“I can’t believe that was the first thing you said. About me having your baby, mom.” Teela slapped her hands over her face. “And I still can’t believe she saw my box. That is not the kind of first impression anyone wants to make. Ever. Ever. Ever.”
“I panicked, okay?” Ross put out his hands in self-dense. “I’ve never had them walk in on me before. Besides, they’re both thrilled. Obviously, my mom is but I could tell my dad was too.”
“I’m a complete stranger.”
“You could be an alien with tentacles or warts or something and they’d still be thrilled. I promise you that.”
Teela didn’t have a comeback for that, so she snapped her mouth shut. They needed a change of subject. Badly. “How bad was the barbeque on fire?”
“It’s pretty much ruined,” Ross admitted. “Likely a call away from the fire department showing up here.”
“That would have been so much worse,” Teela groaned.
“Agreed. So… Vietnamese?”
All Teela could do was nod. How had her mostly normal, uneventful life turned into this? And no, as mortifying as it was, as crazy as it all had been lately, she wasn’t exactly complaining.
CHAPTER 14
Teela
“They really saw your snatch? Like the whole thing? Your whole box? Like… spread open or kind of clamped together so they couldn’t really get a good view?”
Teela groaned. She set down a mug of tea a little too hard on the coffee table in front of Amy. Her place was a mess, dirty dishes in the sink and here and there in the living room but when Amy dropped by unannounced, she wasn’t going to turn her away. She’d seen the place a hell of a lot worse. She’d had to literally pick Teela out of bed and wash the chocolate stains out of her sheets while she showered after one of her worst break up pity parties.
Because falling asleep surrounded by chocolate is a pretty good way to go out, if you’re going to go out.
Just a side note, chocolate is really hard to get out of sheets. The oil never comes out.
“Do you want something to eat? I can make us popcorn.”
“No! I want to know everything!” Amy tilted on the couch, her eyes tracing Teela’s every move. It made her sorry that she’d spilled the news at all but after she’d got back from Ross’ place and Amy just happened to show up, she couldn’t not spill it. “Why were you even- uh- naked? I thought you hated Ross?”
“We were trying to work things out,” Teela groaned. She dropped down so hard on the couch that Amy bounced upwards in response.
“I see. It sounds like you did.”
“Not work things out like that. That just kind of happened.” Teela grabbed her mug and since the tea had pretty much cooled off, mint tea, because as usual in the evening, her stomach was upset, she took a huge gulp. The mint was nice and soothing. She felt it to the bottom of her toes.
Just like she felt the shiver that ripped through her at the thought of Ross, hot and sweaty and so damn muscular it was actually unfair, spread out over her, spreading her, eating her out like he was starved, and she was a ten-course meal. No one had ever, ever eaten her out like that. Most of her ex’s didn’t even know it was possible to go down on a woman.
Fuck. Damn. Shit.
Trying not to think about it made her think about it harder. She was suddenly all hot and shivery at the same time.
“I thought you’d sworn off men. Getting involved with your baby daddy isn’t the smartest idea.”
“It just happened,” Teela ground out. “And I did swear off of men because they are heartbreaking assholes who ruin your entire world when you least expect it. This is- different though. IT has to be different. Uh- I don’t know what happened last night. Maybe it was hormones or something. It just happened. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t want it. We were supposed to be talking about what was going on with us and the baby and how we were going to maybe do custody or something and then all of a sudden he was kissing me and I was flat on my back and we were minus a few crucial things.”
“Like clothes?”
“Yeah. Like clothes.”
“Well, he can’t blame his actions on hormones. He isn’t the one who is pregnant.”
“Maybe it was sympathy hormones.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “I’m serious here.” Her forehead scrunched up into one of those wrinkly frowns that also included her nose. “I’m worried about you. Having a baby is hard enough. Maybe I should never have told you that he’s the father. Maybe that was a bad idea. If things go south or sideways or whatever, I don’t want to be the reason you got hurt.”