Chapter 21: The Bump

On Sunday morning Felix's best suit would not button.

He stood in front of the mirror and tried three times.

Then he pulled the jacket open and looked down at the round, tight curve beneath his shirt.

"It's the wrong tailor," he said. "I'll sue him."

"You'll sue a man for the baby," said Casper from the bed.

He was eating cold pasta out of the pot with a spoon.

His shirt was rucked up to the underside of his belly.

"The baby can be sued as well. He's taking over my body."

"Our baby. Yours is a perfectly nice baby."

"Your baby is a lump on my bladder."

Casper grinned, and licked the spoon.

The doorbell rang.

They looked at each other.

"I'll go," Felix said, and went out with the jacket open, because there was no other way.

Rowan stood on the mat.

He was thinner, shaved, in a plain grey coat, with his hair cut short and his hands full.

In one hand he held a flat white box, and in the other, a small rose bush in a pot.

Felix looked at him.

He did not look away.

"I'm four months sober," Rowan said. "Your mother-in-law told me to come on Sunday.

"I'd like to say a few things and leave. If you say no, I'll leave now."

Behind Felix the corridor floorboards creaked.

Casper came out of the bedroom with the pasta pot hugged against his stomach.

Mrs. Froster came out of the kitchen with a tea towel.

"Rowan," she said. "Come in. Wipe your feet."

He wiped them.

The four of them sat in the living room with the city in the window and the tea going cold.

Rowan put the box on the table.

"It's a cake. I made it. It's terrible."

He set the rose bush beside it.

"That's for you, Mrs. Froster. The nursery said it was called the Old Lantern. I didn't know why I picked it."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Replaced His Groom, Then Begged for His Mate from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.