Page 80 of Knot Her Beta

“You have a wardrobe. Also from the curb.”

“It was a university yard sale, and it holds clothes just fine.”

She gives me a look that could curdle milk and moves on.

I trail behind them, cane tapping on the concrete, and try to keep up. My bad knee protests every step, a dull ache building behind the kneecap. March in Pinecrest means rain one minute and weak sunshine the next, and today my leg has decided to take the barometric pressure personally.

As I pause beside a display of throw pillows and dig the heel of my hand into the muscle above my knee, a writing desk along the far wall catches my attention, half-hidden behind a leather armchair.

It’s solid oak, from the look of it, the grain rich and warm under the track lighting, with two drawers on either side and brass pulls. The surface is wide enough for a laptop, a notebook, and a cup of coffee with room to spare. It’s not ornate or fussy. Just good, solid wood. The kind of desk Emily would approve of. The kind that belongs in a room with a view of water through pine trees.

I step closer, my fingers finding the edge of the desk, and I trace the bevel where the top meets the side.

I can picture it in the downstairs office, where Dominic designed the window to catch the morning light. My chair pulled up to it, my back to the wall so I can look out at that sliver of harbor visible between the firs. My hands on the keyboard, or a pen balanced between my fingers, working on something someone else didn’t write.

Before I can stop myself, I check the price tag and flinch at the number of zeroes.

The desk I have in storage is functional.

I step back, my cane tapping as I turn away.

“You’re not getting the desk?” Chloe materialized at my elbow, one hand braced on the armchair for balance, her belly leading the way.

“I already have one,” I tell her dryly.

She wrinkles her nose, eyebrows drawing together, nostrils flaring, and the corners of her mouth turning down.

I hold up a hand to stall her disparagement of all my worldly possessions. “I’m not replacing everything I already own, so stick to the basics.”

“Fine,” she grumbles. “But you’re definitely getting the couch.”

Before I can protest, her attention snags on a piece of furniture across the showroom, and her whole body pivots, one hand flying up to point. “Bookshelf. Grady! Bookshelf.”

She’s off, moving with the determined waddle of a very pregnant woman who has spotted literary real estate and will not be denied.

“You don’t need any more places to put your unused notebooks!” I call after her.

Without turning around, her middle finger appears over her shoulder, and the clerk behind us coughs into his fist.

Chloe wedges her entire upper body between two bookshelves, one arm stretched toward a top shelf while the clerk hovers behind her, letting out increasingly distressed little sounds.

Dominic hesitates for three full seconds, weighing whether intervention is worth the risk, before turning to me instead.

“She’s going to pull the whole thing over on herself,” I say.

“It’s possible.” He doesn’t sound too concerned. “But the alternative is me telling her no, and I value my life more.”

I snort and lean on a display table.

“How was the trip home?” Dominic asks.

I study the grain of the table under my palms. “Complicated.”

“We missed you,” he says. “All of us. Chloe especially. She threatened to name the baby Garfield at least twice.”

“So she threatened to me while I was gone. She’ll never do it, though.”

“I don’t know, she might.” His mouth quirks. “She’s planning to ask you to be the godfather.”