Temporary Bliss (Bliss #1)(52)
Author: B.J. Harvey

Daniel has been texting and calling me off and on, but I’ve been ignoring him. I know, I’m a coward. I should have ran over there and told him as soon as I got back in town, but why set myself up for disappointment? I feel like I’ve taken a good step forward in getting myself ready for him. There are no loose ends now. Sean, Noah, and Zander know that I’m moving forward with my life and that the impossible has happened.

Makenna Lewis has fallen in love with a man.

But now, being a gutless wonder, I’m hiding away from that very same man until I know for sure that we will be having a baby together. Our first child, a little caramel-eyed boy, or maybe a brown haired blue eyed girl like me. My heart aches on a daily basis too. I miss him like I miss my next breath. I never thought I’d feel like this.

I thought I loved Beau, but my feelings for him pale in comparison to what I feel for Daniel. I want to be strong for him. I want a lifetime of spooning and forking, lazy Sunday mornings in bed, Bears’ games and tailgating, ferris wheel rides and walks by the lake. I want all of that with him, but I can’t tell him any of this until I’m past the first trimester.

One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. I’ve been through that pain, and I would never willingly inflict that on anyone. Especially him.

So I’m waiting.

I know Kate doesn’t understand. She’s actually pissed off at me for not telling him. She says he deserves to know and that my reasoning is stupid.

“He wants you now, baby or no baby, Mac. Why the hell would he not want you now that you’re carrying his child? A child you created the night he told you he loved you. It’s not going to change the way he feels about you. He’ll want you even more. Christ, Mac, stop being a f**king martyr,” she said last night before going to bed and shutting her door.

Her heart’s in the right place, and deep down I know she’s probably right, but I’m sticking to my guns. Three more weeks to go and I will tell him. I’ve even circled the date in the calendar.

It’s another Friday night after a long and tiring week at work, so I’m sitting at home in my Bears’ jersey and my comfy pajama pants with my fuzzy pink pig slippers on my feet, and a bar of chocolate within my reach. I’m just about to get up and start on my second tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey for the night, when I hear a loud and fast knock at the door.

I look up to check the time on the microwave, and realize that it’s only 9 p.m. and way too early for Kate to be back from her first date with Nathan, a personal trainer that she met at the gym who asked her out. The only reason she’d be home this early would be if it had been a bust. I check my phone for the expected SOS text from her, our secret code for when she needs saving with a fake ‘come home urgently’ phone call, but it’s not there.

There is a loud knock at the door again, and I groan as I pull myself off the couch and barrel my way over to the door.

“You should really stop forgetting your keys, Kate. If you weren’t a redhead already, I’d seriously swear you were blonde…”

I lose all my train of thought the moment I open the door.

It’s not Kate. It’s Daniel. Dreamy, gorgeous, and totally edible Daniel. Shit!

“Hi,” I say cautiously. He is rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, the thing he only does when he’s nervous or angry.

We stand there just staring at each other in my doorway, in the middle of winter, not saying a word. I shiver, snapping out of my haze when I realize that we’re still standing out in the cold.

I look up at him, still in shock that he’s standing in front of me, in the flesh. “Ah, you wanna come in?” I ask.

“Kind of the whole point of coming over to see you, Mac,” he replies deadpan. He looks tense and rigid. Not a good sign.

Moving out of the doorway, I gesture for him to come in. “After you.”

“Thanks,” he replies, his voice sounding harder than normal. He sounds pissed off, actually. This is so not the Daniel Winters I know. Where has the confident, sometimes cocky, ex-lover slash boyfriend gone? Hell, right now his new name is baby daddy and he hasn’t got a clue.

We walk back into the living room and I dump myself back into my sunken couch, grabbing a cushion and cuddling it into my chest. I’m trying to act nonchalant, but I doubt very much that I’m pulling it off. Inside my whole body is screaming, wanting me to tell him that I’m about to change his life as he knows it, and to plead with him to take me back; to apologize for everything I’ve ever done to hurt him because it is the last thing I ever want to do. The Angel Mac on my shoulder is clapping her hands in glee, and surprisingly, Devil Mac has left the building.

“You wanna sit down?” I ask, looking up at him as he leans against the doorway.

“Nope, I think I’ll stay right over here. I need some distance from you for this,” he says.

“For what?” I’m confused now. What the hell is going on?

“I think we need to talk, and since you’ve been avoiding me for the past few weeks, face to face seems to be the only way to get through to you.”

“I haven’t been-”

“Mac, you’re not a liar, please don’t start now.” He just stands there, his eyes full of anger.

“Why are you so angry, Daniel?” I ask tentatively.

“Why do you think? Were you ever going to tell me?” His voice rocks through me.

“W-what?”

“Or were you going to just shut me out like you do to every other person that cares for you, that loves you?

“Now hang on, I don’t-”

“Now you’re lying to yourself. You’re so damn snug and secure in your neat little box that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to take a chance. I thought you were going to take that chance on me. When you apologized to me a couple of weeks ago, I thought that you had made a decision and that you’d chosen me, but then you all but disappeared.”

“Daniel, I-”

“Not now, Mac. Now it’s time for you to listen. See, I just ran into Noah at the bar.” He pushes off the doorway and starts walking towards me, stopping to sit on the edge of the arm chair right by the couch. He leans forward, resting his forearms on his legs.

“And he said the funniest thing to me. He threw his arm around my shoulder and said that congratulations were in order. At first I thought he was just a bit drunk, and maybe he’d got his wires crossed or something. But then he said how he never thought any man would get you to settle down, and how glad he was that it was me who did it.” He still hasn’t taken his eyes off me. I can’t read anything from his expression, and it’s starting to rattle me.