“So now that you’re not tense and shit, what is it you wanted to tell me?” He lies back in a chair, his arm flexing behind his head highlighting his damn sexy veins, and I’m drooling. He closes his glassses framed eyes and smacks his lips. I’ve never in my life wanted to crawl through the phone before.
“I’m pregnant!” I blurt out before I can stop myself from changing this man’s life forever. I have no clue if he wants kids. We’re not eventogethertogether, I don’t think. Oh fuck, we don’t even live in the same area. Damn it, why didn’t I think this through?Well, Hailey, you didn’t have to think anything through, because you didn’t plan for this.
“Hailey!” he shouts, snapping me from my thoughts.
“What?” I shout back.
“What did you just say?”
“What?”
“What? What?”
“Oh, dear God, here we go again.”
I’m deflecting now. Can he tell? Can he tell I might lose it if he’s not happy about this? Or worse—if he isn’t but tells me he is just to spend years and years resenting me? I can’t do this.
“Hailey!” What? This time, I shout it in my head. Breathe and focus. Breathe and focus. “Please, you’re not making any sense.” He’s concerned, and I don’t blame him.
“Whatever it is, just tell me. I think I heard you, but I want to be sure.” His posture changes, from laid back and relaxed to attentive and worried. Damn it. I don’t want him to worry.
I sit and prop my phone on the table, taking a deep breath. “I’m pregnant, Asher.”
He nods patiently. “That’s what I thought you said. How are you feeling about it?”
He’s so calm, as if I didn’t just tell him I’m having a baby. An unplanned baby.His baby.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . ” He pauses and crosses his legs. “I want to know what you’re thinking about this pregnancy.”
“Why?”
“Well, because it’s your body carrying an embryo right now, and I’m not a woman, so I have zero clue how this is affectingyou. I know you want kids, but that’s about as far as we’ve talked about it, you know?”
I nod. “It’s not an embryo anymore.”
His eyes widen. Why is he in shock? It’s fucking April. I’m seventeen weeks pregnant.
Oh shit.
“Asher, it’s your baby.” His eyes water, clear as day. “I’m pregnant withyourbaby.” He doesn’t say anything; he just nods.
“I didn’t want to ask.”
This man. He was just cool, calm, collected, even if the baby wasn’t his?
“Do you think I’ve been fucking someone else?”
He shrugs. “You told me not to ask questions I didn’t want to know the answer to, and I definitely didn't want to know the answer to that.” This very much infuriating man will be the death of me. Death by orgasm. Death by calmness. Death by stupid shit he says.
“We literally said four months ago we would be in a relationship. Haveyoubeen fucking someone else?”
Unbelievable.
“I haven’t slept with anyone else in five years, Hales. Just you.”
What? There’s no way. No way. “Yeah right.” I roll my eyes.
