Redeeming (Red Lips & White Lies Book 2)

My ducks may not be in a row now, but you can bet your sweet ass my ducks are having more fun than yours are. Your ducks probably hate you and your anal-retentive self for making them line up like that. #FREETHEDUCKS

—Caitlin’s Secret Thoughts

I stare at the phone burning a hole in my hand as I try to work up the nerve to message Callen. I promised myself I’d talk to him after my ob-gyn appointment this afternoon, and I’m afraid if I don’t schedule him in now, I’ll chicken out later.

Chicken out or decide I hate him too much to see him.

There’s a fifty-fifty chance it can go either way.

Adelaide always writes a fuck it moment in her books.

Why can’t my fuck it moment be as much fun as hers are?

Ugh. Fuck it.

Caitlin

I need to talk to you.

The stupid little dots start and stop at least three separate times before he finally answers with one stupid word.

Callen

Why?

Are you okay?

Okay. Maybe he redeemed himself with the second text.

Douche canoe.

Caitlin

Just be home after work today, Callen. You owe me that.

Callen

I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Cait.

Caitlin

Nothing about you is a good idea. But sometimes we have to be adults.

Be a fucking adult and be home after five, Callen.

Men suck.

I sit in my gynecologist’s office, pissed at the world in an uncomfortable pink paper gown and what equates to an outdoor tablecloth covering my legs.

Someone should design better paper gowns.

My feet dangle off the table, and I’m freezing.

I didn’t think to wear socks today, and it’s cold as hell in here.

What’s with that phrase anyway?

Cold as hell?

Hell is supposed to be hot, not cold.

How can it be burn in hell and cold as hell?

It doesn’t make sense.

“You doing okay, Caitlin?” Bellamy asks as I start spiraling. She stands next to me like a guard ready to take down anyone who looks at me wrong, not that anyone is going to do that here. At least I hope not. We should all have a Bellamy in our lives.

“No. I’m cold, and I want socks,” I whine because this is awful.

I don’t tell her I want Callen too.

I’ll take that one to the grave.

“Knock, knock,” my cousin Kenzie says from the other side of the door.

Kenzie came home after her residency and joined our aunt’s practice.

I’ve always gone to our Aunt Wren, but I felt more comfortable scheduling with Kenz, now that she’s home. I guess I didn’t want to see the possible disappointment in Wren’s eyes.

“Are you decent?” she asks as she cracks the door.

“Listen, Dr. Hayes. I’m very much not decent. These gowns suck. Now come in,” I snap back, and she opens the door laughing.

Evil.

“Hi, ladies.” She seems stunned to see Bellamy in here with me. “Cait, I was surprised to see your name on my sheet today.”

“Lucky, I guess.” Not that I feel lucky. Not now.

She reads over her tablet, and her entire face changes. “Okay,”

“Guess somebody didn’t do her homework,” I stage-whisper to Bellamy.

Oh my God. What’s wrong with me?

My nerves are shot.

My anxiety is through the roof.

And I’m a human incubator, just like the kind we had for the baby ducks when Mom went through her farm animals phase. Chickens, ducks, and a baby goat. They lasted a year.

“Reel in the crazy, Cait. I think you’re scaring her.” Bellamy leans her hip against the table and links her pinky with mine as Kenzie sits on her little round stool on wheels by the counter.

“Not scaring me. Just catching me a little off guard. That’s all. Nothing to worry about. That doesn’t happen often.” She scrolls down a page or two on the tablet, then lays it on her lap. “So, how about you tell me why you’re here today, Caitlin.”

“I’m pretty sure you just read that I’m pregnant, Kenz,” I snap, then immediately feel like shit for snapping. “Sorry. It’s been a rough few weeks.”

Suddenly tears pool in my eyes without my permission, and Kenzie hands me a tissue.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like my world is crashing in around me. Like I’m four months pregnant and somehow didn’t find out until last week,” I admit quietly. “Kinda like this is a sick joke.”

She nods and goes into doctor mode. “It says here conception was mid-August.”

“Yes,” I shake my head and force myself to pull it together.

“Could it have been later?”

I chew my bottom lip, wishing things were different but knowing they’re not. “No. I haven’t had sex since then.”

“Okay.” She enters something on her screen. “And how have you been feeling?”

“I guess I’ve been fine for the most part. A little nauseous but nothing major. I threw up a few times around Thanksgiving, but I thought morning sickness happened when you first got pregnant. Not later on.” I’ve tried doing the whole Google search, but all I managed to do was order a few books that make me cry every time I pick them up. “Why wouldn’t it start until I was almost three months pregnant?”

“We’re going to talk about that time frame in a few minutes.” She nods and adds another note to her screen. “And your period?”

“My periods have never been regular. I have irregular periods. Wren put me on the pill for it a few years ago, but the hormones made me crazy, and it wasn’t like I was having sex, so I went off it. I mean I’ve used condoms. Not that they worked, apparently.” I force myself to shut up for a hot second and gather some sense of composure. “Maybe I should have made the appointment with Wren.”

Kenzie rolls her little ass over and squeezes my hand. “I’m happy to ask her to come in, if that’s what you want. But Caitlin, I don’t want you to feel embarrassed talking to me. My only concern is keeping you healthy and delivering a healthy baby. You could tell me anything, and I’d bet you I’d heard it before. And I can’t utter a word of it outside of this room.”

“Well, that’s good because my father doesn’t know yet.”

“Oh,” she says a little less sure as she scrolls further down her little checklist. “It looks like you left the father’s information blank.”

“Do I have to have that?” I ask as my teeth chatter, unsure if it’s from the cold or the nerves.

“No. It just helps give us a more well-rounded medical history.”

“And you can’t repeat anything I tell you, right?” Fuck. I sound like a child scared she’s about to get in trouble.

Kenzie looks at Bellamy, then me. “No. I’m the only person in this room who can’t say a word, according to HIPAA.”

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.

I forgot about how close Callen and she are. Or that she’s engaged to Nixon Sinclair. Maybe I didn’t think this through. I should have gone to a damn clinic where no one knew me. And I would have if Kenzie’s office wasn’t around the corner from Everly Wilder Designs. Getting in here without Jude noticing wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

“It’s Callen,” I blurt out and wait for the fallout. But she doesn’t move a muscle. “I haven’t told him yet. I wanted to see you first. But I’m going to. I swear.”

She nods and lays the tablet on the counter. “Okay. Well, once he’s aware I’d ask you to have him fill in his part of the intake form. But let’s not worry about that now. How about you lie back and relax.”

“Pretty sure that’s what got me into this mess,” I murmur, and Bellamy chokes on her laugh.

“What is wrong with you?”

I look at my best friend. “Everything.”

My head is threatening to explode like an atom bomb as Bellamy and I walk out of Kenzie’s office, trying to wrap my head around everything. “Seriously? Is this new math? Can you explain to me how I’m seventeen weeks pregnant? Because it doesn’t make sense to me, at all.”

She links her arm through mine. “Wait . . . do you actually want me to answer you? Because I’m going to say the same thing Kenzie did.”

I hold up the string of three ultrasound pictures Kenzie printed out for me of my little pomegranate. “Seriously . . . the size of a pomegranate? Not even a cute fruit? It’s shaped more like a bean to me.”

“Healthy, Cait. Your baby is healthy. You’re healthy. And you get to find out the sex at your next appointment. It’s okay to smile.”

The last time I was happy, I got my heart broken.

I’m scared to death to leave myself open to that again.

But if anything was ever going to be worth it, I guess my little pomegranate would be that thing. I smile and carefully put the sonogram in my purse.

“Pomegranate Beneventi would be an awful name, right?” I turn back to ask Bellamy—right before she screams.