

My eyes snapped up to find Tanner’s blue ones sparkling with amusement, and a smile tugging wide as he leaned against the door frame.

It must have been the angle I was lying at that made his legs look twice as long and three times as wide as usual.

His huge biceps crossed over his chest, and the sleeves of his tee had risen enough that the divot separating them from his triceps was even more defined than usual.

Flecks of blond glinted among the dark scruff on his cheeks, still short enough that I could see the pull of his dimples. Goddamn dimples.

Tanner Simpson was far too handsome for his own good.

And then, out of nowhere, for the first time ever, I wondered if our baby would have his dimples, and his insanely blue eyes. Or my brown ones. My short legs or his Goliath ones.

I was still too far into my, frankly shocking, thoughts to notice him striding across the bathroom until he sat down on the floor in front of me.

“Mills?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Are you okay?” His head tilted to the side. “And why are you in the bath fully clothed?”

There was really no good excuse I could come up with, and my brain was too busy trying to imagine what our unborn child would look like to think quickly enough. So the truth it was.

“I wanted to try it out. Radley and I were choosing our rooms, and this bath was calling me. I’m going to sit in it later, eat ice cream, read my book, and watch the lights.”

“Oh yeah? Are you filling it with bubbles too?”

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “I’m more a bath salts girl.”