Flipping Love You by Erin Nicholas
14
She’d been in Autre for six weeks.
And she’d only done her own laundry twice.
And she hadn’t been to the grocery store even once.
Yet, she hadn’t run out of yogurt, milk, cereal, or peanut butter.
Not only had Zeke thrown her laundry in with his—and she didn’t know or really care if he’d done it or if his mother had because Jill really did like the ocean breezes dryer sheets—and kept her favorite items stocked in his house, but she had food from Ellie’s for dinner every night. Which cut down on the amount of cereal and bread she went through. It also had given her an addiction to remoulade sauce she hadn’t expected. And five new pounds.
Each evening the food was either on her desk at the penguin habitat…or on Zeke’s kitchen table when she went over to say hi.
And kiss him.
And get him naked.
And curl up next to him for the rest of the night.
Yeah, yeah, she saw Zeke a lot more often than she’d ever seen Dan.
But Zeke was less busy than Dan had been.
Turned out, so was she.
She was still obsessed with the penguins, of course. But after making sure they were clean and fed and not pregnant, it turned out she had some free hours in her day. So, when Griffin had asked if she’d help out with a few of the other animals, she’d said sure.
Working with lemurs was cool. She also really liked the porcupines and the red pandas.
But she was annoyed with the cats. All three of them that hung out in the barn. And one of the alpacas. And Gertie the otter.
Because they were all pregnant.
The alpaca wasn’t even supposed to be pregnant this time of year.
Jill blew out a breath.
She was trying to get penguins pregnant and they had no interest, but all the animals around her were getting knocked up.
Well, not all of them. Many of the animals wouldn’t mate until spring. But that seemed the only thing saving her from being completely surrounded by baby animals of all kinds.
Except penguins, of course.
But it went even beyond cats and alpacas and otters.
And it was very, very, very ironic.
Turned out her weight gain wasn’t entirely from the remoulade sauce. Or even from Ellie’s amazing pecan pie.
Nope. The five pounds, and a few other symptoms, were all Zeke Landry’s fault.
* * *
“You don’t have to knock, you know,” Zeke told Jill as he pulled his door open. “Just come on in.”
Ever since the washing machine sex—okay, the first washing machine sex—she’d been coming over to his place at least three nights a week. He knew a lot of it was the sex. And Cora and Ellie’s cooking. But he thought maybe some of it was his company.
“Hi.” Jill’s gaze traveled over him but lingered first on his glasses.
He’d needed the damned things for reading since he’d been about fifteen. He was barefoot and wearing jeans and had just shrugged into a flannel to come to the door, but he hadn’t buttoned up. Her gaze next got hung up on the ink across his chest and he leaned to brace a hand on the door frame as he let her look.
He drank in the sight of her in return. She was wearing loose gray athletic pants and a pale green t-shirt under a hunter green hoodie. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she had no makeup on, as usual. Everything about her screamed girl next door, but that wasn’t unusual. The huge lantern and the long pole with the looped cable at the end she was carrying, however, were.
“What are you doing with those?”
“In case I ran into Chuck on my way over.”
“And where did you get them?”
“Zander.” She held up the pole. “It’s to loop around the alligator’s neck, and—”
Holy shit. “I know what it’s for.” There was no way in hell Jill was going to be looping that thing around any alligators. “When did you get it?” She’d been coming to his house frequently.
“A few weeks ago.”
“I haven’t seen it before.”
“I leave it out here.” She leaned to set it to the side of the door.
“You’ve been bringing that over here with you every night?”
“Yeah.”
He hadn’t noticed. Of course, he was always very focused on her when she showed up.
“Zander said maybe I’d be better off just poking him with the other end of it and being really loud to try to scare him off.”
“Do not poke an alligator with a stick, Jill.” Jesus. What was Zander talking about? “Don’t fucking get close enough to an alligator to poke it with a stick.”
“What am I supposed to do? I have an alligator who frequents my yard.”
“You avoid him. You run in the opposite direction. Or you scream really loud and I’ll take care of it.”
“What if you’re not home?”
“You put your pretty ass back in your house and call me.”
“And what if you’re in another town and can’t come over right away and I need to get out to the penguins?”
Zeke shoved a hand through his hair. “He’s not going to attack you. I keep him well fed to avoid that very scenario.”
Jill propped a hand on her hip. “You feed Chuck?”
“Yeah.”
“Did it ever occur to you that he keeps coming over because of that?”
“I’m sure he is. But the first time he came over wasn’t because I fed him and I’d rather have him eating my chicken than eating…you.” He gave her a slow grin. “I’m the only one who’s going to be doing that.”
She frowned, instead of responding to his flirty teasing. “Yeah, about that. We need to have a talk.”
Zeke didn’t like the sound of that. If they had to talk about him eating her, it was either because she wanted him to do it right now—in which case she probably wouldn’t be frowning—or she was going to ask him not to do it anymore. And that wasn’t really okay either.
He shifted away from the frame. “Come on in.”
She ducked under his arm and stepped into the house.
“Have you eaten?” He already knew the answer to that question, but felt that it was polite to ask before he loaded up a plate of leftovers from Ellie and put them down in front of her.
Jill put a hand on her stomach. “I’m not really hungry.”
That was new. She’d loved everything Ellie had sent home for her. He frowned, taking in her distressed expression. “You okay?”
She shook her head, and Zeke felt his chest tighten.
“What’s wrong?”
“We should sit down.”
He moved in toward his dining room table where he’d been working. “Okay. Have a seat.”
She looked at the table strewn with papers. “What’s all this?”
“Oh. Taxes.” He pulled out a chair and dropped into it. “What’s going on?”
“This is a lot of paperwork for taxes for one guy. And it’s not tax season.”
“Quarterly taxes.”
“This is all for your quarterly taxes for your construction company?”
“No, I do everybody’s taxes.”
“Who’s everybody?”
“Ellie and the Boys of the Bayou and now Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild. Then, besides mine for the construction company, I do Zander’s and Mitch’s and everybody’s personal stuff during tax season.”
She was looking at him, puzzled. “You do everyone’s taxes?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s fun.”
She blinked at him. “Doing taxes is a hobby?”
“Kind of. I am a CPA. And I make them pay me. But it’s definitely on the side.”
“Who does accounting for fun?”
“Math geeks.”
She was looking at him as if meeting him for the first time. “You’re a math geek. Who does accounting for fun. For his whole family on the side of his construction business.”
“Yep.”
“Wow.”
“What are your hobbies?” he asked.
She gave him a look. “You already know the answer to that. I don’t have any hobbies. It’s penguins, penguins, penguins.”
He sat back in his chair and again noted how her gaze traveled over his bare chest and stomach as his shirt fell further open.
“Could you button up?”
“I could. Or I could just take it off. I guess it depends why you’re here.”
“This is definitely a button up conversation,” she told him. “Though not unrelated to the times you’ve unbuttoned and taken things off.”
Was she dumping him? That would be weird. Everything had been going great. The sex was out of this world, they were happily living next to one another, sharing his space frequently, and having fun. They were a lot alike in many ways, actually.
He was definitely going to fight her on this. But he started buttoning up.
“Okay, spill. What’s going on?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Zeke’s fingers froze on the fourth button. His gaze snapped to hers.
He immediately realized she wasn’t kidding around.
“Oh.”
Jill shifted forward on her chair, bracing her hands on her knees. She met his gaze directly. “Yeah. And it’s yours. I’m not very far along, but I took the test yesterday. And…” She blew out a breath. “It was positive.”
Zeke took all of that in as he finished buttoning his shirt. Then he sat for a few seconds, letting all of the thoughts and reactions swirl around in his head.
Jill was pregnant. The most fascinating, unique, beautiful woman he’d ever met was having his baby.
She was definitely not like any woman he’d ever dated before and he certainly hadn’t gotten as far as to think about what their relationship might look like even a month from now, not to mention a year or more. But he liked her more than he could remember liking anyone he’d slept with in…ever.
“I have to be honest with you,” she said after nearly a minute. “I’d never planned to be a mom. Like ever. I don’t think I’ll be very good at it.”
He blew out a breath. “Okay. Well, I was definitely not planning on being a father yet. But…I guess I’ve always assumed I would have kids.”
“So you want to have it?”
His first reaction was to say that of course he wanted to have it, but he decided he needed to actually think about her question. Not having it was an option after all.
It occurred to him that bringing a baby into his life, into their lives, would be a much bigger disruption to Jill’s than it would be to his. He’d have a ton of help. He’d spent his entire life in Autre and already had a house and a business. Everything he was doing now was essentially what he would be doing a year, five years, ten years from now. If he had a child to take care of, it would be a huge change, but it would not significantly derail anything about his life.
Jill was in a different position. She had just moved to Autre and didn’t even have a completely finished house. Of course, he could take care of that rather easily and quickly. But she was just starting a new phase of her career and he knew things weren’t going exactly the way she would like them to.
“I will help you however you want me to help you,” he finally said. “I have a huge support system. With you living right next door, we can easily share custody.”
She blinked at him a few times without speaking.
“What?” Zeke finally asked after several seconds had ticked by.
“You mean that, don’t you? Just like that? We have a baby together and keep doing…all of this.” She swept her hand around. “Seeing each other here and there and just…what? Passing it back and forth?”
Zeke lifted a shoulder. “Isn’t that what shared custody is? Or, you can move in here if you think that would be easier. Or, I mean, hell…if you want the baby to live here and you come and go, that’s fine. Like I said, I have a ton of people who will help.”
Jill stared at him. As in wide-eyed, open-mouth stared.
“You would actually take this baby and raise it and let me just visit…what? On the weekends? You’d have your family help out with babysitting and cooking and laundry and it would just be like your life is now, but with a little person living with you?”
Zeke frowned. It sounded like a good thing, but there was something about the way she said it that made it sound bad. But, with about three minutes to adjust to the news and think this through, yeah, that was all that was going through his mind.
“Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
Jill pushed up from her chair and paced across his dining room, then turned back. “You realize that you and I are the last people who should be in charge of keeping another human alive, right?”
“Well…”
“Neither of us cooks. We barely shop for groceries. We barely keep our clothes clean. Neither of us keeps any kind of regular schedule. And we like that,” she added, holding up a hand when he started to protest. “For me, I keep everything else in my life simple so I can focus on the one thing that I actually care about. You roll with everything because you know that you have this huge safety net behind you. You can literally jump from one piece of scaffolding to another and not worry about falling because if you do, you know you have people who will put you back together.”
“I’m not understanding what the problem is. We would have that safety net with the baby too.”
“But that’s pathetic, Zeke. People shouldn’t bring children into the world if they’re not ready and able to take care of them. You and I barely take care of ourselves and now we’re going to have a child reliant on us?”
“You keep penguins alive. You worry about them all the time. You feed them and shelter them and take care of their medical needs.”
“They’re penguins.”
“They’re endangered. If they die, that impacts the entire population worldwide.”
For just a moment, she paused, seeming surprised and a bit mollified by the fact that he’d absorbed how important the penguins were, and that he was championing what she was doing. But she shook her head a moment later. “But I can leave the penguins alone. If I’m late to feed the penguins by a half hour, they’re fine. I mean, they get a little pissy, but they’re mostly fine. Or if one of them is sick, I take care of it, but then I go home. You can’t do that with a kid. You have to be there twenty-four seven. You can’t put them in a pen and leave them overnight. I’m pretty sure someone would call child protective services.”
“But if a kid’s sick and you can’t be there, you call Grandma or Great Grandma or Aunt Somebody,” Zeke said.
“Do you ever get tired of needing your family for everything?” she asked.
Zeke felt like she’d slapped him. “No. I don’t.”
“You are thirty years old. When are you going to start taking care of yourself? I mean, are you going to depend on your mother to do all the diapers? Are you going to call your aunt in the middle of the night when the baby has colic? Are you going to dump the kid off with your cousins when it has an ear infection?”
“First of all, I’m twenty-five. Second of all, hell yes I’m going to ask for help when I need it. Third of all—”
“You’re twenty-five?”
He frowned. “Yes. Just turned twenty-five a few weeks ago. You really thought I was thirty?”
“Well, I didn’t know that I was having an affair with someone nine years younger than me!”
His eyes widened. “You’re thirty-four?”
“Geez, you don’t have to say it like that.”
Zeke got to his feet and faced her. “That’s hot as fuck. But I don’t care how old you are. The fact is, we’re the same person. We both have adjusted our lives so that we can focus on what’s really important to us. For you, you whittled your life down to wearing the same shirt in various colors, surviving on peanut butter and jelly and cereal, and drinking your vegetables. You gave up on remembering birthdays or anniversaries. For me, I simplified my life by letting other people help me. None of that makes either of us a bad person. And we can adjust. We can grocery shop, we can learn to cook, we can learn to do laundry.”
Jill blew out a breath and tipped her head up to look at the ceiling.
Zeke just watched her for a long moment. His gut was tight but he wasn’t going to apologize for his family or for his plan to lean on them. He’d be there for any of them in this same situation and he knew they knew that. “I understand that you didn’t choose this. This was an accident. But we’ll make it work. You can be as involved…or not…as you want.”
Jill focused on him again. “Isn’t that the line the woman generally gives the guy? Tells him he can be as involved as he wants?”
“It’s our kid. Just because you’re the mother doesn’t mean that you automatically have to be the one taking the reins, does it?”
“But it makes me look like a bad person, right? Lots of people will judge me for not being more involved.”
“Maybe. Probably,” he admitted. “But not everyone’s wired the same way and it’s not like you planned this and changed your mind. We did what we could to prevent it. We used condoms every time, but they’re not a hundred percent. So—” He shrugged. “Here we are. We’ll make the best of it.”
“I still think it feels a little pathetic for us to just mess up like this and then just assume that your family will help us clean it up.”
“That’s what families do.”
“There are other options, Zeke.”
Right. Of course there were. And he needed to listen to all of that. “And if you want to talk about those, I will. But if I get a vote, I think I can be a good dad. I mean, I didn’t used to know how to build a damn thing, but my family taught me and now I’m one of the best. My family’s full of amazing fathers. If I was going to learn how to be a great dad and a good man, right here in Autre with the Landrys is exactly where I’d come to make that happen. Except, lucky me, I’m already here.”
She seemed to be thinking all that over for a few seconds, but she also seemed touched.
“Do you think I’m a bad person? For not being more maternal or nurturing?”
He crossed the few feet that separated them to stand right in front of her.
This woman was carrying his baby. That was starting to sink in. Was she who he had imagined himself with? No. But she wasn’t like any woman he’d met before, so how could he have possibly imagined that?
But she was good for him.
“You have made me into more of a caregiver than I have ever been,” he told her. “My whole life I’ve been the one everyone else takes care of, because I’m the youngest and…” He gave her a little grin. “Because I really like it.”
She gave a soft snort.
“But you haven’t nurtured me. From the moment we met you haven’t worried about me or made things easier for me or placated me. You’re the first woman I’ve ever slept with who hasn’t cooked me a single thing.”
She grimaced.
“But,” he went on. “You’ve not only made me happier than I’ve been with anyone else, you’ve made me intoa caregiver. There isn’t a single person in the Landry family who actually needs me. I love them, I make them laugh, I help them out, but none of them need me.” He lifted a hand and cupped her face. “I love feeding you. Even if it’s peanut butter and cereal, I like shopping for it. Even if I’m not the chef, I like making sure there’s food here for you. And I know you think my mom’s been doing the laundry, but it’s been me.”
She lifted a brow.
“Okay, she did it twice.”
Jill tipped her head.
“Okay, maybe four times. But the rest of the time, I did it.” He grinned at her.
“What about the cleaning?” she asked.
Yeah, he knew that was a trick. She knew he hadn’t cleaned the house. But the house had gotten cleaned. “That wasn’t my family.”
“No. Mrs. Thibodaux said she does it twice a month for you in exchange for you not charging her labor for putting on her new roof.”
“That’s true.”
After a beat, Jill smiled. “She does a great job.”
“She does. And I’ll be honest, I’m really hoping she wants new kitchen cabinets put in or a bathroom remodel once that roof is worked off.”
Jill laughed.
“Look,” he went on. “I like taking care of you. And yeah, I don’t take care of every detail myself, but it gets done and you don’t have to do it. And I’m lucky you’re pretty easy to take care of. But, I’m also okay with taking on something a little harder. Like a baby.”
Jill’s expression softened and damned if her eyes didn’t get a little shiny.
But he meant it.
Even if Jill only needed him for the next nine months and then to take care of their child so that she could focus on saving the world—or at least the Galápagos penguins of the world—then he could do that. He was the one person who could step up for her right now.
That gave him a surge of satisfaction, excitement, and a sense of purpose.
He wanted this. He was sure of it.
“And I definitely do not think you’re a bad person, Jill. You have known who you are and what you want since you were eight years old. That’s amazing. You’ve done everything you could to make that happen. You’ve made a difference in this world and you’re going to keep doing that.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her cheek. “Honestly? I’m pretty happy this happened because this means I have a reason to stay really close to you and watch all the amazing things you are going to do. I’m thrilled that my son or daughter is going to have a front row seat to see the way you are going to make the world a better place.”
He was startled to see her eyes actually fill with tears. His thumb brushed away the first one that escaped her lower lashes.
Her hands came up to circle his wrists and she gave a little sniff.
“That was the perfect thing to say.”
“Thank God. Because I was really winging that.”
She gave a soft laugh. “That’s how we both do most things, isn’t it?”
“Yep. And most of the time it works out really well.”
“Except the times when the condoms don’t work.”
He shook his head. “I’m thinking that maybe that was one of the best times.”
She blew out a little breath. “You are unlike any guy I’ve ever met.”
“Glad to hear it.”
They just stood looking at each other for several beats.
Then she said, “You’re really hot in these glasses.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“And I’m thinking… I mean, you can’t get me pregnant again.”
Her meaning hit him and he felt a slow grin curl his lips. “That is a very good point.”
“And, if I stay here, there’s no chance of running into Chuck out in the yard.”
Without another word, Zeke scooped her up in his arms and headed upstairs to his bedroom.
* * *
Two weeks later Jill met Zeke on her front porch when he came to pick her up to take her to Ellie’s. They had taken time to let everything really sink in and talk through what they both wanted. Now they were on their way to the bar to tell the family the news.
Jill smoothed the front of her khaki pants and the lavender t-shirt and straightened her cardigan. She was dressed the way she dressed every day. She could have just as easily been going to see the penguins as she was going to see her baby’s other side of the family.
Her stomach swooped at the thought. The bar was going to be full of aunts and uncles, cousins, great-aunts and uncles, grandparents, and even great-grandparents.
Zeke had warned her that he had asked everyone to gather together. He seemed to think everyone was under the impression they were getting engaged. Jill figured they were all expecting an announcement about when they could come see the penguins.
When she’d asked why they would jump to that conclusion about them, he’d said that he had never called a family meeting before. She’d said the idea of the two of them getting engaged so fast was crazy but he’d shook his head and told her she didn’t know his family very well.
That was an understatement.
And that was all about to end. She did know enough about Autre and this family to know they were very similar to Bliss, Kansas, and her family, and that meant that as soon as they all knew there was a new Landry on the way, she wasn’t going to get away with avoiding them any longer.
She pressed her hand over her stomach where butterflies were spinning and diving.
“Is this okay?” she asked as Zeke bounded up her front steps and stopped with only a couple of inches between them.
He looked down at her. “Is what okay?”
He seemed excited. Dammit. He’d actually been excited over the past two weeks in general. They had talked a lot, and he’d been amazingly supportive. He completely understood that this pregnancy was throwing a huge wrench in every plan she’d ever made. He’d been very reassuring about how much help he was going to be.
He’d even tried actually cooking for her one night.
It had only been grilled cheese. And he’d burned it. All three times he’d tried. And they’d ended up raiding Jordan and Fletcher’s fridge again. But the attempt had been sweet.
Having Ellie and Cora cooking for their child was a really good idea, they’d decided.
“Am I okay wearing this?”
He chuckled. “To my grandma’s bar? You might be overdressed.”
“But I’m meeting your entire family.”
“Yeah, and most of them are just coming off a swamp boat tour. They’ll be dirty and windblown,” he said. “You’re fine.”
“So can we just walk in and make the announcement and then walk back out?”
“No, we cannot,” Zeke said. “I fully intend to soak up all of the affection and praise.”
“Praise?” Jill asked. “They do know how babies are made, right? And they’re all doing the same thing most nights? And that an accidental pregnancy isn’t exactly praiseworthy?”
Zeke shook his head. “That is not how they’re going to see this. They’ll see this as me having amazingly good taste in women. And then getting crazy lucky by making the best one I’ve ever found stick around.”
“I’m just nervous.”
“Why? They are definitely gonna think I’m the one who upgraded and am the most likely to screw this up. They all think you’re smart and driven and passionate, and funny and charming and sweet.”
“Why would any of them think that? I don’t even know any of them.”
“Because that’s what I’ve told them about you.”
A warmth washed over her and she felt the knot in her stomach loosen. She looked up at him. “You’ve been talking about me?”
“Apparently, even before I was aware of it. They all know an awful lot about you and your penguins. But over the last couple weeks, I’ve made a specific effort to make sure they know that I’m completely smitten.”
“I suppose it would be nice for your mom and grandma at least to think that you really like the girl you knocked up.”
“I do really like the girl I knocked up. It’s not like I’m trying to convince them of this to cushion the blow or something. I want them to know I consider this a good thing.”
She sighed. “You really do think this is a good thing, don’t you?”
“I really do. And I promise to make it as good a thing for you as I can.”
She reached out for his hand. “Zeke —”
It was then that she noticed his left hand was wrapped in white gauze.
“What happened to your hand?”
“Burned it.”
“Burned it on what?”
“Um…”
She lifted both brows. “Zeke?”
He rolled his eyes. “I was making grilled cheese again.”
She laughed and then pressed her lips together. “What? Why?”
“I was going to feed you before we went to the bar. I didn’t know if you’d want to eat with everyone around.”
God, he really was a good guy. “Grilled cheese is not working out for us.”
“It’s really not.”
“Are you all right?”
“Probably,” he said.
Probably wasn’t good enough. Jill realized that she should take a look at it. She was a doctor, after all. No, not of human medicine, but she did know what to look at when it came to burns.
She hadn’t seen a burn in a really long time and had never treated one on a human being, but she was willing to look at Zeke’s. After all, this man had put up a fence to keep Chuck out of her yard—actually the fence extended all the way around her house and his so it was one big yard that she could walk across without worrying and without carrying her lasso-thingy. And he was not only willing to co-parent with her but was happy to do far more than his share. Though she kind of hoped his mom would do the baby’s laundry. And that Cora would be in charge of grilled cheese.
“Let me look at it.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to.”
“No, really.”
He reluctantly let her take his hands and unwrap the gauze. The burn looked kind of nasty. It was second-degree at least. “We should clean this. And put something on it. I can rewrap it then.”
“Okay, do you have stuff to do that?”
She didn’t. Of course. “No, do you have some stuff?”
“No.”
“Do you even have Band-Aids at your house?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You realize that we’re talking about having a child and neither of us even has first-aid supplies in our homes?”
“But we can get some.”
Of course they could. That wasn’t really the point. The point was neither of them was used to taking care of themselves and, even more importantly, other people. “What were you planning to do about this?”
“I’ll let Cora and Michael look at it. Cora will have some cream for it.”
Jill wasn’t proud of the rush of relief that went through her, but she did acknowledge it. It was definitely not nurturing of her, but it was nice to know that there were plenty of other people who could step in when she and Zeke had no antibiotic ointment. Or food.
“Okay, let’s go get you taken care of. Maybe we can take care of your burn before we tell everyone about the baby?”
“Fine, but we are telling them today.”
Yeah, she knew that. She also knew that the announcement was going to change her life.
But hey, what was the big deal? Just because in two months time she’d gone from her normal life to being a millionaire who owned eight endangered penguins and lived in Louisiana. And was pregnant. Adding a big, rowdy Cajun family to her life was just one more detail.
They headed for Zeke’s truck and he helped her up into the passenger seat. She smiled. She didn’t think he was even aware of all the times he was chivalrous. She figured it was just ingrained in him. But she did like it.
As he rounded the front of the truck, she looked down at the floor. There was a pair of brown leather flats on the floormat.
Zeke slid behind the wheel and she looked over at him. “Do you need to return these to someone?”
The stab of jealousy was surprising. Not only that it occurred, but how strong it was.
They hadn’t talked about being exclusive. If they had, she probably would’ve told him to go ahead and date whoever he wanted. Maybe. Or would she?
In all the talk about the baby and what their lives going forward would look like, there had been no talk of other relationships, or their relationship in detail. They’d mostly talked as if they’d keep living next door to one another. Which sounded great to her. Though, lately it seemed she spent more nights sleeping over in his bed than her own. And somehow her box of cereal had ended up at his house. She figured it just made sense to have it near the milk.
But they hadn’t discussed moving in together. Of course, the whole situation was only two weeks old and their conversations had not covered every single detail of the future.
“Those are Paige’s. Well, they’re yours now. Kind of.”
Jill looked at him, processing what he’d said. “What do you mean they’re mine now?”
“I mean, they can be or they will be at some point or whatever.” He started the truck and shifted into gear, pulling out onto the street.
“Zeke, what are you talking about?”
“You told me about how sometimes you forget to change your shoes. I figured some time I might stop by and pick you up for a date or convince you to come down to Ellie’s for dinner or something, and you might need to have some different shoes. So I just figured we’d keep some in the truck. Paige said you’re welcome to that pair and that brown goes with almost everything so they’re probably a safe bet.”
Jill stared at him, then looked down at the shoes, then back at him. “You specifically went and got shoes from Paige to keep in your truck for a future moment when I might have forgotten nice shoes and would need them?”
He glanced over, seemingly puzzled by why she was so surprised. “It’s easier than running you home to change or expecting you to remember to grab shoes for after work.”
“Are we going to have plans after work often?”
She waited for the feeling of panic to rush through her. Instead, she found herself thinking about how fun it would be to anticipate a date with Zeke after work.
That was weird.
He gave her a little smile. A little smile that made her very much want to kiss him.
“I sure hope so. At least we might have a parent-teacher conference or some kind of music recital or something, right?”
Her heart flipped in her chest. Oh, wow. Yeah, they would have those things. And going to them together would be…really nice. And he would be willing to just swing by and pick her up after work and would already have nice shoes in the car for her.
Jill felt her eyes stinging and her throat tighten. Damn, maybe this could work out. Maybe she could work long hours, knowing that Zeke was there for their kid—and for her—and that if he ran long at a job and there was a music program, there would be twenty-seven other Landrys going to that same program who could get their son or daughter there too.
“I really hope we have plans after work sometimes too,” she told him.
Zeke reached over and squeezed her leg. She was glad he understood how meaningful it was that she’d said that.
But he had to return his hand to the wheel quickly because he couldn’t grip the wheel with his burned left hand.
Now she really wanted to get to Ellie’s so Cora could take care of him.
They pulled into the drive into the parking lot in front of Ellie’s a couple minutes later and Jill immediately changed her mind.
She wasn’t glad to be here at all.
The parking lot was packed. She’d never seen this many cars and trucks in front of the building.
“My God, how many people did you invite to this?”
He shut off the truck. “The whole family is here. And then a bunch of our friends from New Orleans. They brought their kids down for a swamp boat tour and the crawfish boil tonight.”
“Friends from New Orleans?”
“Yeah, a bunch of people we know through Josh, Sawyer, and Owen. Josh used to work up there with them. Owen and Josh still go up and hang out with them sometimes. And those guys all have kids so they come down here quite a bit. They’re thrilled with the petting zoo and that we’re getting more animals all the time.”
“But I thought we were just telling family today.”
“They’re pretty much family.”
Jill sighed as he got out of the truck and came around to help her out. “Why do I feel like you all say that about a lot of people?”
He grinned down at her. “Because we do.”