Chapter 106

Chapter 30 I groaned and leaned back in the couch. "Grayson, can Ryder, like, be born already?" I asked, my lips curling into a pout. "Yeah, I have no control over that," he said. "Don't worry, Flower. Two months left. Eight weeks. Hopefully. He might be born late." "I hope not," I said with a sigh. "He kicks too much and it's getting really annoying. I'm making food, he kicks. I'm trying to nap, he kicks. I'm trying to listen to a lecture at university, he kicks. That's the worse." "Just think, final exams are in two weeks," Grayson said. "And after that's over, we have all the time in the world to focus on Ryder when he's born. Well, not all the time since we'll be going back to school in August. But I can't wait for him to be born." "Me too," I said just as Grayson's cell phone rang. He picked it up off the coffee table and answered it. "Hello...? Hey, how is everything...? Not bad? Don't tell me it's easy living with that devil spawn... He called me an old man! You know what, that's not the point. Why are you calling exactly...? Because you've never called just to chat... No way, seriously?! Elliot, that's amazing! Then again, I knew it was going to happen soon... Well, you are married now. Everyone's expecting it... I'm serious. Congratulations, though. How did Laughlin take it...? Ah, well he seems like that kind of guy. Well, I have to go. Poppy and I are going shopping for baby stuff today because we have two months until the due date... Okay, call if you ever need anything. After all, Poppy and I are experts at the whole thing now... Shut up, we totally are. Okay, bye." "What did Elliot say?" I asked when Grayson hung up. "She called to tell me that she's pregnant," Grayson said. I smiled at that. "Really? Is she excited?" Grayson nodded. "Yeah, both her and Laughlin, mainly Laughlin." "That's great," I said. "I can tell they're going to be good parents, especially after seeing the way Laughlin raises his brothers." "I know," I said. "Anyway, we should probably get going. We can't hold off baby shopping any longer." I snorted at that, which caused Grayson to furrow his eyebrows. "The way you said it made it sound like we're going shopping for babies," I said with a smile. Grayson rolled his eyes and kissed my forehead. "You are a weird one, Flower," he said in an amused tone. "Come on, let's go." Grayson and I headed out of the apartment and to his car. He drove us all the way to the store we decided to shop since it had a lot of baby stuff, which we needed. We were going to be needing a lot; a crib, clothes, diapers. As soon as we got to the clothes aisle, I was in love. The clothes were so cute. I mean, there was a leather jacket for a baby boy. "Grayson, look at this!" I gushed as I took the jacket off the rack. "It's so cute." Grayson rested his elbows on the handles of the shopping cart. "Tell me, will you be freaking out over every single piece of clothes?" he asked. "Probably," I admitted. "Can we get this?" "Don't ask me," Grayson said. "If you want it, we'll get it. But please, don't throw dozen of clothes in there. Knowing you, you'd be grabbing anything you find cute and putting in the cart." "What? That's... actually, that's true," I admitted before putting the jacket in cart. I ended up freaking out over almost every piece of baby boy clothing. Just imagining Ryder wearing the clothes made it even harder not to freak out. "Okay, Flower, I think we have enough clothes," Grayson said, gesturing to the pile of clothes in the cart. "Yeah, you're probably right," I said. "Sorry, it's actually exciting shopping for baby clothes. I'm just imagining holding Ryder for the first time and dressing him in these cute little outfits." "Trust me, I'm excited for Ryder to be born too," Grayson said. "Mostly because you won't eat as much anymore..." I gave him a flat look. "I'm kidding, Flower. Come on, let's go get everything else." It took a while, but we were finally done shopping for Ryder. We had a lot of stuff because it was our first baby so we didn't already have a crib or a carseat or a stroller. We got to the cashier, and she looked at all the baby stuff before giving us a warm smile. "First baby, huh?" she asked. "Yeah, it is," I said. "Are you exited?" she asked as she began scanning the items. "Very," I said. "More him than me, but I'm still excited." "The first baby is very exciting," she said. "How many weeks do you have left?" "About ten," Grayson replied. "That's if he comes on time, which we're both hoping." The cashier talked to us about Ryder as she continued scanning the items. When she finished and we paid, she wished us good luck with the baby before we headed out. It took a while to load the stuff into the car. When everything was finally loaded, we drove back to our apartment. Then we realized we would have to take all of this to our floor and we didn't have a shopping cart to carry it there like we did to bring all the stuff to the car. "We're going to have to take a lot of trips," Grayson said. "Great," I said sarcastically as we got out of the car. We both took as much shopping bags as we could before Grayson closed the door and locked it. We dropped all of the bags we currently had off before Grayson told me to stay here while he did the rest. I wanted to help, but he told me not to tire myself out. So I agreed. A few moments after Grayson left to get a second load, someone knocked on the door. I answered it, not expecting to see who it was. "What do you want?" I asked. "I wanted to talk," Belle told me. "And to apologize for the way I acted." I raised an eyebrow. "Really? You're apologizing now? Two months after it happened?" "I didn't know if you wanted to talk to me," Belle said. "Well, I don't," I said. "After you got mad at me, you started hanging out with Mina. You knew that she was constantly hitting on Grayson and hated me because I'm his girlfriend. If you were really sorry, none of that would have happened. And by the way, how did Mina find out that I'm pregnant?" I had a feeling Belle was the one who told her. I didn't, Grayson didn't, Roland barely talked to people, and I knew Thalia didn't since she told me she couldn't stand Mina. "I, uh..." She looked down at her hands that were fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. "I may have told her." "So basically, you were the one who caused the rumors," I said. "What? I never started the rumors," Belle said. "Oh, I know you didn't start them," I said. "But you're the reason you started. Everyone found out I was pregnant because of Mina and you're the one who told her. Do you know how many people called me a whore because of it? People are saying that I got knocked up by some random guy. Not only that, but people are going up to Grayson and telling him to dump me because I don't even love him. He was constantly crying because of that. Grayson crying. Only recently had he stopped caring about the rumors, but they were hurting him so much. And the rumors wouldn't have happened if you kept your promise about not telling anyone. Yes, people would have found out I was pregnant anyway, but not by Mina, who was the one to start the rumors." "I... I'm sorry, okay?" Belle said. "I was just mad at all the time you've been spending with Grayson." "He's my boyfriend, Belle," I said. "You spend so much time with Devon." "That's different," Belle said. "Different, really?" I asked. "How the hell is that different? Because it's you? You can't have it both ways." "I don't," Belle said. "I lost my best friend because of Grayson." "No, you didn't," I said. "If you ever wanted to hang out, you could have just told me. All Grayson and I do is basically spend time at home, watching movies and playing video games. I would have loved to hang out with you if you just asked. But you didn't. Instead, you're blaming Grayson for it. So, no, you didn't lose your best friend because of it. You lost your best friend because you couldn't keep your mouth shut and you went to Mina after we got into a fight. Maybe I'll forgive you in the future, but I can't right now." Belle looked extremely hurt as she walked away, and I felt a bit guilty, but only a bit. I gave Belle a second chance after she isolated me after her brother tried to rape me and she thought I lied about it. I wasn't going to forgive her as easy this time, especially after the hurtful things she said and done to me.