Page 67 of Man Flu

Oh. Ohhhh. I tilt my head to get a better look at what I’m seeing. Oh, wow. That’s a big scar and a lot of loose skin. Oh no, poor Logan!

“What the—what are you—why would you? What is wrong with you?” Logan asks with a growl slicing through his throat. I fly backward, shocked that he’s awake, and mortified that I’ve been caught because I have no type of explanation I can follow this up with.

“I’m sorry,” I offer. “It’s just that Rick seemed to know, and Tiana was making weird comments. It’s like I was the only one who didn’t know what you were hiding down there.”

Logan sits up, pulling the pants tight around his waist. “You probably are the only person who didn’t know, Hannah. It was all over the goddamn news for a month.”

“Your love sack was all over the news?” Did I just say that out loud?

He nods his head and bites down on his lip. “Wow. I guess I should have just assumed you’d be like all the others. I actually thought I was lucky because I met an attractive woman who hates sports.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you. I say weird things when I get uncomfortable, and right now I’m uncomfortable.”

“I’m the one missing a ball, Hannah. I’m not sure why that would make you uncomfortable.”

Gee, I don’t know. I had my hands down your pants and was studying your anatomy while I thought you were asleep. No biggie. “Does it hurt?” What the hell kind of question is that? This obviously didn’t just happen last week.

“No, the accident was over a year ago.”

“I—I don’t know what to say.” And I can assume that’s not what he wants to hear.

“Well, let’s just get this out of the way first. The doctors said I’m most likely shooting blanks, so babies are out of the question.”

I don’t recall mentioning the topic in the week I’ve known him, or even considering the idea of a second child once in the past four years. Cora is more than enough for me to handle right now. I’m grateful for her, but I’m not jonesin’ for another baby. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was giving you that vibe, not that we were at a point where that should have been discussed. In any case, I wasn’t planning on having any more kids, so hopefully, that thought wasn’t going through your head about whatever was going on between us.”

“You don’t want another child?”

I shake my head without a thought. “No, Cora is my world, and maybe I’m selfish, but I don’t know if I have more room in my heart for a second child.” I hadn’t considered the topic after leaving Rick. It’s not like I’ve dipped my toes into the dating scene much this past year, and whatever I did experience never went past a first dinner. In the back of my head, I figured most men would be happy to hear I wasn’t looking to settle down as quick as possible so I could pop out some more kids before I’m too old.

“I wanted a baby,” he says. “I wanted a family—the full package.” I’m going to assume he intended that pun, but I’m ignoring it.

He wanted a baby. “I thought you said you had a baby …”

He points to his back, where I saw the tattoo, and my heart immediately begins to hurt. “Stillborn. Sierra Grier, five pounds, three ounces, and a full head of blonde curls. It destroyed my marriage. Then, to add insult to injury, my accident happened, and the dream of a baby for both my wife and me was more or less gone. That’s when she left me. There, that’s my story. Now you know everything. The injury forced me to retire early, and I’ve been sitting on my ass for over a year doing nothing. I needed something to fill my time, so I got a job.”

“I am so sorry,” I tell him. His story has me on the brink of tears, and I feel terrible for acting so ungrateful in the form of exhaustion with Cora. He must think I’m horrible. Being a single mom has been the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with, but I recognize that it’s nothing in comparison to a surviving a stillborn baby, and everything that came after it.

“I held her for a minute before she was taken away. I have that.”

“Logan, I don’t know what to say.” I don’t. Life is cruel and unforgiving, and it’s not fair what he’s gone through and is still probably going through. I inhale sharply and look up at him through my blur of tears. “You don’t have to hide anything from me. We all have our scars, pasts, and haunting memories. I’ve convinced myself over the past year that the only thing that matters is what I do today, tomorrow, and every day after that. There are other ways of obtaining your dream, but broken hearts leave scars, and not even time can fix that sometimes. We just have to find the good parts of life to fill in some of the gaps.”

“Yeah, what you’re saying is everything I’ve thought,” he says. “I had too much time to think, though. It wasn’t a good thing.”

“I can’t imagine time alone to think helped.”

“Hannah, it’s like my man-card has been taken from me.”

“Because of a silly missing ball?” That doesn’t make him less of a man.

He looks at me like I’m crazy and missing some part of his point. “Well, yeah.”

“But, I mean, it makes your one ball special and unique, you know?” I say it with a straight face. I think it was just the first thing that came to mind. I’m a mom, I try to make everything better. It’s my job.

He’s looking back at me with the same straight face, waiting for me to crack up or follow it with something else, but that’s all I should say. Nothing good will follow, I’m sure.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m as serious as a bag of uncracked nuts.”