Page 15 of Letters to Lily

“I can’t just live there for free, Sash.”

“You’ll be paying half the utilities, cable, and whatnot. It’s not exactly free. It’s just much, much cheaper.”

“Is it okay if I sigh in relief that I won’t actually have to struggle as hard next semester?” She asks with a shy smile on her face.

“Are you kidding? I’d be sighing in relief if all this weren’t happening because I was about to have a baby. That part kind of takes the wind out of my sails a bit.”

“I understand that, Sash, but there are going to be so many blessings to go with it too. Just wait and see.”

July 1

“It’s moving day, officially!” I squeaked out to my best friend and roommate. “I can’t believe I actually bought a house, and now we get to go live in it. It’s hard to wrap my head around everything.”

“It really is.” Kristin was flittering around stacking boxes and making sure they were all properly labeled so that our little helpers knew where they went today. “Have you heard from the guys yet? I thought they were supposed to be here by now?”

As if on cue, a light wrapping sound filtered through to us from our front door before they just came barreling in. “Hey, sweet girl, how’s the bun-baking going?” Malcolm, one of the two guys that lived across the landing from us asked me. I rolled my eyes.

“Lil’ Bit is baking just fine, thanks.” I patted my slightly protruding baby bump and his big brown eyes bugged out as he pushed his wavy blond locks back from his face.

“Holy crap, I can actually see it,” he pointed. “You know, your belly is getting…” another hesitation as his eyes slid from my belly back up to my face before he continued. “Uh, bigger.”

“Yep, that’s what happens during pregnancy,” I deadpanned with another eye roll as our other neighbor, Malcolm’s roommate, Brad, smacked him upside his head.

“Maybe you shouldn’t speak to women until you learn to pull your foot out of your damn mouth, Mal,” Brad chided him before turning a gorgeous megawatt smile to me. His hazel eyes lit up as he turned my way. “You’re glowing, Prego, don’t listen to the moron.” He moved in closer, dropping his eyes to my now obvious baby bump. “May I?” I knew what he was asking and nodded my consent. His large hands came up to mold around the bump, sending chills across my skin at the moment of contact. It had been quite a while since a man had actually touched me to offer more than a sympathetic hug. I wasn’t getting turned on by my neighbor touching my bump, but it did make me realize how starved I was for that intimate contact. Hell, I hadn’t even had it that long with Kade, but damn if my body wasn’t telling me now how much it was missed. “Are you feeling it kick yet?”

“I can feel it moving around sometimes. At first it was just like bubbles or butterflies fluttering in my belly. It’s starting to get stronger as the weeks go by.”

“That’s amazing. I can’t wait to feel that.” His eyes locked on mine then, as his hands continued to hold on to my belly. His thumbs were rubbing across the underside of the bump absently as his smile widened again. “I’m so glad you’ll be in a real house without all these damn steps to get up and down every day, but I sure am going to miss being able to hop across the hall to check on you.” His hazel eyes flared as Brad spoke about missing me being next door. He was ruggedly handsome with his two-day scruff hiding the strong jaw line and the chin dimple I knew was there. He had a small hump in the bridge of his otherwise straight nose. The slight flaw in his features was from an obvious break he’d received in the past. I often wondered if it was from football or just being a boy. At any rate, the small imperfection, coupled with the amber flecks in his hazel eyes, made for a stunning combination.

“It’s not like you won’t know where we live. You guys are welcome any time.” I made sure to include both of them in my statement, because sometimes there was a look in Brad’s eyes, when he watched me, that I didn’t quite know what to do with. If things were different, if I hadn’t dated Kade, if I wasn’t pregnant, I would probably end up dating Brad. He was a sweet guy who definitely seemed interested. It was a simple fact that I was having a really difficult time moving beyond Kaden Miller. I had loved him for far longer than I dated him, and now I had his baby growing in my belly, reminding me of that fact every day. I couldn’t escape those emotions even if I had finally been ready to let them go.

“I take it you still haven’t heard from the dad?” Brad asked me this same question, in some variation, every time he hadn’t seen me for a few days. I never had a new answer for him. This time was no different so I just shook my head and looked down at my feet while I could still see them. “I just don’t get it,” he mumbled. Then he looked up and caught sight of something over my shoulder. “Well, let’s get these boxes down and loaded into the truck.” When I went to pick up one of the smaller boxes, he stopped me. “No, ma’am. You are not to lift a single thing. Your job is to shout directions at us if we’re not working hard or fast enough.”

“Yeah, because it will be hilarious to have the pregnant chick outside yelling at us guys to go harder and faster,” Malcolm hissed out amidst his fit of laughter. Kristin joined in, which only encouraged him further. “You’re not doing it right. Harder! Faster! That’s it, move it over there a little, oh yeah! That’s the spot!”

“Moron!” Brad yelled at Mal, as he took the first load of boxes down the three flights of stairs. I simply laughed and waited as everyone else worked.

It didn’t take long for them to get all of our boxes down and loaded into the back of Brad’s truck. We didn’t have a whole lot between the two of us. The furniture we bought was delivered directly to the house over the past two days, and all of our clothes, kitchen, bathroom stuff, and miscellaneous things were what was left to get from the apartment to the house. We’d left Kristin’s car over there knowing we wouldn’t really need to come back to the apartment after today’s move. So, I was driving her while Brad and Mal followed in Brad’s truck. Once we were there, they had agreed to help us move the boxes in as well.

“Are you sure you don’t need us to stick around and help you unpack too?” Brad asked, as I was looking around my bedroom at all the boxes stacked there.

“No, we’ll be able to get it from here.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to hurt yourself, or pull anything, by moving all this around once we leave.”

“No worries, Brad, I will be helping with any maneuvering of boxes that is needed from here on out. Seriously, it won’t take us long to go through all this.” Kristin was always there with a quick save when Brad moved into over-protective mode or tried to get too close. I understood his motivation. He had grown up with a single mom who had to do everything on her own. I think it was part of why he was always so overprotective with me. He saw his mom’s struggles reflected back at him through my eyes. No matter what though it was becoming obvious that one day soon I was going to owe Kristin something big for all the interference she ran for me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Brad or enjoy his company. I absolutely did, but I didn’t want to hurt him by leading him on either. I knew exactly how that felt.

“Thank you both for all the help!” I called out so that Mal would hear me too. “Once we get everything unpacked, we are definitely cooking you guys a nice dinner to thank you.”

“You know that’s not necessary,” Brad started.

“But we will gladly take you up on that offer,” Mal interjected. “This guy never turns down a hot, home cooked meal. Chivalry be damned!” Everyone laughed at his sentiment.

“I can’t argue with that logic. We’ve all played the part of broke college students getting by on Ramen noodles,” Kristin added.

“Okay, well we will set that up sometime soon then,” Brad offered.

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