Page 81 of Good For Me

River

Breakfast with my family is as loud and chaotic as our meals always are, but being inside amplifies the noise to a much higher degree. I keep casting glances at Jas, wondering if the chaos is stressing her out. But she’s chatting easily with Rose and Leo about school and doesn’t seem at all bothered.

Not like she was in the kitchen. She had definitely been bothered then. In a good way—I hope.

I force down a groan as I shove a whole piece of bacon into my mouth. It’s getting harder and harder to be close to her and not touch her. I wanted to kiss her last night at the skate park and I wanted to kiss her just now in the kitchen.

Which shouldn’t be anything new. I have a hell of a lot of experience being around Jas and wanting to kiss her. So why does this feel different?

Because I don’t just want to kiss her, I realize. I want to rest my hand on her knee while we’re eating. I wanted to slip an arm around her waist while I murmured in her ear in the kitchen, to tease her about the blush I saw creeping up her neck, maybe run my fingertips over her reddening skin.

I want to drop an arm over her chair, the way Will is with Eva across the table. To make it obvious to everyone here that she’s my girl. I want that easy understanding that the two of them have together—the knowledge that they’re exactly where they’re supposed to be with the person they should be with.

I’ve had feelings for her from the very start. Having her here, at my favorite place on earth, with all my favorite people? Shit, knowing that she’s carrying my baby? It makes the desire to justbewith her a million times stronger.

“So, what’s the plan today?” Wyatt asks Will. “Did we decide on the amusement park?”

“Eva and I are zip lining this afternoon,” Will says firmly. “If everyone else wants to go walk around a crowded theme park, that’s fine.”

“This place is epic,” Eva cuts in. “We were there this summer. They have the highest, longest line in the entire state.”

My stomach dips and I cast another, more furtive glance at Jas. I forgot about the zip lining thing.

“We’ll just skip it,” I say softly, so only she can hear. “No one will care.”

She chews her bottom lip. “This is supposed to be your time with your cousins,” she argues. “I don’t want you missing out on that because of me.”

“There’s got to be some way we can find out if it’s safe.” I don’t point out that my mother and aunts were pregnant a combined sixteen times and probably could tell us whether or not these activities are okay. Pretty sure announcing the pregnancy to my entire family at the breakfast table will defeat the purpose of our supposedly relaxing weekend.

“Can you call Doctor Wiezman?”

“Would anyone even be in the office on Saturday?”

I make a mental note to check if the doctor has some kind of after-hours phone service. Across the table, I catch Everly’s eye and realize she’s been watching us as we whisper our conversation, heads close together. I don’t think she could have heard anything, but Everly is way too good at figuring shit out to take any chances. I narrow my eyes at her and she smiles, completely unabashed at being caught, and turns back to her conversation with Alex and Bodhi.

“We could always look it up on the internet.” I suggest. “Doesn’t Google know everything?”

“Good idea,” Jas says, phone already in her hand. She taps around for a minute then chews her lip as she reads. It’s a familiar sight to me—how many times did I steal glances her way at her uncle’s bar while she sat in her corner table pouring over her textbooks? It always made me feel crazy, wanting to go over there and tug that lip away and then find out what it would feel like betweenmyteeth—

Suddenly, her face goes very still, paling before my eyes. “Jas?” She holds up a finger to silence me, pulling the phone closer. The more she reads, the sicker she looks. Suddenly she shoves her chair back from the table, the noise loud even over all the chatter in the dining room, and a few heads turn in our direction.

“I’ll, um, be back,” she mumbles, then walks quickly from the room, her head bowed. I don’t even look around to see if anyone is watching before following her out.

“Jas,” I call, but she ignores me, striding through the kitchen and then out the door. She walks back towards the farmhouse, finally stopping when she gets to the old barn. She leans against a nearby tree, taking deep breaths.

“What’s wrong?” I demand. I want to grab her, force her to look at me and explain, but she looks close to a panic attack. So I force myself to give her space, to let her breathe without crowding her. “What’s going on? What did it say?”

She blows out a ragged breath. “Well, I definitely can’t zip line.”

“Okay…” I’m sure that can’t possibly be the reason for this reaction. “What else did it say?”

She turns to me with wild eyes. “Skateboarding, River. I’m not supposed to skate.”

Oh,shit. I hadn’t given it the slightest thought yesterday. Maybe if she’d done something stupid like refuse a helmet, I might have felt like it was unsafe. But she seemed so confident on her board, so comfortable. It hadn’t even occurred to me to be worried.

It hadn’t occurred to her, either, apparently. She looks completely freaked out right now.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “So we won’t do that again.”