Full of Grace by Misty Provencher Read Free Book Online

tractor beam again, just like last night.  I’m mesmerized by them, and the soft, flat flesh of her belly, until she growls, “I’m out of here.  Where are my pants, Landon?”
    I take a sip of my bone-cold coffee, watching her over the rim of the cup.  She fuming and she’s gorgeous doing it.  The pink flush in her cheeks brings some ghost-freckles to the surface.  I smile behind my mug, but wait until I’ve got a straight face again, so I can answer her as dishonestly as I can.
    “No idea.”
    She stares at me a moment and then she screams.  And I mean she lets loose.  It’s one of those long, hard, furious screams that will probably get the neighbors calling the police.
    “Hey, keep it down.”  I take another sip of my coffee, grinning again behind the lip.
    “This is hard enough, without you screwing around!” she shouts.  “Where did you put my pants?”
    “What would I do with your pants?  Are you sure you were even wearing pants when you got here?  I don’t remember them.”
    Sher spins around and stomps back into my room.  Within seconds, my things—especially my breakable things, from the sound of it—are hitting the bedroom walls.  Sher grunts and shrieks and curses at me as she rifles my entire room for her missing pants.  I take my coffee cup and go stand in the doorframe, watching.
    “You can’t keep me here!” she shouts at me.  She’s destroyed my entire room.  The sheets are off the bed; she’s yanked opened all my dresser drawers and thrown my clothes on the floor.  She pulls one of my shoes out from under my bed and hurls it at me, followed by a bottle of my cologne from the top of my dresser.
    “Whoa!” I say, dodging the cologne.  It hits the wall and by the time it lands on the floor, the room is fumigated.
    Sher starts coughing from the suffocating cloud of liquid bar bait.  Then she does a good hard gag that even makes me a little squeamy.
    She runs for the window and pulls it open, knocking out the screen and thrusting her head outside like a pro.  She heaves, letting it all rip, down the bricked side of the building.  But then her back just keeps spasming, trying to throw up even though there’s nothing left in her.
    I put my mug down on my wrecked dresser and go to her.  She’s still heaving.  I rub circles on her back to calm her down.  When she finally stops, she sits back on the ledge, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.  Her eyes are red and stray strands of hair are sticking out, quivering over her forehead.
    “I need my pants.” She sounds like a little girl as she gulps for air.  “I can’t do this for nine months, Landon.  I am so sorry, but I can’t give up my entire life just to make you happy.  I can’t.”
    I don’t know what to say to that.  I sit down in the opposite corner of my screen-less window, our knees touching.  It could be the barfing, but I like to think she’s extending a gesture of tolerance for me when she doesn’t run away or jump.  I glance over the edge at my screen on the ground below us.  I look back at her, gripping her stomach with one hand, miserable.
    “You said last night,” I begin, “that you didn’t really want to get rid of the baby.”
    “It was four in the morning, Landon.  It doesn’t count.  You wore me down.”
    “You sure that’s it?”
    “It’s got to be it.”
    “It really doesn’t.”
    “I told you already, I don’t have any money to raise a kid.  There’s a million super big reasons why I can’t do this…I can’t even tell you.  It’s not just that I don’t have a job, or education, or a place to live.  And even if you’re nice to look at, it can’t happen like this.  Not like this.  I want to have a baby with a man I’m in love with and that I’m married to.  And I told you, I don’t want to marry somebody just because I got knocked up.”
    I didn’t propose to her last night, but I had suggested marriage as one of our options.  What a