“Two days ago.”
“Just wow,” he whispered.
“It’s yours, if that’s what the next question out of your mouth is. I haven’t been with anyone else in—well, a while. So?—”
“Don’t put words into my mouth.” His words came out harder than he’d meant them to. But he was in shock, like she’d said. “I never asked you that, and I trust you if you tell me it’s my baby.”
“Sorry, I just felt the need to say it because I’m sure some men would wonder.” She was looking at her hands now.
“Don’t mistake me for those men, Blue. I have my issues, but I hope I’m entirely rational when it comes to something like this.”
Jay drank deep from the cup he was clutching to give himself time to grapple with what he’d just learned.
“I’m having this baby, Jay. I understand that you may have different?—”
“I just told you not to put words in my mouth.”
She shot him a look and then looked back down at her hands. “I will raise this child alone.”
“We will raise this child,” he contradicted.
She looked at him again, but this time she had a hand pressed to her mouth.
“Are you okay?” Jay got to his feet.
“Crackers,” she said, her voice muffled.
“You’re crackers, or I am?”
“I need crackers,” she said slowly while breathing loudly through her nose.
He sprinted to the kitchen and found a box of saltines, then ran back while opening them. He took two out and handed them to her.
She crunched while he watched and then sighed. “I thought it was, like, a bad virus that was lingering. The nausea comes and goes.”
“But surely each month—” Jay waved his hand about, as comfortable as the next man discussing this.
“I have a condition—I’m not regular,” she said and then took another bite. “I can’t believe this has happened because I was taking a contraceptive pill—I thought it would be okay.”
“Well, it’s happened, and we’re going to be parents, so we’ll deal with that and the fallout in whatever way it comes.”
“I don’t want to tell anyone yet.” She finished off the crackers and dusted her hands.
“I don’t hide things from those I’m close to, Blue. This is big and not something that won’t come out anyway in a few months.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she looked young and scared then.
“Do you want people to speculate on the father, or can’t we just come right out and say it’s me and that we’re going to work things out?”
“I know you’re right. I guess I just don’t want to be what everyone in this town talks about.”
“They’re good folks, mostly, Blue,” Jay said.
She nodded. “There will be shock because you and I—well—we’ve never been close,” she said.
“I know. But we’re both responsible adults. We can handle whatever comes our way.”
“Are we?”
