Page 35 of Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake
“It’s still a no to marriage, though,” she said into his neck. Rake nodded. He could live with that. He could figure out a new plan for making their child’s life perfect. But an idea did strike him, and he pulled back.
“Would you consider moving in together? At least for the pregnancy and first few months?”
Lizzie’s instant look of resistance made him push on. “Just while we figure this out. How to be parents. How to work together. Trial by fire, right?” He wanted to be there. He wanted to be there if there were complications, when the baby cried, when they were hungry, when Lizzie needed something in the middle of the night. He wanted it all.
She still had a wary look, but her resistance was softening. Rake went in for the kill. “It’d be helping me out so much. Give me peace of mind to have you close by if something happens. Help me get used to living in the U.S. Help us both figure out how to do this.”
Her wariness transformed into soft contemplation. Even in the short time he’d known her, he’d realized how much she liked to be needed. Liked to be helpful.
“I need to think about it,” she said at last, then laughed. “I always make super impulsive decisions and jump without thinking. But this”—she pointed down at her stomach—“I promised myself I’d think through everything with this.”
Rake nodded. “What if you stay with me while I’m here? I know being in a hotel isn’t real life, but it could give us an idea?”
Lizzie pursed her lips, thinking for a moment, before nodding in agreement. “Okay, baby daddy, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Chapter 17
RAKE heard Lizzie’s phone buzz as they walked into his hotel room. She fished it out from the bottom of her bag and stared down at it before letting out a soft curse.
“Everything okay?” Rake asked, but Lizzie didn’t seem to hear him. She started pacing the small room, biting her nails as she lost herself in thought.
He watched her dart back and forth for a minute, but as she paced by him on another circuit, he reached out, pulling her to stand in front of him. “Lizzie?”
She seemed to snap back into her body, blinking up at him. “Sorry, what?”
“Are you okay?” Rake asked slowly.
“Peachy keen, jelly bean,” she said with a sharp bubble of laughter, chewing on her cuticles. She tried to slip out of his arms, but he held her still.
“Are you sure?”
She stared at him for a moment, eyes sharp, body tense, before she slumped in his arms, her face wrinkling in some emotion Rake couldn’t understand. She had so many emotions that flitted across the surface of her freckled skin, and for some unknown reason, he wanted to be able to identify them all.
“It’s just my hair hasn’t been washed in a few days, andI’ve cried so damn much today, I know my mascara looks like railroad tracks down my cheeks, and I really want a shower since it was so hot today and I’m smelling kinda spicy, but I also don’t have any clothes with me, but by the time I grab the trolley to the connection with the Market-Frankford Line and then walked the few blocks to my place, I’d be runningreallylate, and I’m not positive I even have any clean clothes, because when I had meant to put in a load of laundry, I’d gotten sidetracked by realizing I’d only unloaded half of the dishwasher the day before, and Indira made it clear shehatedwhen I did that because it screwed up the whole system, and then she had to—”
Rake gave Lizzie a tiny shake, trying to snap her out of the runaway thoughts he couldn’t follow. “Sorry, but what the hell are you talking about?”
Lizzie blinked at him for a moment before letting out a soft laugh. She stepped away from him, stretching and straining her arms over her head as far as she could before collapsing like a deflated balloon to touch her toes. “I forgot I’m supposed to meet my friends tonight for dinner,” she mumbled to her shoes.
“Oh, okay…” Rake was still lost. “That will be fun, right? What time?”
Lizzie looked at her phone again. “In thirty-eight minutes,” she said, typing something out that Rake couldn’t see before jolting back up to standing. “And I think I’m maybe freaking out.”
“Maybe?” Rake said, arching an eyebrow.
Lizzie shot him a sardonic glance. “I’mkind offreaking out because it’s with mybest friends, and I look like absolute trash and I’m also pregnant.”
“What did your friends say about all this?” Rake asked, nodding vaguely toward her torso.
“I haven’t exactly told them yet,” Lizzie admitted, plopping onto the edge of the bed and slapping her phone against her thigh.
“Why?”
Lizzie sighed. “I don’t know. Everything is happening so fast, I’m not even sure when I would’ve had a chance. I thought about telling them as soon as I found out, but I just felt like Icouldn’t. Probably because my friends are all perfect and responsible and would have a lot of questions for me that I don’t have answers for. And when I try to think of answers, I get super overwhelmed, and then it’s like my mind is on one of those Tilt-A-Whirl things, and it just gets all”—she made an exploding sound, flashing her fingers for effect—“fritzy.”
“Fritzy?”
“Like my motherboard is short-circuiting,” she said, tapping her finger to her temple. She gave him a sad smile.