“Hell.” Logan’s gut clenched at the naked pain on his friend’s face. This was the last thing Derek needed, the kind of news that could send him over the edge again. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Derek said determinedly, stroking Caesar’s back. “It’s water under the bridge. I just want to focus on getting my shit together now.” He paused. “Speaking of which, how goes it with you and Claire?”
Logan shook some more food into Caesar’s bowl, its rhythmicplink plink plinkgrating against his nerves. “It doesn’t go at all.”
“What do you mean?” Derek pried.
“I mean we’re done. Over. Finished.” He shoved the bag of cat food back into the cabinet with more force than necessary. It caught on a metal shish kabob skewer and tore, food raining out into the cabinet. “Damn it.”
“How can you be done?” Derek pressed. “You’re having a baby together.”
“We’ll be parents to the child, nothing to each other,” Logan said, forcing all emotion from his voice. He didn’t want anyone, not even Derek, to know just how much that thought was killing him inside.
“What? I thought you said you were going to fix things while I was gone.”
He had said as much, but that was before he actually thought the whole thing through and realized he and Claire were better off apart. Logan loved her. She tolerated him. Besides, he would never be capable of completely opening up and giving her what she wanted, what she deserved. All he succeeded in doing was making her miserable.
And he didn’t want to dwell on any of that. In fact, he wanted to ignore it all, with a desperation wrought by the raw emotions surging inside him.
“Goddamn it,” Logan burst out. “Stop asking me questions. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Derek countered. “Claire’s good for you. Why do you insist on keeping her at arm’s length?”
He started cleaning up the mess of spilled cat food, angrily stuffing it inside a trash bag. “Just leave off.” Damn it, why was he constantly cleaning up messes he’d caused by his own carelessness? All these messes seemed like mocking little metaphors of the one huge mess that was impossible to clean up. His life.
“Loge, when I got here this morning, I opened up your liquor cabinet,” Derek said quietly.
Logan shot his friend a startled glance, a sinking feeling crushing his gut. “Jesus, Derek, tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.” He paused. “But not because I didn’t want to. God knows that after being with Trina—after seeing her with him—I could use a drink more than ever. I didn’t do it because I’m finally beginning to realize that my addiction is destructive. What you’re doing right now is destructive too.”
Logan shook his head. “It’s totally different. I’m trying to make my life easier, not harder. Claire can’t stand me three quarters of the time. I’m just the guy she slept with on the rebound who happened to get her knocked up in the process. If I weren’t the father of her baby, you and I wouldn’t even be having this discussion.”
“You’re looking at this all wrong, Loge.”
Logan looked up again and caught Derek in the act of slipping Caesar a hunk of his sandwich. “Damn it. That’s why he’s been getting so fat.”
Derek put on an air of innocence. “You’re trying to change the subject, Logan,” he pointed out. “And for your information, this is the first time I’ve ever given Caesar any people food.”
“Right.” Logan cleaned up the last few pieces of cat food and stood, tossing the trash bag aside. “Just do me a favor and let the whole Claire thing drop, okay?”
Derek nodded. “For now.”
“Forever.”
His friend just shrugged. “No can do. Forever’s a long time.”
Weeks went by. The leaves gave a final, fiery show before turning brown and falling from the trees. The winds became harsh and cold, nipping Claire’s cheeks on her way to and from work. Her belly grew into a firm, round ball. She could only see her toes by cocking her head to the side and craning her neck.
Claire pinned the November page of her Impressionist calendar to the refrigerator with a sigh. In the upper right corner of the block for December first, she’d penned in a countdown to her due date. Forty-nine days. Less than two months until Baby Thumper arrived. Excitement fused with awe, washing over her as she looked at that simple number.
Forty-nine.
She couldn’t wait.
Her stomach rumbled noisily, reminding her that it was lunchtime. Pulling open the fridge, she inspected its contents. “Hmm. What do we want today, Baby?” She’d begun talking to the baby when Sophie and Trevor moved out. She really had no one else for conversation.
Because while so many things had changed, one thing had not. She and Logan were still functioning at arm’s length. Their work relationship remained strictly professional and their only contact outside the office was doctor’s appointments and phone calls. The calls were always polite and distant, inquiring after her welfare and the baby’s and nothing more.
