Leaf snickered and guided me toward the stairs. I ducked in front of him, holding his hand and bringing him up to my room. The other rooms upstairs were closed save for the bathroom, where Mom had done the customary there’s-a-guest-in-the-house lighting of the candles. It was the only time anyone actually burned candles, ever. The rest of the time, they gathered dust waiting for their next round of usefulness.

I’d had to pick a bug carcass off one of the ones downstairs before lighting it. It was gross.

Leaf looked around my room and smiled. Posters on the wall, a shelf of my old and not-so-old plush toys. More books than could fit on the bookshelf. A stack of homework that was probably over a month old and could be tossed out. It was a pretty standard mess of a room, save for the copy of What To Expect When You’re Expecting that I had on my nightstand by my bed. Leaf went for it, sitting down by my pillows as he opened to the first chapter.

“My mom got me that,” I said.

“Is it helping?”

“Sometimes, yeah.” I sat down next to him. He swung his head my way and looked at me from below his heavy lids. He was a handsome guy, with those ridiculous lashes of his, and when he moved in for a smooch, I was halfway there. His lips on mine felt right—they fit right, they were soft. He never slobbered on me or made me wish I was somewhere else. If anything, he always left me wanting a little more, and a little more, and a little more after that.

Which, he hadn’t taken, and I wouldn’t push him for. But sometimes I really wished he’d just go for it.

I could go for it.

I mean, it’s not always on the guy, right?

My door was closed. We were both properly fed and would be left alone. Why the heck not?

I plucked the book from his hands and twined the fingers of my left hand with the fingers of his right. One kiss became two. Two became three. He leaned into me, groaning quietly. I slid my fingers into his hair, under the ponytail, massaging at his scalp. Closer he came, closer still.

Until...the bump stopped him.

It pulled me from the heady exchange immediately. I reared back, licking my lips, my growing happy tingles whooshing away at the reality that maybe he hadn’t gone for it with me because he found my growing bulge icky.

Maybe it weirded him out.

It kinda weirded me out.

“What’s wrong, Serendipity?” he asked, drawing out my name, romancing all the syllables and then a few extra I hadn’t known were there.

“Nothing. Just—overfull, I guess.”