He laughs, the sound heavily curtailed by the stab of pain his ribs give him in warning. “There’s a lot of behaviour I can change but this generalised anxiety is probably here for the long haul.”
He opens his mouth and places it squarely over my right nipple, exhaling a warm cloud that raises my temperature far more than it should. Far more than anyone should feel, given the purpose of the day.
“So, you don’t want children.” I turn my head, so my cheek lays flat against the top of his head, closing my eyes.
I knew this was coming.
There are still a few months to go before my choices run out for the pregnancy, but it feels more urgent than that. My imagination has already laid the groundwork for a range of happy family futures. To let the pregnancy advance, letting those seeds take root and grow, can only court pain.
My levels of self-awareness aren’t great, but I already know one thing: I can’t do any of this alone. There are probably options where I can build a support system the same way my mother did, piecing friends together from the least likely places and turning them into family by sheer force of habit. It all seems like too much effort, though. Without Caylon, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
And just like that, I can’t hold back my tears any longer. I know I shouldn’t want this baby. With half their genes coming from a fuck-up and the other half from a sociopath, it should never have been a viable option.
My body doesn’t know that, though. It just wants to eat and sleep and spin dreams of futures that could never come to pass.
“Hey,” Caylon whispers when my shoulders turn from trembling to shaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He rocks me back and forth, rubbing my back like he’s trying to get an upset kid to settle. And another piece of a future I can’t have twinkles in my mind, ready to be ogled later.
“I’m the one who should be sorry. This is stupid.” My sobs trail off, leaving my chest aching and my face swollen, my nose running like I’ve got a cold. “Guess some part of me wanted this baby even though it’s the worst idea of all time. It must be all the hormones.”
“But… I do, too.” He cups the side of my face, using his thumb to clear the tears like a tiny windscreen wiper. “That’s what I’m trying to say.” He cranes his neck until his lips are near my ear, and whisper, “I think I mucked up my speech a bit.”
I stop breathing, not wanting anything audible interference. “You want this baby?”
“Ifyoudo.” He lifts me, twisting my body so I’m sitting in his lap rather than across it. His hand strokes my hair, resting my head into his shoulder. “This way, I can stop worrying about what I’m passing on and just look forward to all the cool stuff I’ll teach them.”
“Like what?”
“How to infiltrate key pieces of the national infrastructure and hold it hostage.”
“Right. Is that lesson one in your evil genius manual or is that part of the advanced chapters?”
“Every part of the manual is advanced, so your question is moot.” He bounces his legs, making me jiggle, increasing the severity until I squeal, afraid I’m about to tumble on the ground. “If we’re doing this, we should probably bring a few more people on board.”
“People like who?”
“My mum for starters. It’ll be safer if we’re living with an extended family so we can share and help. We might need outside help, too. Maybe a nanny?”
The opulence of the word makes me giggle. “Sure, a nanny. Maybe a housekeeper and a butler for good measure.”
“You can laugh but why not? The more people we have running the household, the more time we’ll have to focus on raising a child.”
“But your mum managed.”
“Call me crazy—”
“Makes me sound a bit ableist, but okay.”
“—but I’d like to do better than manage. I’m used to acing everything so I would quite like to win at being a parent.”
His teasing smile makes my heart feel a dozen times lighter. “What is it you win? A brand-new household appliance?”
“At the very least, a toaster.”
“Maybe a gift card.”
His hands are restless, moving from my face to my hair to my arms, rubbing at the ball of my shoulder before trailing all the way down to link his fingers through mine.
