Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
With her brows furrowed, she cocks that hip out again. “That’s right, I am. When you’ve lived the life I have, all you have is yourself.”
“Actually,” I say, stepping closer, without realizing what I’m doing before it’s too late and we’re only a few inches apart. This close to her, I can smell the vanilla, a scent I’ve been fantasizing about since the moment I smelled it on her that night at Elite. “You have other people. You just choose to push them away, starting with your sister.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s at home with her daughters,” she argues. “As she should be.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’ve been gone for four damn years, Ellie. You chose to go away to school. You chose to keep her at arm’s length. And now you’re doing it with me.”
“What?” she scoffs. “How do you figure?”
“Before you even gave me time to process the bomb you dropped on me, you were throwing shit at me about terminating my parental rights. After you’re the one who fucked up...Liz.” Yeah, the moment I realized she gave me a part of her real name, I wanted to slam my fist into a wall. Looking back, so many signs were there flashing at me, but I didn’t see them because Ellie wasn’t on my radar. “Well, guess what, Kitten? I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. You can try to push me away all you want, but I won’t budge. That baby you’re carrying is half mine, and I plan to be in his life, starting with this appointment.”
Her eyes widen, and then for a brief moment, they seem to soften, before they turn hard again, hiding whatever emotion she almost let slip. “I need to rinse off,” she mutters, stalking past me.
The drive to her doctor’s office is filled with awkward silence. When we arrive, the receptionist at the front desk gets her checked in, wishing her a happy birthday as she does so, reminding me of what day it is and that Ellie just turned twenty-two. At her age, I was usually partying with my friends and only working when Micah and my father insisted on it. Ellie, on the other hand, just graduated from college and is expecting a baby. I talk shit about how young she is, yet she’s more mature than I ever was at that age.
We’re brought back to a darkened room, where a woman by the name of Nayloni introduces herself and says she’ll be conducting the ultrasound today.
Ellie lies back, and Nayloni asks her a few questions, inputting her answers into the computer. When she rattles off her date of birth, Nayloni says, “Happy Birthday.”
“Thanks,” Ellie says softly. “I can’t think of a better gift than getting to see my little blob today.”
Nayloni chuckles. “Blob, huh? That’s a new one.”
She lifts Ellie’s shirt and squirts blue shit onto her stomach. A few seconds later, the screen fills with a black and white image of a tiny baby.
“Yep,” Ellie says, “best present ever.”
When I glance at her, the tips of her lips are curved into a huge grin, her gaze trained on the screen, and so much love in her eyes, it makes my heart squeeze in my chest.
“Heartbeat is 148,” Nayloni says, taking my attention away from Ellie and back to the screen.
“Is that good?” I ask, having no clue about any of this.
“Yep. It should be between 120 and 160, so he’s got a good, strong heartbeat.”
He...Because we’re having a little boy.
Ellie reaches out and touches the screen, her fingers sliding across his body. “He looks like a gummy bear,” she says, her smile lighting up the dark room.
“Oh, so he’s been upgraded from a blob to a gummy bear? Nice,” Nayloni says with a playful wink. Ellie laughs, and the melodic sound goes straight to my heart. I heard her laugh a few times the night we were together, and then I tried to remember it once she was gone. But my memory didn’t do it justice.
And now, as I listen to it, I know why I didn’t recognize it—Ellie barely ever laughs. When she was younger, she laughed, but after that day, after she was taken and raped, the laughter stopped. Ellie grew up, her body and voice and personality changing. And her laugh changed too, but I never heard it because life was cruel and didn’t leave her with much to laugh about.
And I don’t know why, but in this moment, I vow to make her laugh more often. To make her smile. Ellie’s strong and resilient and a goddamn survivor, but she deserves more than to merely survive...she deserves to be happy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ELLIE
I glance over at Lincoln and find him staring at me with a look that I can’t decipher. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s always been the chill brother, nothing seeming to rattle him—unless you do stupid shit like me and have sex with him and get knocked up, then he shows a bit of emotion. But right now, as he looks at me, his features are filled with raw emotion, and I’m not sure why.