Healing (Discontinued)

c h a p t e r • 1 8

"What were you even doing here?" Ryder asks, not even struggling to hold the bags. The ones from before were already in his car.

"I was bored and alone." I shrug.

He looks at me with a hint of guilt. "You should've told me—"

"It's fine." It's not. "Not like I'm pregnant or anything." I mumble hoping he didn't hear it but I think he did.

"If that's how you feel then why didn't you tell me?" He frowns.

"Because I'm not the clingy type." I stress.

"No, but pregnant you is different."

"What's that supposed to mean." I frown.

"You know what I mean." He says.

"No, actually, I don't. So why don't you enlighten me." I smile sarcastically.

He glares at me for a while before he looked away.

"Whatever." He mutters.

"Ooh! There! I see it!" I pull Ryder with me to the baby store we finally found after me going into every store on the way.

"God, you can't hold these bags but you can pull a 6'5 muscled guy without any struggle." He mutters under his breath but I ignore him.

"So, we need diapers, clothes, bottles, utensils, toys, towels, a stroller maybe two, baby cot..." I trail off.

"Let's just look around and buy whatever we need." He suggests and puts his hand on my back to guide me into the store.

"We don't know the gender." I frown. "If it's a boy, people would normally buy blue and if it's a girl they'd buy pink so why don't we just buy—"

"Yellow." We say at the same time.

He stares down at me as I stare at him with my head slightly tilted because he's tall and I'm not.

"Yellow it is." I mumble looking away and feeling a whole zoo in my chest.

"Right, yellow." He mutters.

He clears his throat. "That looks nice." He points to a baby overall with a little bumblebee on the middle.

"Bee." I grinned excitedly.

"Hm?" Ryder glances at me.

I point at my belly and looked at him like he was an idiot. "Bee."

He smiles before looking away and shaking his head in amusement.

"What's so funny?" I scowl, putting my hands on my hips.

"Nothing. Bee it is." He says, looking at my belly longingly

"Do you wanna touch it or something?" I ask.

He sighs, shaking his head.

"Are you sure—"

"That is a high-quality baby bottle." He says, changing the topic -- grabbing the bottle and chucking it in the trolley.

"Baby wipes." I say, doing the same.

...

I took out my credit card to pay but Ryder snatched the card out of my hand which made me scold him in protest as he gave the cashier his card who looked like he was used to it.

"You daft little piece of sh--" I paused remembering we were still in a baby store and there was a baby in a stroller behind us.

I chuckled nervously at them, turning back around in embarrassment.