“So you gonna tell me how it’s complicated? Or should I guess?” Wyatt asks.
“We’ve been spending more time together,” I say. “I bring her dinner. We talk. And…” I trail off.
“Are you sleeping together?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t say anything for a beat. I knock out a set, rack the bar, and he’s still quiet, which is not a great sign.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Do you have feelings for her?”
I laugh once, but there’s no humor in it. “I’ve had feelings for her since before my party.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” I sit up, forearms on my knees. “I’ve noticed her at events for a while. She’d show up with Stella or I’d see her with other people, and I don’t know…there’s just something about her. She makes a room feel different. At my party we actually talked, and it just clicked. I wanted more even then, but she was very clear it was one night.”
“And now?”
“Now she keeps saying she doesn’t do relationships. That it doesn’t mean anything.”
“But you want it to mean something,” he says.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I do.”
He nods like that tracks with the version of me he knows.
“There’s work too,” I say. “Her career’s just taking off, and now she’s pregnant and terrified it’s all gonna blow up in her face.”
Wyatt studies me. “So what’s the plan?”
“Good question,” I say. “The plan is to keep showing up. Be there for her and the baby. Be patient.”
He lets out a low whistle and nods. “That’s good. But Jake…” He hesitates. “You might want to know where you stand before the baby comes.”
I flop back on the bench and stare at the ceiling for a second. “Yeah. I know. We’ve got time, though.”
“Sure,” he says.
He helps me through another set. When I rack the bar, my chest is burning in a good way. The rest of me, not so much. We hit the mats to stretch, then make our way toward the locker room. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out immediately. The pregnancy app I downloaded flashes across the screen.
Your baby is now the size of a lemon!This week, baby can wiggle fingers and toes.
I just stare at it. My throat tightens.
Wyatt leans over my shoulder. “Already on the apps, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say, huffing out a laugh. “Didn’t realize getting emotionally attached to produce was part of the journey.”
“Wait until it’s ‘your baby is the size of a pineapple,’” he says. “You’ll walk through the grocery store and get weirdly choked up in the fruit aisle.”
“Does it ever stop feeling huge?” I ask.
He thinks about that. “Honestly? No. It just changes.With Ruby, it felt like every week there was something new. First heartbeat, first kick, first time she grabbed my finger. Every one of those felt big. Still does.”
I look down at the lemon notification again. “I’m really excited,” I say quietly. “Like, stupid excited. This is what I’ve always wanted. To have a family. A kid. The whole thing. It just didn’t look like this in my head.”
He laughs, but then his face softens. “You scared at all?”
