“Landon, we don’t love each other anymore,” I say simply. “No baby will change that. And even if we did love each other, even if there was no Grady, I don’t want to be a mom. Ever. Please. Now more than ever I need you to accept that.”
I wipe at the tears that start to fall. I don’t mean to cry. I just get overwhelmed at everything all the time now. Landon’s eyes get watery, too. “But this baby is going to be born.”
I nod. “I’m going to birth a baby, but I’m not going to be a mom.”
“Angie,” he stops. He sniffs. “I’m sorry.”
“For knocking me up?” I ask.
He hangs his head, and I watch his shoulders shake as he fights a sob. “I’m sorry for everything. For the cancer. For not being what you needed. For having feelings for Grady. For everything.”
I get off the couch and walk over to him. I put a hand on his big, warm shoulder, the one I once thought without a shadow of a doubt, I would lean on forever. I take my other hand and put it under his chin, forcing his head up so he can look at me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed. I’m sorry I didn’t end things better. I’m sorry I blindsided you with this baby.”
He wraps his arms around my waist and hugs me. I hold his head to my stomach, sifting my hands through his hair. “I’m not sorry that you’re going to be a dad, though, Landon. You are going to be incredible at it, and some part of me is happy I am the one to give you that.”
“It might be his.”
“And then you’ll be an incredible co-parent,” I say, even though my heart believes it’s Landon’s.
Landon lets go of me and wipes at his bloodshot eyes. “He won’t commit to dating me. You think that a kid will somehow make his commitment issues vanish? It won’t. If anything, this is the excuse he needs to run and never look back.”
I can see the hurt on his face, and it’s weird that his pain over Grady doesn’t hurt me. It doesn’t, though. I know now, without a shadow of a doubt, I’m over my first love. I give him a small, sad smile. “Well, I guess we have no choice but to find out. This situation is going to make or break all of us.”
I step back, grab his hand, and attempt to pull him to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To talk to Grady,” I reply. “Because this isn’t going away. We might as well face it head-on.”
He looks like he would rather lick a frozen flagpole, but he gets to his feet. I know these two idiots love each other, even if they haven’t admitted it to themselves or each other. I accidentally brought them together, and now all I can do is pray that I don’t accidentally tear them apart.
Chapter 32
Grady
“Hey! There you are!”
As I skid to a stop on the black ice coating the sidewalk, and my teary eyes lock on my father standing at the back of his truck parked in front of my apartment building, it’s hard not to think the universe is out to get me. I wipe at my eyes and sniff.
“What are you doing here?”
He pulls down the tailgate and looks up at me, startled by my tone. “Sorry. I shot you a text, but I figured maybe your phone was dead, so I didn’t wait for a reply.”
My phone. I search my pockets. It must be at Landon’s house.
“Yeah. Guess it’s dead. I crashed at Landon’s. No power here.” I can’t seem to form full sentences.
“Mom saw that on the news. Heard half the coast was blacked out, so I wanted to help,” Dad says and pulls something out of the back. It’s big and black, and I recognize it immediately as a portable generator. I rush to the truck because I know that thing is heavy as fuck, and Dad’s back is not great. I stop him from pulling it down.
“I can’t have a generator on the deck, even if we could somehow get it up the stairs, it would be against the building’s safety code,” I explain. “But thank you anyway. Just go home. I’ll be fine.”
Dad and I stare at each other. Looking at him can be trippy because it’s like looking in a mirror that shows the future. I’m his slightly taller doppelganger, from the ginger hair to the hazel eyes to the wide nose and dimpled chin, not that you can see mine under all the face fur. I know it’s like looking in a mirror for him, too, because he reads me like a book. Always has. Today, in the hazy attempt at sunshine poking through the winter clouds, he cocks his head. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
I step away, pushing the generator back into the tail of the truck and closing the gate. “You’ve been crying.”
See? He sees everything.
