Walking to her kitchen, which needs another fifteen square feet at minimum to be truly serviceable, I put the flowers in a vase I find in a cabinet. Then I put the food I brought on plates and bring them out to the coffee table.
She shakes her head sharply and pushes her hair over her shoulder. “I can’t eat.”
Appraising her, I say, “Almond chicken’s like water. I don’t even think salt got an invite.”
She smiles, but doesn’t reach for the plate.
The Hunan cashew chicken I’ve got is spicy as hell, and I eat half of it in minutes because I missed lunch.
She picks at her food, eating little.
“What’d you eat today?”
When she speaks, her tone’s harassed and sharp. “Trick, do not start.”
My gaze flicks to hers, and I pin her with a look. I’ve already checked what things are safe for me to do to her while she’s pregnant. This early, the baby’s protected in the fist of her un-stretched uterus and nestled behind pelvic bones. Tonight if she needs a lesson, I can give her one without putting my kid at risk.
Laurel sighs. “I don’t want to fight. There’s just a lot to process and figure out. And I can’t do it with you here. So could you please go?”
Taking a bite of food, I chew and then swallow, drawing out the pause. “Are you under the impression you’re making the decisions about this?”
Her eyes widen.
I reach in my pocket and retrieve the three-carat, flawless canary yellow diamond ring. Dropping it on the coffee table like I’m ante-ing up at a poker table, my eyes never leave her face.
The ring rests next to the Mason jar she’s using as a glass. Drinking from jam jars? An aged, cracked antique for a bathroom mirror? And then sports and Star Wars bobble heads on a living room shelf along with a couple of sports trophies she won in high school? It’s like she emptied a junk drawer to decorate. What’s with her place?
Her eyes remain glued to the ring, but her hands stay clasped in her lap and she doesn’t say a word, which makes me impatient. I show up and there’s no smile and no kiss. She doesn’t even invite me in. I don’t get what she’s doing. She flirts via text all the time. Now we find out she’s pregnant and she’s going to try to what? Keep her distance? Not happening.
“You and that baby are going to have my name. You’ll live with me for at least eighteen months, then we’ll reassess.”
“What? Why would we pretend to be engaged for eighteen months? Maybe that wouldn’t matter to your lifestyle, but it would mean putting my life on hold, which I’m not willing to do.”
Wouldn’t matter to my lifestyle? What is she talking about? This plan puts a wrecking ball through my lifestyle.
“I’m not talking about pretending to do anything. I said you’d have my name. That means getting married.”
Her nose wrinkles. “We don’t have to get married for you to be listed on the birth certificate. And why eighteen months? What gets reassessed after a year and a half?”
“Whether you can move out with my kid. Eighteen months is the pregnancy and the time the kid’s a little baby. It’s the time you’ll probably need the most hands-on help. I won’t know what you need if I can’t see you.”
“And you’re going to help me?”
Her skepticism grates on me. She knows next to nothing about my life skills and doesn’t bother to ask before assuming I’ve got none. “Help wears different outfits. It might come in the form of a nanny. Depends how things go.”
“I don’t need your supervision. And frankly, I can’t believe you’re even suggesting this. How many times have you been married and divorced that I haven’t heard about? You have one-night stands all the time.”
My temper’s wearing thin. It’s been a long day, and this is not how I saw my night going. I could use a drink, but I didn’t see a bottle of whiskey and I’ve got a feeling she doesn’t have one. What kind of Irish girl am I marrying?
“Never married. As for my sex life, I get my dick sucked a lot, but on the much fewer occasions when I’ve dipped my wick, there were no broken condoms.”
“I’m sure you must have gotten someone pregnant before?”
“Not that I’ve found out about.”
“And you think this is the way to handle it?” Her index finger touches the ring, moving it a couple of millimeters.
“Clearly I do.”
