The conversation falls quiet, awkward.
“Uh, so how’s the Damian book coming,” he asks.
“I finished it. Gail loved it. Damian and the guys loved it,” I say.
“Is Damian still living with you?” His voice gets hard.
“No, he’s gone. Back to being a rock star,” I reply.
He breathes out a huge sigh. “You have no idea how relieved I am.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“Thinking of you and him in the same apartment—”
“You can’t say that now. We’re not together, you have a-a—”
“Don’t say it. It’s not like that with us,” he growls.
“Not yet,” I snap. “If the paternity test comes back positive, you want to be a family, right? That’s what you keep saying she wants. What do you think a family consists of?” My voice is becoming shrill the more I talk. “You have to know what she’s asking for! Mommy and Daddytogetherwith baby. Me and you Dex, we won’t be together. You do understand this, right?”
“Fuck, Nash. What choice do I have?” he shouts.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I whisper and sniffle. “Not until the results come back. I want to go to sleep, I’m tired.”
“Jane.” He says my name with such emotional weight, it’s too heavy for me to hear. “Lay the phone by your ear, fall asleep with me.”
I close my eyes and hope he can’t hear that I’m crying. I hate being in this feeling. I hate it. Not knowing. Do I pull back my love from him? How? How do you stop loving someone who loves you, but he feels like he needs to do the right thing for someone else? How will I get through this? Maybe it’ll be a little break, maybe the baby won’t be his. A break from someone is good. That’s how I have to look at it, right? A break from someone makes you realize how much you truly miss and love them, or it could show you how much peace you have without them.
I hate myself for allowing him to listen to my breathing and crying as I fall asleep, praying this baby isn’t his.
Chapter 19
It’s a little after nine o’clock, Thursday morning, and I haven’t had enough time for my coffee to kick in. It’s a very dangerous game if I don’t have enough caffeine, reaching extreme-sport levels. If I don’t get the required amount, I can’t do the thinking and talking and putting-all-the-funny-words-into-sentences job. Seriously. The common sense of my words is directly proportioned to the quantity of my coffee intake. Right now, everything I write is turning into something I’m thinking about Dex.
One of the interns pokes her head into my workstation and raps her knuckles on the divider wall. She’s holding an extra-large coffee in her hands and I instantly have a coffee crush. I might even be in love. “Ms. Nash?”
Coffee envy is real.
“Excuse me, Ms. Nash?”
I zone in closer on the colossal size of her take-away cup. “Where did you get a coffee that size?” I reach out and touch my finger to the bottom of the cup. “And how much can I give you to go back there and get it filled with a caramel latte for me? I promise to love you forever and ever.”
The intern laughs, her brown eyes dancing. “It’s just around the corner. I’ll go and get you one right away. But, um, you have a visitor.”
“A what?” I can’t comprehend the word as I dig through my wallet looking for money.
The intern laughs again, louder this time. I’m happy she’s smiling, but I’m honestly not trying to be funny and I still don’t have a ginormous coffee in my hand. I shove a twenty-dollar bill at her. “Coffee. Yes? As soon as physically possible? Please?”
“Um. Sure. No problem. I’ll be quick,” she starts to move than stops and hesitates, “what should I do about the visitor? She—well, they, actually—are in the conference room.”
“I’ll go there now, thank you.” I narrow my eyes at her, pushing her with my mind to leave and run all the way to the coffee place and run all the way back. I wish there was a fast forward button on life. I’d have a massive caffeine rush and the results to a paternity test. Right now, the wait seems insurmountable. All I want to do is climb back into bed and hide under the covers until everything is over.
As the intern heads to the elevator, I roll away from my desk and shuffle my way slowly toward the conference room. I’m not in the mood to see Damian or any of the rest of the band. I hope it isn’t any of them. Oh God, I hope it isn’t my parents either.
My breath hitches when I see my visitor. She’s a young, dark-haired woman holding a baby in one arm and forcing a toddler to stop spinning on a chair with the other. I see her resemblance to Dex immediately.
“Hello,” I say as I walk in and close the conference door behind me, hoping for a few moments of uninterrupted conversation.
