“Hey Harper, where were you last night?”
I turned to see him sitting on the kitchen counter, coffee mug in hand. My heart dropped when I looked into his gray eyes. I wanted to curl up in his arms and take back the last five months. “Uh, thought it'd be a little awkward considering.” I waved a hand over my stomach.
“Oh, yeah.” His eyes stayed glued to my small round belly, “Yeah, I guess. How is that going?”
“It's good.” I said softly, watching his face carefully while I said the next words, “It's going to be a boy.”
One of the days when we were in Arizona for Christmas, I had been in the kitchen with his mom cooking barefoot. Brandon started teasing that all I needed now was to be pregnant, and it would be a perfect picture. I had thrown an oven mitt at him, which he dodged and brought back over to me, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my neck. He promised he'd been joking but said whenever we did have kids, he wanted a boy to name him after his dad. I hadn't been ready to talk about marriage with him at that point, but in the joyful mood of that day I had laughed and promised to pop out a boy for him ASAP. Even through the laughing, he got a wide smile and his eyes sparkled. My heart squeezed at that memory.
He blew out heavily and closed his eyes, probably remembering that day too. “That's uh, that's great Harper. I'm happy for you.”
My little gummy bear turned over and delivered a sharp and painful kick. I gasped and my hand flew to my stomach, I hadn't had one that hurt until then.
Brandon jumped off the counter and rushed to me, “Are you okay? What happened?”
I laughed and waved him off, “I'm fine. He just kicked me, it hurt a little and caught me by surprise.”
“I didn't think they could kick that hard yet.”
I tilted my head and smiled at him, I wasn't sure how he knew that it was still early. “Yeah, well the Doctor said it isn't incredibly common for the baby to move this much yet, but she figured since he's still so healthy and a little on the big side already that it was fine, and he would most likely come early. How did you know that though?”
He smiled sheepishly and ducked his head, it was such a strange thing to see on a man that looked like him, “I've been looking it up.”
My heart warmed, “How did you even know how far along I was though?”
“I overheard Chase talking to Brad about your due date.” His face fell at the same time my little gummy bear started in on a string of softer kicks.
“Oh there he goes again!” I grabbed Brandon's hand and put it on my stomach.
I don't know why I did it, that wasn't fair to do to him. I was silently cursing myself for unintentionally hurting Brandon even more, but his face lit up as he whispered he could feel them. We stood like that for a couple minutes until I remembered Chase was waiting for me, and might walk in on this. He didn't care when the guys he lived with or worked with would rub my belly, but I'm sure he would throw a fit if he saw Brandon do it. I stepped away, but kept smiling at him so I wouldn't come across as rude.
“So um, why are you up so early?”
He blinked and looked up from my stomach before going back to retrieve his mug, “Couldn't sleep last night, so I went surfing this morning.”
“Good waves?”
“They were decent.” He shrugged, “Why are you here this early? I thought Chase left for his parent's last night.”
“No, he stayed. He texted me not too long ago asking me to come over. Speaking of, I should probably go let him know I'm here.” Brandon and I hadn't shared more than a handful of words since our breakup, and I honestly would have loved to sit on the couch and talk to him for hours, there was so much I wanted to say to him.
Brandon nodded slowly and flashed a quick smile, “It was good to see you Harper.”
“You too.” I walked to the hallway entrance and turned back to find him watching me with a sad expression, the same one he'd worn every time I'd seen him in the last few months. “I never meant to hurt you Brandon, I hope you know that.”
I hurried down the hall and turned the knob to Chase's room. It was locked so I knocked and stood there for a few seconds, pressing my ear to the door to hear if there was movement. There wasn’t, he probably fell back asleep since it took me so long to get here. With a sigh I turned back and walked into the kitchen where Brandon was rinsing out his mug. He turned to leave and started when he saw me.
“I thought you were going...?”
“His door is locked, he probably fell asleep again.”
“Oh.” He looked towards the hall on the opposite side of the living room that would lead to his room, then back to me, “I could make you breakfast? I don't have anything going on today.”