He sits straighter, blowing out a breath. “Sorry, I’m not sure what came over me just then.”
“The ghost of your great-grandfather, evidently,” I say.
“But then, what do I do? How do I help? What can I—”
“Bo, I’ve decided to keep the baby,” I interrupt. “I don’t expect anything from you, but I will work with you here. However involved you want to be is fine by me, but you should know that I will expect you to stick around if you agree to be in their life. This isn’t going to be a game of hide-and-go-seek father. You want the baby? You also have to be there for the kid, the teenager, and the adult too. Understand?”
That was the only part I rehearsed. It came out slightly different from how I planned, but I do feel a weight lifted having said what I came here to say. At least part of it. The rest, now, is up to him.
“Okay,” he says, his lips slightly parted and his eyes distant once again.
For whatever reason, that perplexing expression on his face slows me. He’s so forlorn—like something even heavier is weighing him down. Heavier than this, somehow.I want to inquire, but it might be none of my business. We’re practically strangers, after all.
Still, sympathy for him builds. He’s handling this relatively well, and from what I know so far, he seems like a good guy. Maybe I was a touch harsh. “You don’t have to decide right now, obviously,” I say gently, attempting to soften the blow.
He comes back from the far-off land, his stare focused and certain as he threads his fingers together in front of him on the table. “No, I-I amin. However much I can be. However I can support you most, I’m in. Definitely.”
“Oh,” I whisper involuntarily. “Right,” I concur.
“I’m sorry,” he says on an exhale.
“It’s no one’s fault.” I bite my lip, reconsidering. “Well, actually, it’s definitely our fault. Both of us. A collective fault. I suck at taking my birth control on time, neither of us had condoms, and you probably could have pulled out.”
“I didn’t think—” He stops to take apythonbite of some sort of chocolate pastry from his plate—chewing and nodding to himself. Then another bite, in which he finishes the whole thing. After, he reaches for another pastry and does the same. “I thought I couldn’t,”he says, mouth full.
“Couldn’t what?” I ask. Have sex? He said it hadn’t happened since he’d lost his leg. Butthatcertainly happened. I already know that’s why he wasn’t carrying around condoms, if that’s what he means.
He swallows the food down in a large gulp. “Win, there’s something I think I should tell you…” Bo picks up another pastry, clearing the plate at a record-breaking speed.
I decide that he’s a nervous eater once he throws the final pastry back whole and struggles with it until he swallows and takes a sip of coffee after to wash it down.
“Things in my life were not going according to plan a few years back, and I didn’t…” He glances from side to side, appearing as if he’d rather crawl out of his skin than say whatever’s next. It’s now that I notice he barely fits in the café’s chair, his frame overtaking it. For someone so physically large, he appears so small right now. He’s shrunken in on himself, his face younger than before. When he finally stops fighting it, he rolls his neck and sits up straighter, his chest rising on a considerably long breath.
“I had cancer,” he says abruptly. “Bone cancer. Stage three. I was diagnosed shortly after my twenty-eighth birthday and had my surgery last October. It was a—ithasbeen a dark time for me. I didn’t freeze my sperm before treatment. I didn’t think I’d be around to use it, and I didn’t think I’d want to. I had just gotten out of a relationship, and it all felt pretty hopeless.”
“Oh,” I say, startled. “I’m so sorry, I…” My voice fades away to nothing. Whatisthere to say? Nothing useful. Nothing that could possibly capture how much I wish he hadn’t had to go through that.
I attempt to slotcancerinto the timeline I’ve begun crafting in my head, filled with mostly useless information from Caleb. I realise that this would be around the time of the sudden engagement and subsequent breakup with Cora.
I drag my eyes up from the corner of the table toward his face. “Bo, I am so—”
“I just… I didn’t think this was possible,” he interrupts, wiping a tear from the apex of his cheek. Hissmile-risencheek. “Shit, sorry,” he says, coughing. “I just…”
This is amuchbigger conversation than I planned for. My heart breaks for the man across from me and yet feels put back together at once. Relieved by the promising, wonder-struck expression in his features.
I reach across the table, placing my hand against his elbow. When he feels my touch, he removes his hand from his face and moves to hold my hand instead, bringing my wrist to his mouth and pressing his lips to my pulse point.
It’s not sexual at all. It’s for the purpose of giving and receiving comfort. It’s because neither of us knows what to say next.
“I’m going to be honest. I wasnotexpecting happy tears,” I say, half joking, trying my best to give him a reassuring smile as he drops our hands to the table between us.
Bo’s laugh is bittersweet. “Neither was I.” He clears his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make this about me.”
“I had my star-of-the-show moment at the doctor’s office.Andevery day since,” I say.
“You seem… calm?” he asks, sort of.
“Um, yeah. I think I am. I feel okay. When I’m not throwing up. I was really scared about telling you, actually, but other than that, I feel weirdly at peace about it all. I’ve always wanted a kid; I just didn’t think it would bethisunplanned.”
