“He came by my apartment. I wasn’t home. Sam was, and my girlfriend was here. Bobby—”
“You have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, Mom, I do.” And she’s pregnant. “I was hoping we all could get together soon, actually.”
“It must be serious!” Mom exclaims. “Tell me all about her!” She’s taking the conversation in the opposite direction of where it needs to go, but I know she needs a bit of good news and some cheering up.
“You already know her,” I start, a smile growing on my face just by thinking of Quinn.
“I do?”
“Yeah. You’ve met her once or twice, and you know her family well.”
“Don’t make me play a guessing game, Archie! Who is she?”
“Quinn.”
“Quinn?” Mom echoes.
“Quinn Dawson. Dean’s sister.”
Mom audibly inhales. “I always liked her. Isn’t she, um, a little young?”
“She’s twenty-six.”
“Oh, four years isn’t bad at all. I was thinking she was much younger for some reason. Your father is three years older than me. Is Dean okay with this?”
I laugh. “Not at all.” There’s more to it, but I’ll tell her that in person. “So about Bobby…”
“Right. Tell me what happened.”
I reiterate what Quinn and Sam told me, and she has no idea if he’ll try to contact me again or if he’ll move on. Where to, no one knows. Bobby is unpredictable when he’s using. She also has no idea why he showed up or what he wants. Making amends with those he hurt is part of recovery, but he’s far from recovering. Showing up makes no sense. Nevertheless, she and my dad are making the drive down here and will arrive around midnight tonight.
After I get off the phone with my mom, I arrange a hotel for them and then go back into my room, stripping down to just my boxers, and get in bed with Quinn.
“Archer?” she mumbles, eyes fluttering open.
“I’m here, babe.”
Her eyes fall shut and her lips curve into a smile. “Good.”
“Arch,” Quinn whispers, hand landing on my shoulder. “You’re having a bad dream.”
I blink and sit up, confused for a brief moment. The room is pitch black, I’m hot and sweaty, and my head hurts. But Quinn is here next to me, and everything is okay.
“Archer?”
“I’m awake.” I run my hands over my face and exhale, reaching for my phone to check the time. It’s one-thirty in the morning. I don’t remember what time I laid down, but I’m surprised I slept for so long. I don’t sleep well when I’m stressed, and given everything that happened, I’m pretty fucking stressed.
Quinn makes all the difference.
“What were you dreaming about?”
“I don’t remember.” The details from my dream at right there at the surface, but I don’t want to recall them. “I think it was about something bad happening to you and the baby.”
Quinn takes my hand and puts it on her stomach and leans back against the pillows. “We’re okay.”
“How’s your wrist?”
“It hurts but not as bad as before. Sleeping and not moving it helped.”
“I’ll get you Tylenol. Are you hungry? We slept through dinner.”
“I am. That’s actually why I woke up,” she says with a laugh. “I’m starving.”
I turn on the bedside lamp, blinking as my eyes adjust. “Are you craving anything?”
“I really want the pinwheels my mom makes for parties.” She stretches out and gets out of bed. “But mac and cheese sounds good too.”
“That I can do.” I kiss her forehead and get out of bed, putting on pajama pants. Quinn uses the bathroom while I go into the kitchen, pulling out a pot and filling it with water. I flick on the burner and grab a box of macaroni and cheese from the cabinet. Quinn comes into the kitchen with a sour look on her face.
“Feeling sick?” I ask.
“Yeah. I’m debating if I should take a pill or not.”
“You should,” I encourage. “They’re safe, babe, and you need to be able to keep food down.”
“I know.” She looks at the pot on the stove. “It’s so weird to be hungry and nauseous at the same time.”
“That would be.”
“I’ll take a pill.” Turning away, she goes into the living room to get her purse, returning with a bottle of Zofran. Putting one under her tongue, she sits at the kitchen table and waits for me.
I add the macaroni to the water and join Quinn at the table. “Babe,” I start, reaching across the table and taking her hands. “I need to talk to you about the guy who was at the door.”
“Can we talk about it in the morning?” Quinn asks. “I’m trying not to be freaked out about it. You make me feel safe, but if we talk about it, I’ll get scared. The police didn’t find him.”
Well, shit. I don’t want to put it off. Quinn needs to know about Bobby, about the fucked up uncle our child is related to. But I don’t want to upset her, and I can’t promise she’ll be safe if Bobby comes back. He’s a dumbass, the most selfish person I know, but he’s not violent.
Unless he’s using.
Then who the fuck knows what he’s capable of.
“In the morning,” I repeat. “Yeah.”
“So my mom called yesterday and wants to talk about the baby shower already.”
“She’s so excited for this,” I say with a smile.
“Oh, she’s going to love it. And since she’s the mom of the mom, she’ll head everything up and go crazy with party planning.”
“When do you have showers?”
“From what I read online, you can have it any time, really, but most people wait until the third trimester.” Quinn laces her fingers through mine and leans back. The color is coming back to her cheeks from the medicine kicking in. It’d be awful to feel like you’re on the verge of throwing up constantly like that. “I was wondering,” she starts, flicking her eyes to mine. “Do you want to find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Yes. As soon as possible. The new chromosome testing they do now can determine the sex of the baby as early as ten weeks.”
“Chromosome testing?”
I nod. “It’s impressive, really. You only give blood, not amniotic fluid, and a slew of chromosomal defects are checked for, and they can look at the DNA and see if you’re carrying a male or female.”
Her lips part, but Quinn doesn’t say anything. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but her brows start to furrow. “Sounds expensive,” she finally says.
“Some insurance companies cover it. If not, I’ll gladly pay for it.”
“But what if something is wrong and our baby has a defect?”
“The chances are low, but it’d give us time to prepare if something was wrong,” I tell her.
“Would you still want the baby if there was something wrong with it?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “Honestly, Quinn, I don’t think anything is wrong at all. I’m impatient and want to know what we’re having.”
She starts to smile and looks back at me. “I’ll ask about it when I get home. It would be nice to know that early what we’re having.” She takes one hand from mine and moves her hair over her shoulder. “We could pick out a name.”
Now I smile. It might be silly to let that have such an impact on me, but it does. Picking out names, planning the baby shower…it feels right.
Like we’re a family.