Page 100 of Never Forever

“It is,” I said with a smile.

“Oh my gosh,” she clapped her hands and her son looked like he wanted to die. “We’re just the biggest fans, aren’t we?”

“I have no idea who you are,” the boy said, which was honestly the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

“Kevin!” the mom cried, turning bright red. “She was in the Tom Cruise movie we saw at Christmas.”

“It’s all right, Kevin,” I said.

“Can we get your autograph?” the mom asked, digging through her purse while Kevin looked like he was standing on hot coals.

Matt pulled up in the old truck right in front of us, and I was both weirdly embarrassed and happy that he could see this moment. He needed to be reminded who I was. Maybe I needed to be reminded who I was.

That’s right. I was Carrie fucking Piedmont.

The mom handed me a receipt from Pappas’ Diner and a pen. I scrawled my name.

“You want to put your number there too?” Kevin said with a teenaged, half-baked leer. His mom smacked his arm.

Matt slammed the door of his truck and approached us looking like a full-grown man. Long legs. Lean hips. Stern face.

I got to my feet like he had a magnetic pull over me. Kevin, quickly realizing Matt was here for me, took off down the sidewalk. His mom scuttled off with her signed receipt tucked away.

“Everything okay?” Matt asked.

“Yep,” I said, grabbing my bag, not quite able to meet his eyes.

I felt a little naked in my dress in the sunlight. His baby in my belly. I wanted, suddenly, for him to hug me. To tell me again how it would be all right.

But I’d given myself a firm talking to this morning. There was no going back to the way things were. Maybe we’d agreed to atruce, but it wasn’t like we were together again. We just weren’t going for each other’s jugular.

He opened the truck door for me.

“Thank you,” I said, over my shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice in my ear, his breath on my bare skin. My nipples liked that.

Knock it off, nipples.

He closed the door and walked around to his side to get in.

The air conditioning was blasting and I shifted the vent away from me.

“Too cold?” He asked and turned off the AC.

“I can’t believe you still haven’t gotten that fixed.” The truck’s AC only worked at full blast or not at all.

“I’ve gotten used to it,” he said with his half grin. “How are you feeling?”

His eyes cut my way and then back to the road as we pulled out of the parking lot. He took the back road up to the highway. Matt Sullivan never took Harbor Road if he could help it. Another thing that hadn’t changed.

“Fine,” I said. I wasn’t ready to tell him about the eggs and the morning sickness. I wasn’t ready to open this up to him.

Open myself up to him.

“Hey,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About how this baby is something you wanted and now you have to compromise with someone who didn’t want a baby.”

I licked my lips and nodded. Grateful for my giant sunglasses. I was queasy and weepy.

---