Forever Bonded (BWWM Pregnancy Romance) (5 page)

Zoë
shrugged.

“Well I
do,” Aniyah said. “Look, I’m only going to ask you this once. Did this decision
have anything to do with the fact that you still have feelings for Nate?”

Zoë
sighed and kept her gaze focused on the faded photograph in her lap. She knew
the answer without having to think about it. She'd known it from the moment
Nate first introduced her to Audrey.

“I have
a ton more packing to do,” Zoë spoke up in a transparent attempt at changing
the subject. “I should probably get started on it. Evan wants to have me moved
in by the end of the month.”

“Just
admit it,” Aniyah insisted. “All this talk about moving forward with Evan ain’t
nothing more than your ass backwards way of trying to distract yourself from
your feelings for Nate.”

Zoë’s
silence spoke for itself.

“Look,
you can lie to yourself all you want, but you can’t like to me. I see the way
you look at him. You can’t sit here and tell me it doesn’t mean anything.”
Aniyah paused as a perceptive smile spread its way across her face. “Friends
don’t dance the way y’all two were dancing the other night.”

“Ugh,
not you too,” Zoë groaned. “That didn’t mean anything. It was just dancing.
Besides, just because we share a slight physical attraction doesn’t mean we
have some deep emotional one.”

“Uh-huh,”
Aniyah said, waving her hand in the air dismissively. “I’ve heard it all
before. Why don’t you just stop being stubborn and admit that you still have
feelings for him?”

“Fine,”
Zoë admitted, letting out a breath of defeat. “So maybe I do. What does it
matter? He's with Audrey. He’s probably going to
marry
Audrey. As much as I don’t like the girl, I’m not about to be
the one to ruin that for him. He obviously sees something in her that we
don’t.”

“What
does it matter?” Aniyah repeated. “Zoë, if you love him, you owe it to yourself
and to him to let him know.”

“Maybe
I don’t,” Zoë reasoned. “Maybe I’m in love with Evan.”

“Uh-huh,”
Aniyah said, giving her a sad smile. “Sure you are.”

Zoë
looked away from her friend and focused her attention on the dim glow of the
television set in front of her. A Golden Girls marathon was on, and though it
had always been one of her favorite shows, it went without saying that she
wasn’t paying attention.

“You
need to tell him how you feel,” Aniyah spoke up again. “If it doesn’t work out,
well then at least you can say that you tried.”

“Yeah right,”
Zoë muttered. “That would require Audrey to let go of his coattails long enough
for us to have a full conversation, and I don’t foresee that happening anytime
soon. Especially not after the whole psycho girlfriend 'stay away from my man'
spiel she laid on me the other day.”

“That
bitch!” Aniyah exclaimed after Zoë finished giving her a play-by-play of what
happened the other day at lunch. “You knew Nate long before that heaux ever
did.”

“Right?”

“But
with that said…I can’t entirely blame her…”

Zoë
looked away from the television and gave her friend an incredulous look.

“I
mean…she has a pretty good reason to feel threatened by you,” Aniyah clarified.
“Call it female intuition. A woman knows when their man has feelings for
someone else.”

“Nate doesn’t
have feelings for me,” Zoë objected.
“He made that pretty clear the last time we broke up.”

“See,
that’s where you’re wrong. That man is madly in love with you, Zoë. Hell, even
Caleb can tell, and he’s hardly the perceptive type. Just the other day he
asked me why the two of you weren’t married already.”

“Really?”

Aniyah
nodded. “Look, I know Audrey’s all dead set on becoming Mrs. Nathanial
Cross…but I don't think he'll ever care about her the way he cares about you.
You have to tell him how you feel before it’s too late.”

Zoë
sighed and took a final glance at the picture before flipping the yearbook
shut. “Easier said than done,” she muttered.

Chapter nine

“I
don’t want to leave,” Audrey whined from the passenger seat. It was the fourth
or fifth time she’d said it since they’d hit the road en route to the airport,
and Nate was pretty close to going insane.

“I
know,” he replied, reaching down to turn on the radio and keeping his gaze
focused on the road. “But you have that show coming up. You’ve been working too
hard to miss out on it.”

“I
know. I’m just getting so sick of New York.” Audrey paused to let the
implication set in and studied Nate’s face for a reaction. “I could really use
a change of pace.”

Nate glanced
over and gave her a rather unconvincing smile. It was all too obvious to him
that she was fishing for a proposal, or at least an offer for her to move in
with him, but he definitely wasn’t ready to go there with her just yet.

He
wasn't sure he ever would be.

A
deflated expression surfaced on Audrey’s face, but she averted her gaze out the
window to keep Nate from seeing it.

“So
uh…how did your lunch date with Aniyah and Zoë go the other day?” Nate
questioned, attempting to fill in the awkward silence that had settled over
them.

“It
went great, actually,” Audrey replied with strained enthusiasm. “Aniyah is
super excited for her wedding. And Zoë and Evan…well…he sure is nice, isn’t
he?”

“He’s
cool,” Nate replied with a shrug. In all actuality, he had never been a huge
fan of Evan. He was an established chef who spent a large portion of his time
out of town on his food truck, and it was clear to Nate from the few times he’d
brushed elbows with the guy that he had quite the wandering eye.

Regardless,
Zoë seemed pretty into him. Nate supposed it was the whole converted bad boy
vibe he gave off, but aside from that, Evan was anomaly to him. He’d never
known Zoë to stay with one guy for longer than 6 months, but she was going on
damn near a year with Evan.

“It’s
weird though,” Audrey continued. “Zoë never really struck me as the marriage
type.”

“What?”

“Wait,
you don’t know?”

Nate
shook his head and tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he attempted to
decipher Audrey’s remark.

“Wow…I’m
surprised she didn’t tell you,” Audrey exclaimed. “Now that I think about it,
maybe I shouldn't either. She probably wants it to be a surprise.”

“I
highly doubt she would care,” Nate insisted, feeling his curiosity build.

“Alright, alright.” Audrey sat up straighter and smiled, appearing far too
happy to break the news to him. “Well, apparently she and Evan are on the verge
of getting married. She’s moving in with him and everything.”

Nate
lifted his foot off the accelerator and contemplated pulling off onto the side
of the road to take a minute to gather his thoughts. However, it was the
peculiar look Audrey was giving him that kept him from doing so.

“Nate?”
she questioned. “Isn’t that great news?”

“Uh,
yeah,” Nate spoke up, finding his voice. “It’s great. I…I couldn’t be happier
for her.”

Chapter ten

“How
would you guys feel about Evan catering the wedding?” Zoë questioned, taking a
sip of her saké. Caleb and Aniyah had gotten sushi for lunch, and they'd
brought it back to her place to eat since they were in the neighborhood.

“That’d
be cool,” Caleb spoke up before Aniyah could. “Aniyah and I were at the grand
opening of his restaurant. He makes a mean filet. Tell him he’s hired.”

Aniyah
started to protest, but a loud knock on Zoë’s front door stopped her before she
could. “Oh that’s just Nate,” she said with an air of nonchalance, waving a
hand in the air. “I told him he could drop by. You don’t mind, do you?”

Zoë was
about to tell her that she most certainly
did
mind, but another knock stopped her before she could.

“It's
open!” Aniyah called out.

Zoë’s
heart rate spiked as soon as Nate walked in, and she frowned when she realized
he was making a stark point of avoiding making eye contact with her.

“About
time you got here,” Aniyah said as he entered the kitchen and took a seat
beside her.

“My
bad,” Nate muttered, reaching for a dragon roll from her plate and biting into
it. A perplexed look muddled his strong features, and he looked like he hadn’t
slept in days.

“Where’s
Audrey? “ Caleb questioned.

“Oh,
she had to head back to New York,” Nate explained. “She has a couple gigs
coming up that she couldn’t miss out on. The long distance thing sucks, but
what can you do?”

“You could
do like us and get hitched,” Caleb said, motioning between himself and Aniyah.

Zoë
tried her best to avoid meeting Aniyah’s gaze as she eyed her for a reaction.
However, the tension passed between the two women didn't go unnoticed. Nate
honed in on them, studying their expressions in an effort to understand what it
was they weren’t saying.

“Anyways,”
Aniyah spoke up, clumsily attempting to steer the conversation back to normal
territory. “Caleb and I finally decided on a venue for the wedding. It’s a
really nice cathedral a couple miles from here. You guys are going to love it.

“Got
any pictures?” Nate questioned.

“Of
course she does,” Zoë answered before Aniyah could. “She carries that wedding
planning folder around with her everywhere.”

“I do
not,” Aniyah objected.

Zoë
gave her friend an amused look as she picked up her purse and shuffled through
it for the pictures.

“You
weren’t kidding,” Nate said as he flipped through them. “This place is
something else. It kinda reminds me of the church where my parent’s tied the
knot.”

“Now if
only I could find my dress,” Aniyah said. “I got a tip on a place though. This
new intern at my job gave me the card to this boutique in the French Quarter
that specializes in bridal wear. Zoë’s coming with me tomorrow to check it
out.”

Zoë
groaned as though she was only just remembering. As supportive of Aniyah as she
was trying to be, she couldn’t deny the fact that she was becoming more than a
little worn out by all this wedding stuff.

“You
can’t back out,” Aniyah pleaded, reading her mind. “You’re my maid of honor. I
need your insight.”

“Alright,”
Zoë said, sighing in resignation.

“Oh it
won’t be so bad,” Nate chimed in. “Besides, it’ll give you a chance to start
thinking about your own wedding dress.”

Zoë and
Aniyah turned to look at him at the same time, both of them failing to mask the
surprised expressions on their faces.

“What?”
Nate questioned. “It’s only a matter of time before ol' Evan boy gets down on
one knee, right?”

“Nate,”
Aniyah hissed, snatching the bottle of saké from his palm. “The hell is wrong
with you? Are you drunk or something?”

“Drunk?”
Nate laughed and gave Zoë an icy look. “Nah, just realistic. Right, Zoë?”

Zoë
broke his gaze and swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
she muttered.

“Oh
come on,” Nate spat. “You don’t have to pretend for my sake. Audrey told me
what you said at lunch. You’re marrying Evan. That’s great. I couldn't be
happier for you. I’m just not understanding why you felt the need to keep me in
the dark.”

Caleb
failed to contain a laugh. “Yeah okay. If Zoë’s getting married, then I’m the
Pope.”

Zoë
started to speak, but Nate stood up and stormed out the front door before she
could, leaving three very confused faces in his wake.

Chapter eleven