TOMORROW?!? You’re killin’ me!!!!
“Work?”
I shake my head. My brother is a whole other ordeal, one I haven’t wanted to focus on until after I told Foster he was going to be a dad.
Foster sits next to me on the couch and hands me a water after opening the top. “Food will be here in forty or so.”
“Thanks.”
We sit there awkwardly for a second, neither of us saying a word.
Finally I can’t take it anymore. “Leighton knows about me being pregnant.”
His head whips toward me, then toward the front door. I guess I know one thing Foster is afraid of. “Hayes?”
I shake my head. “And Leighton doesn’t know you’re the father. She knows it’s either you, Easton, or Decker, but that’s all.”
He nods, seeming to take that in. “Thanks for telling me first.”
“That’s the one thing I did right in all this.” I touch his arm. “Again, I’m really sorry.”
He sips his water. “Don’t sweat it, but…” He turns to face me. “I don’t want us to be just co-parents. I want to be a part of our baby’s life. And don’t think I’m gonna have him or her at my place and have a woman over or something. I won’t. We can make rules, and I’ll abide by them. I want our child to have the kind of life I never did.”
“A life you never did?” My head tilts.
“I’ll just say this… I didn’t have a role model, but I sure as hell learned how not to raise a kid.”
I squeeze his arm, the fixer in me wanting to dig deeper, but Foster seems like a man with a lot of layers. Layers he’s not going to shed to the person who underestimated him just minutes ago. He doesn’t have to share anything with me, but maybe one day he’ll feel comfortable enough to.
“The road might be bumpy, but as long as we keep this about the baby, we can make it work.”
Foster brings his hand to the back of his neck and rubs there. “As long as your brother doesn’t kill me. This isn’t good for us or the team. I’m a jerk for sleeping with you in the first place.”
“It’s not your fault I’m so irresistible.” I flutter my eyelashes jokingly, but his eyes don’t stray from mine.
“I’m gonna be honest with you, I’ve never been that worked up before. I wasn’t even thinking rationally. Maybe I didn’t put on the condom right.”
I sip my water and cross my legs. “Just what a woman wants to hear, that the man she slept with wishes he had been thinking rationally. And anyway, I don’t think we… used one.”
“It was more a compliment than anything, Callie. You made me see past all that.” His forehead wrinkles. “We didn’t use one? I always do.”
“I’m on the pill, and I think I said…” I honestly can’t remember the whole thing or how it all happened. Thanks, alcohol. I do remember his breath in my ear and the feel of his big hands on me though.
He made me forget myself too. I’ve never slept with one of Hayes’s friends, and I never planned to. I never wanted to affect any of his friendships.
“We do have the fact he’s engaged to my best friend on our side.” I shrug.
“That’s different though. You don’t have a ring on your finger, and we’re not in a relationship. It changes things.” His voice is strained.
He’s not wrong, but I’m fully prepared to give my brother shit if he decides to go after Foster. I’m a grown woman, and I can make my own decisions.
“Callie?” Foster’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts. “Can I be there when you tell him?”
Whoever said Foster wasn’t a stand-up guy was wrong. Oh, wait—that was me.
“Sure. If you want to.”
He puts his hand in mine. His calluses are rough, but I love the way they feel along my soft palm. “I want to be there every step of the way. I’m not going to abandon you. I promise.”
