Page 60 of A Beginner's Guide to Forever
While he leaves the room to get the dessert, I take the T-shirt and go into the bathroom to change.
My reflection in the mirror catches me by surprise. I look ... happy. My skin is slightly flushed, and I have messy bedroom hair, but my glow is unmistakable.
I exchange a glance with Hart. He gives me a soft, secretive smile—like he’s enjoying the view of me in his T-shirt, which skims the tops of my thighs.
We eat cake in bed, debating the best podcasts after discovering we share an affinity for them. Later, I brush my teeth and prepare for bed, snuggling in beside him. I feel like I’m eighteen again, sleeping in hisoversize shirt. It smells like him. His clean, masculine scent that I’ve come to love.
Scarlet ends up having the baby on my birthday—which is the day after Hart flies home.
Thank you for the best birthday present ever, I text her.
It’s a fast delivery, being her third, and once Will texts me they’re ready for visitors, I go to see her at the hospital. I bring her flowers and hemorrhoid cream—it’s not my first rodeo either. I bring along a cardigan for me—it’s always freezing in hospitals—and as I said, not my first rodeo.
We chat for a while, and I hear all the details of baby Cullen’s entry into the world. He’s a perfect little bundle, swaddled and asleep in her arms. I love seeing her like this. Exhausted, but filled with joy.
“How’s your boy toy?”
I tell her that Hart ended up flying in for my birthday, and about our romantic dinner out and the pink diamond earrings.
“Are you having fun?”
“I am.”
“Is that all it is?” She lifts one eyebrow.
I shrug, unsure.
“Do you really see a future with him?”
“For once I’m trying not to overthink it.” I consider telling her about the horrible, bumbling dope I was on the podcast, but decide against it since there’s only so much abuse I can take in one day.
Scarlet looks like there’s more she wants to say, and I brace myself. “Why do you think it is that you’ve chosen a man who’s unavailable to you emotionally?”
An ache throbs inside my chest, and I can feel myself growing defensive. “Hart’s not emotionally unavailable.”
She looks down at the baby and says, “Okay, how about unable to give you the things you desire?”
I don’t like this game, and I want to go home.I don’t have an answer that will satisfy her, so I shift in the stiff chair, drawing my cardigan around myself.
She presses a button on the bed that raises her a little. “Look, it’s not my place, but I saw how miserable you were wasting all those years with Sean. I’m happy you’re having fun, but I don’t want to see you make the same mistake twice.”
Her warning brings all my insecurities about Hart right to the surface, almost as if she could read my mind. Since I have no response, I ask if I can hold the baby.
She nods, and I stand to gather up all eight precious pounds of him, supporting his head in my hand. Sinking back into the hospital chair with him in the crook of my arm, I admire him, his tiny lips, his little eyelashes that rest against his cheeks, the soft dusting of golden hair on top of his head. It’s almost unbearable how perfect he is.
“He looks just like Crosby did,” I say to her, still smiling down at him, my heart aching with something I can’t quite name.
“That’s the first thing I said to Will when I saw him.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes, the hum of the air-conditioning and the weight of my thoughts the only sounds. When did everything get so confusing?
“Maybe I don’t need to be a mother,” I whisper, stroking his soft cheek, my chest tightening. “Maybe I can just be an awesome auntie to your kids.”
Part of me wants to believe it, but the words feel hollow, echoing in the space between us.
“Don’t do that,” she says, her tone gentle but laced with disappointment.
“What?”
