Page 42 of Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake
“I wish I wasn’t like this.” Lizzie’s words startled him, and he jumped. He’d thought she’d fallen asleep.
“Like what?” he asked.
“This wrecking ball of a person. I wish I didn’t act on impulse and say stupid shit and do stupid things and break any relationship I’m ever lucky enough to build.”
The words were raw and honest, and Rake could hear the tears behind them. He didn’t know what to say. So instead, he reached out his hand, breaching the valley of sheets between them, and wrapped his fingers in hers. She let out a shuddering breath at his touch and gripped his hand like it was her life preserver in a storm.
“I don’t think you break things, Lizzie,” he said after a few minutes. She let out a disbelieving snort. “I really don’t. I think you make things better. A lot better.”
They didn’t say anything else after that; the only sound in the room was their mingled breathing mixing with the summer night and city traffic. Rake eventually heard Lizzie’s breathing turn into a soft rhythm of sleep, fueling his racing thoughts. He and Lizzie were a mix of blurred lines and one hundred different shades of gray, something undefined, not entirely real.
But her pain was real. It was real and sharp, and he decided then and there that he didn’t like it poking at her. And his last thought before falling asleep was that he’d do whatever it took to stop her from hurting. For the sake of their baby, of course.
In the morning, Rake woke to Lizzie staring at him, wide-eyed, and looking more than a little alarming.
“All right, let’s do it,” she said, before he even had a chance to offer her a good morning.
“Do what?” he asked, still half asleep.
“Live together. Coparent. All that jazz.”
Rake blinked as her words soaked into him. A slow smile broke across his mouth. “Really? This is great, I’ll—”
“But I have one rule,” Lizzie said, placing a finger against his lips, her eyes level and serious. “You can’t fall in love with me.”
Rake jerked his head back, bashing it against the headboard. He tried to say something—anything—but the words got stuck in his throat and he started spluttering and coughing.
No. No, no, no. Absolutely not, he thought.I won’t fall in love. I doubt I’m even capable of it.But he couldn’t get any of this out as he choked on his own tongue.
Lizzie’s stern mouth suddenly broke into a grin, and she started to laugh. “Oh my God, you should see your face.” She snorted as she laughed harder. “Calm down, I’m messing with you. I couldn’t let an opportunity to drop a classic rom-com line pass me by, though, could I?”
She let out one more laugh before sitting up and getting out of bed, buzzing around the hotel room in a flurry of energy that seemed to have a distinct Lizzie signature to it.
Rake let out a silent sigh of relief.Good, he thought.Good, good, good.
They were on the same page. No relationship. No love.
Purely platonic coparenting.
Nothing could go wrong.
Chapter 20
Week six, baby is the size of a rainbow sprinkle.
A few hours after Rake left for the airport to catch his flight back to Australia, Lizzie was thanking the goddesses above and below for finally sending her a job interview. After hanging up with a cranky-sounding woman named Bernadette and jotting down the address to the aptly named Bernadette’s Bakery for her interview in a few hours, Lizzie squealed then spun in a quick circle around the kitchen floor before ransacking her pantry.
Maybe things will actually work out, she thought as she stood at the stove, whisking her Bad-Ass-Bitch Banana Pudding into luscious smoothness, the soft and delicate scent of vanilla and bananas wrapping around her like a comforting blanket.
Maybe.
As long as she actually got the job, kept the job, figured out how and when to ask for time off for doctor’s appointments, magically secured health insurance, and got adequate maternity leave.
The joys (logistical nightmares) of motherhood were filling her already.
The front door opened as she took her mixture off the stove to cool, and Indira, Harper, and Thu’s voices filled the apartment. They stopped in their tracks as they rounded the corner to the living room, obviously not expecting Lizzie to be there. She instantly felt so awkward that she did an odd little toe-ball-heel shuffle across the floor to grab a box of vanilla wafers and expel the energy pulsing through her.
“Hi,” Lizzie said at last, giving them a flap of a wave with the cookies in hand.