Chapter 13

Kailee

" Y ou two came together?" Lorelei asks, taking a plastic container of dip out of my hands and patting Chase on the shoulder as he walks into her house.

I wait until he's a few feet away. "Boy, did we ever."

She stifles her laugh with a fist over her mouth, and I watch as Liam clinks beer bottles with Chase. I feel long forgotten as Chase blends into his coworkers like he can't wait to see and talk to them. I don't blame him. I don't think he's meant to work in a school with mostly nice teenagers. He belongs out in the world, making sure it's safe from hard drugs and the people who take advantage of those with addiction. It's who he is, and I know he's happy that Liam's back at work after the close call with death. Chase whistled the whole time he got ready at my apartment this evening .

Lorelei thought she'd have a party to welcome Liam back to the drug task force world. After several weeks of physical therapy and counseling, he's ready to be back in a limited capacity until the investigation of weapons usage is complete for both of them. Chase will be leaving the high school soon, too.

Deep sadness sinks into my stomach that I won't see him every day after next week. Our regular resource officer will be back in action, his shingles recovering nicely, and it'll be time for Chase to report to work at the sheriff's office. Sure, he's been back for his own rounds of counseling and reporting on the incident, but that's only been an hour at a time. For someone I was trying to avoid for a good chunk of the last month, I'll sure miss him now that he leaves me random treats and always has a smile for me.

"Come into the kitchen with me and help," Lorelei says, waving her hand in front of my face and waking me from wherever my brain went with thinking about Chase. "We can talk and not have all these police officers breathing down our necks."

I follow her as she leads me through her very pink house, and I wonder if that will change when Liam moves in soon. Will he replace the pink throw pillows with gray concrete slabs? Buy a black collar for Bogey instead of the collar with frolicking lambs and a tinkling bell? Liam loves Lorelei's dog, but even I'd go nuts with the little bell that sometimes graces its neck .

I giggle to myself as I step into Lorelei's kitchen and note the appetizers on trays and bottles of top-shelf liquor. Apparently, Lorelei wants to make an impression tonight.

My eyes move to the stand mixer on the counter. "What can I eat here in my condition?" I ask.

"Uh, stay away from the brownies and the banana bread."

I laugh for real this time, not stifling it. I bend at the waist and grip my thighs as Lorelei impatiently taps her foot near me. "What is so funny?" she asks.

I straighten and hold my hand over my stomach as I wipe my nose. "You're hosting a party for drug task force agents and serving edibles."

She shrugs. "Liam was the biggest holdout, and he's OK with his coworkers having a brownie now. Not that he'd ever do it." She walks to the mixer and inhales deeply. "He still has a stick up his ass about doing it himself."

"Well, at least his coworkers don't have you in cuffs and in the back of a car for a citation," I say, remembering how Liam had it in for her when they met.

"True that," she says. She empties the mixture bowl into a pan while I silently take a seat on a stool at her counter. I watch as she gets another batch of prepared ingredients from the fridge and gently scrapes them into the mixing bowl. She turns the mixer on and faces me. "Now, tell me how he took the news."

"News? "

"Did you decide what you're doing? He looks happy enough, so maybe you're keeping the baby?"

I look down at her counter and trace my fingers around the marble swirls. "Well, it hasn't exactly come up."

Lorelei's eyes bug out of her head, and she slaps my shoulder with the nearby plastic cutting board. "What the fuck, Kailee?" she loudly whispers. "He doesn't know? You guys are getting this close and you still haven't told him?" She wildly points in the direction of the other room.

"It hasn't come up!" I whisper yell back.

Lorelei cringes and shakes her head. "Hasn't come up? Is he just going to ask if you're pregnant out of the blue? This is something the woman kind of has to bring up! He can't read your mind. Are you going to tell him when he's hugging you in a few months and the baby kicks against his stomach?"

"OK, you have a point."

"From the way you're carrying on and the smile on his face when I opened the door, I was about to ask him when the baby shower is. Jesus, Kailee, you have to tell him."

"I still don't know what I'm going to do."

"Well, the countdown clock is kind of winding down on that window. You need to tell him so you can figure it out together. Why am I still telling you this? This has been the only topic of conversation with you lately. Tell him so I know whether I'm planning a baby shower or taking off work to hold your hand at a clinic. "

"It's going so well with him. I'm afraid of fucking it up."

"Every single day you keep this from him, you dig yourself further into the hole."

"I know, but it's never the right time," I whine.

"When isn't it the right time? Work it in."

I tap my toes on the linoleum under my seat. "What do you want from me? Was I supposed to tell him while he was fucking me against the wall in the teacher workroom? When he was sucking marmalade off my boobs while working me with his hand? Yeah, I'll just be like, ‘Feels good. By the way, you're going to be a dad.' That's not something you tell a man during sex or on a first date."

Heat rises to my face, and Lorelei also blushes. I'm flushed in anger that she won't get off my back about telling him about the baby. She reddens because she's probably picturing the marmalade scene and really doesn't want to see that in her mind.

She blinks twice. "I really don't have an answer for that, but I think your life is vastly more interesting than I give you credit for."

Liam walks into the kitchen at that moment, and we're silent as he walks to the refrigerator and grabs four beers out of the side door. He turns to leave and catches us staring at him. "What's up?"

"How do you feel about marmalade?" Lorelei asks.

"What?" Liam asks .

"Nothing! She means nothing," I say, swiping my hand through the air and connecting with Lorelei's shoulder. "Lorelei thinks she's funny. Nothing to see here. Carry on. Take your beers out. This is woman stuff."

"Woman's stuff?" he asks, a wry grin on his face.

"Yeah, you know. Boys. Makeup. Um…hair accessories," I say.

"I'm out," Liam replies, raising his hands like he's had enough. "I'll be in the other room with the men folk."

"OK, bye," Lorelei and I both say as Liam crinkles his brow but still leaves the room, the swinging door flapping in his wake.

Once he's gone, I whirl on Lorelei. "Please tell me you haven't told Liam about any of this."

Lorelei slides down the counter until she's practically on her knees. "I haven't," she says, drawing out each syllable. "It's killing me." She curls her fingers like she's trying not to claw at her face or hair. "Do you know how hard it is to not tell the love of your life that his best friend is having a baby with your best friend?"

"No, I don't."

"And I hope you never know this feeling."

"I just hoped I'd have more of an idea of what I want to do about it."

Lorelei picks up a nearby rag and then flops it right back down in a huff. "Let him be the tiebreaker then. If you tell him, you'll have more information to make the decision, right? "

"I guess."

"You'll know if he'll be involved and by how much. Will he at least pay child support without you chasing him for eighteen years? If not, you'll know what you need to do. If he will pay support and make sure your child has childcare and college tuition, you'll know you can have it."

I hold up a finger. "Medical issues."

"I know, Kailee, but you need to go to the damn doctor. You're being infuriatingly immature about this. Medical care is very different from thirty years ago. Hell, they didn't schedule cesareans then, and the doctor could do that for you now if she's worried."

"I'm frozen in fear!"

"What will it take to get you unfrozen?"

I blow out a deep breath through my nose. "I don't know. I don't know anything about any of this. I hear myself when I talk, OK? I do. I just…can't stop the onslaught of intrusive thoughts assailing my mind every hour of every day."

Lorelei walks around the counter, her kitten heels she probably wore to show Liam she could be the stereotypical perfect hostess clacking against her black-and-white linoleum. When she's next to me, she puts her arm around me, pulling me so close that I catch a whiff of her body spray. "If you can't decide, you need the advice of someone invested and trustworthy. He's both. You have to let him show you what he's capable of."