My eyes circle wide. “You w-would?”
“Yeah, a tiny ballerina in a pink tutu with blonde pigtails. I’d like that.”
He’d like that.
He said that, right?
He said, he’d like that. He’d like a girl with blonde pigtails and a pink tutu andJesus Christ, I think I can breathe. Relief bursts through my veins and my body sags. “Well, she could… she could have dark hair.”
Like you.
Like her…
Like her daddy’s.
I think he hears my unspoken words because his lethal, animal eyes melt. “No, she’s going to have blonde hair.”
Like you. Like her mommy’s.
He doesn’t say it either but I hear it. He’s not done talking though and these next words he says fiercely. “And she’s not a mistake. It doesn’t matter how she… she came into existence. But she’s not a fucking mistake.”
His words, intense and spoken with so much heat, shock me. They leave me speechless for a few seconds and all I can do is blink at him.
But then I notice something.
On the island, where he’s still standing bent over.
A book, and as I stare at it, my words burst forth. “You’re reading a book.”
He straightens up abruptly. “And?”
I ignore his defensive tone. “I’ve never seen you read a book before. Not even in school. But…” I’m still staring at it when itoccurs to me. “It’s a pregnancy book.” I snap my eyes to him. “You’re reading a pregnancy book.”
His cheekbones are flushed and he rubs the back of his neck, frowning. “It’s not exactly noteworthy.”
He even picks up the book from the counter and puts it in the drawer, as if he’s embarrassed at being caught. And I can’t… I can’t help but think it is.
Itisnoteworthy and it is crazy and gosh, adorable that he’s so embarrassed. And so unlike him.
And I can’t help but ask, “You’ve been preparing, haven’t you? You’ve been reading up. For the past week. Like me.”
He stares at me a few moments, his jaw tight before he replies, “Yes.”
Yes.
He has. He’s been preparing like me.
Even though I’d been running from him, even though I hadn’t told him myself, he was getting himself ready. He was reading up on things like me.
“What if I had told you…” I pause to calm down my racing breaths. “What if I’d said that I didn’t… I didn’t want her.”
His eyes pierce into mine. “Then I’d have…” Now he pauses and I know that it is for the same reason as me, to calm down his heaving chest. “I’d have taken care of it. If that’s what you wanted.”
I know he would have.
I can see it on his face. In the determined look of his eyes. I also know that he wouldn’t have liked it; that’s also apparent on his face, but he would’ve let me make the decision.
Up until this point, up until he said it, I hadn’t known that it was important to me.
