Shatter (True Believers #4)(34)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“What do you want to say?”

What did I want to say? For me, who was never at a loss for words, I had no idea. There were too many thoughts, too many emotions. I was never good at editing my own words so now, when talking about him, it just seemed safer to not say anything at all. So I went for the generic laugh they were expecting. “That I want me some booty.”

We all laughed. Hey, that wasn’t a lie. I did want Jonathon.

But in what way?

CHAPTER TEN

“What the hell are you doing?” Devon asked me as he walked into our apartment.

“I’m questioning the next step in evolution because my opposable thumbs are f**king useless,” I said, accidentally taping my finger to the box instead of the wrapping paper. “How do people do this?”

“They don’t. They buy gift bags. Why exactly are you wrapping a present?” He dumped his messenger bag on the table next to the mess I’d made. “My birthday is in July.”

“It’s Kylie’s birthday,” I said absently, forcing the corner of the pink paper onto the box and securing it with three pounds of tape. It looked like a two-year-old had wrapped it.

“Oh yeah? Is it required to get your baby mama a birthday present? I’ll make a mental note.”

“Don’t use that phrase, I hate it. It’s demeaning.” I peeled the sticky back off the bow and set it lopsided on my shitty wrap job. Feeling stressed, I groaned. “This looks terrible. I give up.”

Devon rooted around in the fridge and emerged with a soft drink. “You look like you’re going to have an aneurysm. Calm down.”

“I didn’t know it was her birthday until two hours ago,” I said. “The pressure is killing me. I didn’t know what to get her. I can’t do jewelry because that’s too personal. Electronics are cold and too expensive. I can’t do something pregnancy or baby related because this is about her, not the baby. I just wanted to do something small and stupid so she would know I was thinking about her but I can’t just hand it to her. I needed to wrap it. And now, we have this.” I gestured to my hot-mess present.

“Okay, you sound like a girl. Just wanted to point that out so maybe you can draw your balls back out of your body.” He took a sip. “And saying you can’t get her jewelry because it’s too personal when you are having a baby together is ironic as hell. But I get it. So here.” He reached over and undid the wrap job.

“Hey!”

“I’m fixing it.” He balled up the paper after removing the bow and took another square of the wrapping paper. “Right angles, dude. Come on. This is basic math.” He made a couple of folds to create triangles and lifted them over the top. “Give me a piece of tape.”

I obeyed and he secured the fold and efficiently turned and did it to the other side. He flipped the box over and it didn’t look half bad. “See?”

“Thanks, man.” I took a deep breath and drummed my fingers on the table. “I don’t know how to do this shit.”

“What shit? Wrap presents or have a relationship with a girl you barely know?”

“Both. I think the second one is probably a bigger issue, though.”

He sat down across from me and studied me with his dark eyes. “You’re into her, aren’t you? I mean, aside from the literal interpretation of that statement, which we already know for a fact.”

I laughed. “Pig.” I put the bow back on the package.

“That’s not really an answer.”

Because I was avoiding the question. I had no idea how I felt about Kylie. Which was a lie. I knew exactly how I felt about her. I liked her. A lot. Seeing her made me . . . pleased. “I have a certain reaction to her, I’m not going to deny that.”

Devon raised his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

Hey. So I wasn’t used to discussing my emotions. Sue me. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I just think that if you like this chick, you should just see where it goes. Why are you making such a big deal about it?”

“It is a big deal. If I f**k things up I still have to communicate with her for the rest of our frickin’ lives.”

“That is heavy shit. True. But I see three possible scenarios here. One, you end up with her. Like being together raising your kid and the whole happily ever after crap. Two, you have a polite friendship with each other and you eventually both end up marrying someone else. Three, you communicate through the courts and trash-talk each other. Which one appeals to you the most?”

One. “Two is the most practical.”

“I didn’t ask you what is the most practical, dick face. I asked you which one you want.”

“Fine. One.” Why was that so hard to admit? “But two is realistic.”

“Is it? If you both dig each other but you pu**y out and just try to have a friendship, how is that going to work when you’re both involved with someone else? Is it going to make you feel friendly and happy for her or just pissed off when she marries some dude who is with your kid all the time?”

When he put it that way . . . “I don’t think I would like that.” In fact, I would hate it. Sure, eventually I could learn to deal with it, but what if it happened in just a few months? What if she was with someone by the time the baby was born? The thought made me feel like my head was going to explode off my shoulders.

“Because let’s face it, you may be single until you’re thirty-eight, but she won’t be. Chicks like that have guys lined up to marry them.”

I frowned. “Thanks, ass**le.”

“It’s true. It’s part of their culture. Meet, mate, marry.”

“Who is ‘they’? Conversely, who are ‘we’? And what is our culture?” He made us sound like aliens.

“We’re nerds. We meet, we mate occasionally, we educate, then around forty we hyphenate our name with someone else’s as we recognize our cells are no longer regenerating themselves and we’ll eventually need someone to push our wheelchair.”

“That is a ridiculous generalization.” Yet three months ago that was pretty much how I had seen it going down for me.

“Is it?” He gave me a mocking grin. “Is it, really? Then fine, go for option two and see how it plays out for you. Maybe she’ll invite you to her wedding as a courtesy so you can make sure your daughter doesn’t jack up her flower-girl dress because she’s going to be two years old when it happens, max. Trust me on this.”