Liam was a few years older than me—well into his thirties, while I was still clinging to my twenties—which only made things more annoying for me. The relaxed look, the toolbox at his feet, the I-can-fix-anything-you-need attitude he was giving off were definitely screamingI’m a dad, or at least going to be one.
I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the situation, and that disaster of a dinner at Jace’s house hadn’t helped. After hearing Liam out, his behavior made more sense than I wanted to admit. His apology felt genuine too. But that didn’t stop my mind from replaying the moment he walked out of my house, saying he couldn’t be a father to our son.
I hadn’t been exaggerating when I said his words had made me feel like my heart had been ripped straight out of my chest. I was a forgiving person, sure, but this wasn’t some half-serious boyfriend who’d cheated, leaving me stuck at the crossroads of whether to forgive him or not.
This was way bigger than that. This was the rest of my life.
“Why do you have three pans of lemon bars sitting over there on your counter?” Liam asked, cutting off my train of thought.
“Oh—uh, I’ve been craving them a lot lately, so I just keep baking more,” I said with a shrug. “This kid already takes after you, and he’s not even born yet. Do you want some?” I asked, holding up one of the pans.
Liam took a slice, immediately tossing the entire thing into his mouth without a second thought.
“I could’ve poisoned those, you know. Remember the last time when I accidentally drugged you?”
“Death by Molly McKinley wouldn’t surprise me a bit. At least I’d go out eating something delicious,”he said, mouth half full. “I wanted to come by your bakery the other day and get a blueberry muffin, but I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you come?”
He paused. “You want the truth?”
“No, I want you to lie,” I said sarcastically. “Duh, I want the truth.”
“I don’t know where we stand. As friends. As co-parents.” His voice dropped. “I don’t even know if you want me around. This isn’t me fishing for sympathy. I just honestly don’t know. And after the crap I said before, I didn’t trust myself to open my fat mouth again. So I’ve decided my best option is to lay low and be quiet.”
“Oh,” I said, taking in his honesty. I didn’t really know what to say in response. Liam was right—I didn’t know where we stood, and I didn’t know where Iwantedus to stand either.
“Well next time you get a craving for a blueberry muffin, you know where to find me,” I said, calling a silent truce.
“How have you been feeling?” he asked as he screwed in the last light bulb.
“Good, honestly. The morning sickness finally went away. My feet hurt a little more at the end of the day than they used to, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Have you had any more panic attacks since the break-in?”
The sincere question caught me off guard. I hadn’t expected him to worry about me on that kind of personal level.
“No, they’ve held off for the time being, thankfully. I think my brain knows I’ve got way more on my plate right now than I’m used to, and it decided to do me a solid and chill out for a bit.”
I crossed the kitchen and opened the freezer, focused on satisfying my newest and sudden craving—ice cream.
I crouched down as the cold air swirled around me, scanning the shelves from top to bottom.
“Dammit.”
Liam glanced over at me. “What?”
“I want ice cream,” I said, scrunching up my face like the pregnancy gods should’ve known what I needed and made it magically appear in my freezer.
“Based on that look on your face, I’m guessing you didn’t find any, did you?”
“Nope.”
“Well, unless there’s something else you need me to check on or fix, I could take you to get some ice cream… if you want,” he said gently.
“You’d take me to the store just to get ice cream?”
“I can take you to the store, or I can take you to get ice cream at Maggie’s. Wherever you want,” he said, like his offer was no big deal.
