Page 64 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Great. After putting the last chair down, he swung through the door leading to the kitchen—empty—and, following a hunch, opened the door leading to the alley. Louis and Mia jumped at the unexpected intrusion, but at least they didn’t jump apart. Shayla kept right on kicking her little legs, oblivious to the fact that he’d interrupted a conversation. Nothing more, thankfully, though Mia held a small, rectangular box wrapped in a plastic Watkins’ bag behind her back. Something about the way she hid it with her body had his internal alerts ringing. “What’s going on?”

Two sets of guileless eyes stared at him. “Nothing,” she answered. “We’re just talking.”

“What’s in the bag?”

Her eyes went wide and shouted a silent “shut up” at him. “Oh my God. Nothing.”

Fuck nothing. Nothing didn’t need to be hidden. A big box of condoms? That needed to be hidden. Or…holy shit. A pregnancy test? A pregnancy test needed to be hidden. Holding her gaze, using a voice that brooked no argument, he repeated, “What’s. In. The. Bag?” Intimidating a teenager with an infant strapped to one’s chest wasn’t easy, but he put real effort into it.

“You want to know what’s in the bag? Seriously?” She pulled it from behind her back and shoved the plastic away with shaking hands, to reveal…

“Oh.” He quickly shifted his gaze back to her flushed, furious face. All he could meet it with was concern and…concern. “Are you”—Jesus, he’d made a mess of this—“okay?”

She ignored him and shoved the small box of tampons back into the bag.

Louis cleared his throat and kept his eyes focused somewhere over Mia’s shoulder. “So, anyway, my mom would really love it if you could come to dinner Sunday night and you could like, hang out for a while afterward, since you won’t be grounded anymore.” His gaze shifted to the bag. “If you’re, you know, feeling up to it.”

Mia made a strangled sound of infinite disdain—the sort only a teenaged girl could pull off—and pushed past him into the kitchen.

He and Louis shared a silent moment of male discomfort and solidarity. “She’ll get back to you,” Ford managed and bolted to catch up with Mia. “Hey.” He snagged her arm and tugged her down the short hallway toward his office.

She tugged back, digging her heels in. “Go to hell.”

He spun to face her, put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. First off, I’m sorry. I was worried you’d bought…” No, coming clean about his worries wouldn’t help. “It doesn’t matter. You’re entitled to your privacy and whatever my worries, I should have taken them up with you in private.”

This mollified her, somewhat. “Yeah. You should have.” Her brows crinkled in an expression he recognized from his own face. “What did you think I’d bought?”

This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in his cramped office with the metal desk and the hard angles. “Let’s take a walk.”

“I have to use the restroom.” A duh look punctuated this announcement.

“Fair enough.” He stepped back and dropped his hands. “Take your time. Shayla and I will meet you out front.”

“All right. Give me five.”

“Whatever time you need,” he assured her and backed away. “I’ll…uh…see you out front.”

After a brief word to Silent Mike, he stepped out to the sidewalk, shoved his hands into his pockets, and stared down at Shayla’s little head. “Do me one favor. Don’t grow up.”

She responded with a happy cooing noise that warned him it was too late. She was already growing like crazy. Soon she’d be big enough to fit into Wing’s sweater, soon after that she’d be too big for him to haul her around in the baby carrier, and then, before he knew it, she’d be having periods and dating boys. God help him.

Mia chose that moment to step out onto the sidewalk, adjust her dark sunglasses over her eyes, and stare across the street. The silent treatment.

Luckily, babies didn’t do the silent treatment. Shayla gurgled and stretched her arms. Mia glanced over, weakened at the sight of her favorite little, and offered her finger for Shayla’s grasp. “I can take her.”

“I’ve got her, for now.” Having the baby bodily strapped to him might make it harder for Mia to hold a grudge. “It’s a nice morning.” He started walking along the covered sidewalk, keeping his pace easy.

She fell into step with him. “Where are we going?”

“Just walking.”

At the end of the block, they crossed the intersection and continued along Main. The sun warmed his shoulders. A light breeze flitted through Mia’s hair. “You know I just walked to Watkins’ and back, right?”

Right. They were passing the small green space long ago town founders had designated a park. With a touch to her shoulder, he guided them to one of the split-log benches surrounding the creek-fed pond currently fringed by long, brown-tipped cattails shielding nesting waterfowl. Mia sat, crossed both her arms and her legs, and basically took up as little of the bench as possible. He settled in beside her, slung an arm along the back of the bench, and toyed with the ends of her hair until she turned to him.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Sorry I invaded your privacy and embarrassed you in front of a friend.”

She let out a long-suffering breath. “You thought I bought condoms or something.”

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