"I know what you mean. But she's definitely happy with him, and it's not like I planned to live at home forever. I'd be an a.s.shole if I pitched a fit over her finally having a life."

He put his mouth close to my ear. "Doesn't mean you want a close-up of newlywed bliss?"

Picturing that, I couldn't help but grimace. "You make a sound point."

"You could move in with me."

Startled, I almost jerked out of his hold. "I could what now?"

"I'm serious. There's plenty of room and I don't need help with house payments."

"I can't mooch off you, Rob. I'd feel like a kept woman."

He grinned. "Problem?"

"For my self-esteem, yeah. But if you let me buy groceries and pay utilities while you cover the mortgage, I might be okay with that." Saying that, I waited for the panic to kick in, but for once, my brain was quiet. "Can I think about it? We don't have to decide tonight."

"Of course, beautiful. For you, there's no limit on how long I'd wait."

Stretching up, I kissed him. "Sweetness like that will get you underneath this red dress."

He shifted his hand a touch lower, more on my hip than my waist. "I'm counting on it."

That night, I made his secret, dirty fantasy come true.

A few weeks later, my phone rang in the middle of the night. I was at home because Rob had spent the evening with his parents; they'd wanted to talk about his dad's condition, which I wasn't supposed to know about. I groped for my cell, dropped it on the floor. "What?"

"It's time. I need you to meet me at the hospital, Lauren."

Oh, s.h.i.t. "Krista?"

She moaned, breathing fast before she could reply. "You know someone else who's having a baby?"

"I'll be right there."

Before heading out, I texted Rob, letting him know I'd be at the hospital with Krista for who knew how long. He didn't reply, unsurprisingly; he was probably asleep.

I was a shambles when I ran into the emergency room. Krista and her mom were already there filling out paperwork. Red-faced and sweaty, Krista was hunched over in a wheelchair, looking like she might pa.s.s out. I ran over to her, kneeling beside her. Her hand clamped onto mine, and she nearly broke all my fingers.

"Contraction?"

Note to self: adopt. Or get a dog. Anything else.

Before long, they had us in a birthing room, which didn't look a whole lot different from a regular one. I expected a whole lot more action, but after they checked her dilation, the nurse said, "Get her some ice chips. It could be a while."

"But it really f.u.c.king hurts," Krista snarled.

Her mom stroked the hair off her head, and she smacked her hand away. Krista snapped, "I don't want you in here seeing this, Mom. Any viewing of my v.a.g.i.n.a is off-limits to close family relations."

"Fine. Send Lauren if you need me later." Janet seemed sad when she left, but it was unwise to agitate a woman in labor.

I didn't know what else to do, so I got the ice. When I got back, the nurses were doing things to Krista. To the best of my recollection, n.o.body ever told me how slow babies came into the world. On TV, it was always done in half an hour, but I sat there sympathizing with Krista for ten hours before things progressed. They gave her some kind of medicine to speed up the process and made her walk around, and then the party finally got started. Four hours later, her daughter was born. At that point, I'd never been so exhausted in my life, and all I did was hold her hand, let her yell at me and feed her ice chips.

"Isn't she amazing?" Krista murmured, as the nurse set the baby in her arms.

"Did you decide on a name?"

"The last time I Skyped with Kenji, he said he likes the name Naomi."

"That's pretty."

Tiredly, she nodded, tracing the baby's tiny features with a fingertip. "Would you mind calling my mom in? She's still here, right?"

Since I hadn't been out of the room in five hours, I couldn't be sure. "Be right back."

Janet was asleep in the waiting room down the hall, so I woke her up with a gentle hand on the shoulder. "Your granddaughter's finally here. Ready to meet her?"

"Oh, Jesus, finally." Her spine popped as she staggered to her feet.

I steadied her and followed her back down the hall. Krista was sweaty and tired, but she beamed when she spotted her mom. "I did it. No epidural, no episiotomy."

"Oh, honey, it would've hurt a lot less with pain meds."

"If there's a next time, I'll try it that way. I just wanted to know if I could, that's all."

"You're braver than me," I said around a jaw-cracking yawn.

"You must be dying for some food and a nap," Janet said. "I've had a whole pot of coffee on my own, so I can take it from here, if-"

"Thanks for everything," Krista cut in.

"If you're sure, I could use some sleep. I'll come back tomorrow during visiting hours." Luckily it was Sunday, so maybe I could get enough sleep so I wouldn't be a wreck for work on Monday morning.

"Does Naomi need anything particular?" Krista hadn't wanted a shower because she thought it was better to wait until the baby was born. That way she could be sure she didn't end up with a ton of pink stuff for a surprise boy on the off-chance the ultrasound was wrong.

"We'll have the baby shower when I get home," she said with a grin. "I know, I do everything backward. Baby before wedding, shower after childbirth."

Shrugging, I dismissed the idea that there was a right way to live. "I'm so happy for you. I bet you can't wait to see Kenji and show him her little face."

She sighed softly. "I can't wait for him to come home."

"How much longer?"

"Ten months or so. Give or take."

Bending down, I kissed her cheek and touched the top of baby Naomi's pink hat. Then Janet hugged me and I stumbled out of the room. Though I couldn't put my finger on it, that experience changed me. Maybe it would sound stupid if I said it out loud-and s.h.i.t, Krista would laugh at me-but what I'd just seen was...inspiring. Krista was now essentially a single mom, but she wasn't panicking, even though the guy she loved was across the world. It made my problems seem small by comparison.

More to the point, her faith resonated in me, making me want to be stronger, better-and to believe in happy endings, even if I'd never really seen any. If my mom could take another crack at one, maybe I could stop seeing the world as such a dark place. Wearily, I climbed into my Civic and looked at the time.

Not quite five.

My eyes burned, and I had a headache clamping around my temples, a combination of exhaustion and lack of caffeine. The obvious solution to both those problems? Crawl into bed; don't get up until tomorrow. Instead, I drove to Rob's. At some point-and without my realizing it-he'd become my home, not the house I grew up in. And right now, for reasons I couldn't articulate, I really needed to see him. There was a tightness in my chest like something terrible had happened, only it wasn't that way at all. Could be the fatigue, but I felt like crying for no reason, and I didn't want to do it alone.

I texted, Krista had her baby. Be there in ten minutes.

Rob: im here.

As the dusk pooled in purple shadows between the trees, Rob opened the door as I pulled into the drive. He was waiting in a pool of golden light, arms opening to pull me in before I even realized how bad I needed it. I love you, Rob. I love you so f.u.c.king much. Throat clotted with too much emotion, I turned my cheek against his chest, eyes closing.

"How's Krista? Is the baby okay?"

"Yeah, they're both fine. She had a little girl, and I think they're naming her Naomi." Seeming relieved, he cupped the back of my head in his big hands and went to work on the knots at the base of my skull. I nearly melted into a puddle. "Thanks."

"And how are you? You look beat."

"I am. But I wanted you more than sleep."

His smile was like sunrise over the ocean, banishing all shadows and bathing me in a gorgeous shimmer of blue and gold. "I'm glad you came."

Taking a second look, he seemed exhausted, too. "What's up?"

He hesitated before admitting, "My folks talked to Nadia this week. About Dad."

That must be why his parents wanted him to come over.

"How did she take it?" G.o.d, I was turning into such a s.h.i.tty long-distance friend, like out of sight meant out of mind. I'd lost contact with Krista when she moved, too. Though we'd been emailing regularly, Nadia and I needed some face-to-face time soon.

"Well enough, I hear. I guess, based on how they started the Serious Talk, she thought he was dying of cancer, so Parkinson's didn't seem as bad."

"I'll call her."

"Okay," he said. "Come on, I'll make something to eat."

I shook my head, arms tightening on his waist. "Can we stay like this for a bit longer?"

"As long as you want," he promised. "I'm not going anywhere."

And like an idiot, I believed him.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

In early June, I started my online cla.s.ses.

The lack of cla.s.sroom attendance made it much easier for me to focus, and as I'd hoped, the day job didn't offer enough stress for me to worry about work when I wasn't at the car lot. I got a sympathy bouquet from one of the office ladies, and when I gazed at her blankly, she dropped her eyes. I had no idea what this was about, until she touched me gently on the arm.

"I'm friends with Avery Jacobs's mother," she whispered. "I know. Avery mentioned it to Margaret, and she knows I work with you...I'm so sorry for your loss."

Oh.

I felt even worse, but since I made up that story and Rob came in, Davies had been the most professional b.u.t.thead in the world. "These are beautiful. But if it's all right, I'd rather not talk about it."

For so many reasons.

"I'll let the other girls know."

"Thanks." Feeling like a jacka.s.s, I got back to work, greeting customers and answering phones.

June melded into July in a flurry of work, school and Rob. That night I did some programming for the first time in ages, other than what I did on a regular basis on Rob's site or promoting his channel online. It was crazy how popular "At Home with Rob" had become. Obviously people got famous on YouTube, but usually it wasn't a guy talking about building tables or refinishing a floor.

Yeah, but look at Rob.

At this point, I could hardly stand to read his comments. He laughed at the s.e.xual propositions and girls who were like, Rob, I think I love you. But the subscriptions kept ticking up, though he didn't get more orders than he could handle, despite the impressive number of women who liked watching him build things. The longer we dated, the less I liked imagining countless women gawking at my boyfriend. But f.u.c.k it, I'm happy he's got a following. Maybe we can parlay it into sponsorship money somehow.

Too bad more people weren't willing to spend money on his beautiful furniture, and I had no idea how to rectify it. He was still doing construction full-time, making tables and things on nights and weekends. Between that extra work and my cla.s.ses, we didn't spend as much time together as I wanted. At the end of June, Stuart's house hadn't sold, and I was three months away from living with him and my mom, still considering Rob's suggestion about moving in together.

Sunday morning, I got up and checked my email. There were some bulls.h.i.t "jokes" from a guy in one of my cla.s.ses. He was always sending me stuff like, "G.o.d, this a.s.signment was a b.i.t.c.h. I wish I had b.o.o.bs so I could get an A too, right? LOL."

My cla.s.ses were a mix of people my own age and guys coming back to school after being downsized or whatever. So I faced two different brands of discrimination: the usual internet kind from immature dudes who hadn't learned better yet, and graven-in-stone prejudice from fifty-something men with a sincere belief that I was an intellectually inferior being.

Most of my professors were okay, but there was one weirdo who was constantly digressing to tell Vegas stories, most of which included strippers: his favorite anecdote involved a woman wearing nothing but Saran wrap. I could only wonder if the other two women in cla.s.s with me were the same level of revolted. Another thing that p.i.s.sed me off-group projects. Because the guys I was partnered with treated me like a personal a.s.sistant, demanding I handle PowerPoint presentations and the graphic portion while they did the "hard" stuff. I'd noticed, too, that the faculty didn't seem to take me quite as seriously. They tried to steer me toward graphic design, like I was an artist who knew some HTML, not a real programmer.

But I ignored that c.r.a.p and pushed on, coding as a.s.signed. It was exhausting to fight about it, and since I had nothing to prove, I usually went with the flow. I'm not here to impress you idiots. Sighing, I checked forums and the cloud for my next project. Moving on.

It had been forever since I checked any of my favorite web comics or humor sites, so I took my laptop downstairs to surf while I ate my cereal. As usual, my mom wasn't around. These days, she spent most days at Stuart's, helping him improve the curb appeal of his house. I suspected that wasn't all, but that was the last thing I wanted to think about.

Scrolling through my feed made my eyes glazed over. I'd missed all kinds of cuteness: baby owls, meerkats, regular cats, a dog that could dance...then a headline caught my eye from MaryJane, a site similar to Jezebel, only with more traffic and shares. At Home with Rob: His or Mine? For a few seconds, I just stared. No way. I clicked through, just in case it wasn't a coincidence. Nope, my Rob was featured on the main page, his latest vlog embedded. My stomach churned as I read the "article": For pure handyman hotness, we're crowning him the king of delts and lats. Ladies, he definitely knows what to do with his tools, and he can fix anything. We're calling him the best thing on the internet this week. The best part is, you have weeks and weeks of delicious to glom. It might even be helpful to those who need actual help with home improvement. I can't speak to that because every time he picks up a hammer, my ovaries melt. There's just something about a guy with a tool belt...

It got worse from there, devolving to a complete dissection of his features, like he wasn't a person. In comments, they approved of his shoulders and chest, claimed his a.s.s needed work and that he had an odd brow ridge, but his eyes were just too s.e.xy for words. I skimmed through, so mad I was practically shaking. Over a hundred already, some threaded so deep you couldn't even read them. HotThing998 wrote: Oh, s.h.i.t, yeah, I need some of that. I'll just duct tape his mouth so he can't bore me by talking. I pretty much wanted to burn down the whole internet; Rob would die if he saw this. But the post already had over 500 shares. When I checked his channel, the number of subscribers had quadrupled, and his views were through the roof.

As I stared at the screen, my phone rang. Rob. "Hey, you."

"So it seems like I'm internet famous." His voice was quiet. "If the guys on the crew see this, I will never live it down."

"It might help your business," I said faintly.

"Maybe."

"Are you mad?"

"Not at you. At the world, a little. No matter what I try to do, it always comes back to one thing, huh?" He sounded so tired.