“How? How does it look like one? We don’t even kiss.”
The guitar strums to a dissonant stop and both of them look at me, hard, before going back to what they were doing. Smoking and playing.
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
“I… Shit.” I slug back my drink and set the mug down, wrap the blanket tighter around me, and drop my forehead to my knees, and I let myself imagine, really hard for the first time, what it would be like if he stayed. If we had a baby together—or not—if this could be real. Like, just the two of us.
“Holy shit,” Cora whispers, sounding scandalized and excited in a way that does not bode well for the notion that she might ask no more questions. “What are you two up to?”
I sigh and then, after catching another look from him and going even redder, I’m sure, I admit, “We’re trying to, um, get me pregnant.”
Saying it deflates me so fast, I’m almost floating. Relief, oddly, is what I feel most of all. Saying it, admitting. Sharing.
“Holy, motherfucking shit.” Cora shakes her head in obvious shock. “That is baller, babe. Baller.”
“Don’t know what baller means.” Frida bends to snag her joint back from Cora. “But I’d be willing to bet this isn’t the last we see of that man.” She takes a long, deep toke and looks over at me, her dark eyes narrowed against the smoke. “Mark my words.”
I don’t even dare let myself hope. The disappointment, at this point, might kill me.
Jake
What if? I keep thinking while leaving her house the next morning. What if?
What if I come back? What if I make Kit my home base?
No. No, she needs someone around, if she’s gonna be a mom. The dream for her doesn’t involve an absentee dad.
Does it involve a dad at all? Nope.
But the thought’s there. Constantly. Every second. So present it takes my breath away, makes me worry about the state of my lungs. Maybe I should get checked out before heading out to the next platform.
“Where’s the real estate agent?” asks Ricky, the second I get into the gym. “And where you been all night?”
“Okay, first of all…” I stop, given that he’s blocking my path, and turn to look at a couple guys sparring in the ring. “I still haven’t called. And second, none of your business.”
“Oh, really? That so?”
“Yep. I’ll call her today.”
“Wish you wouldn’t.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“You’re leaving in a couple days, boy-o. And Dolores wants her cruise.”
“Well, tell Dolores…”
“What?”
“I’ll pay for the cruise. You deserve a break.”
Ricky’s face—all soft wrinkles and bones that lost their structural integrity in fights that happened before I was even born—goes hard as his battle-scarred fists. “You’ve got a woman here.”
“I don’t?—”
“You’ve got a woman and you’re still leaving, when what you really want is to keep the gym running, because you know it’s a good place—a necessary place—but you’re an idiot who thinks you don’t deserve happiness. That’s what’s happening. That’s why you won’t call, why you’re still acting like you’re leaving.”
There it is again, all the air’s left my body—I’m out of breath, empty, only this time it hits me like a bowling ball to the gut. Or one of Ricky’s fists.
