Page 192 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

My face falls.

“Paperwork? Real romantic, Drew.”

What the hell could be in this pre-planned amendment that’s so important he’s betting his last clause on it?

Feels sketchy.

Feels… off.

A thing that could come back to bite me.

“So tell me, counselor—what’s this amendment amending exactly?”

The silence sits,

making me even more nervous.

His chest caves when he says,

“The Baby Contract.”

Cautious, dark,

the voice of a movie trailer line.

And I stand there, stuck, stuck, stuck.

When, finally, a laugh sighs out of me.

“So just to clarify for the fuckin’ jury. You don’t just wanna build a new contract for us ‘cause it didn’t fit what we are or where we’re headed. Nah. You wanna rewrite the ones that got nothin’ to do with you.” My brow arches. “You tryna throw away my entire system?”

His hands come up. “Hey, hey, listen, you’re twistin’ it. This ain’t a power move.” He lays a hand on his chest. “This is me sayin’ I give a fuck about you enough that I don’t want your name chained to another man’s.” He raises both palms. “Call it dramatic, call it jealous, I don’t give a shit. I want it in black-and-white that those fuckers fully understand they got no right to touch you.”

Sincerity’s written all over him,

telling me I can trust him.

“Allison, I’m here ‘cause I’m in this with you. And if I’m in it? I ain’t sharin’ you. Not even on paper.”

He sees the hesitation on my face.

“I can pull it up right now if you wanna read it. It’s straight talk. Cut-and-dry.” His eyes swing between mine. “But, Sonny, baby, you gotta start trustin’ me.”

And there’s ink in his eyes, I swear it. Blue-black like fresh ink, wet, bleeding, as if he already wrote our names on the dotted line of his irises, signed me into him.

“This is a lot,” I mutter,

half to him, half to myself.

He nods. “Yeah, it’s a lot. But listen—if I’m puttin’ myself in this deep? It ain’t ‘cause I’m tryna play house with you. I’m tryin’ to fuckin’ keep you.”

Keep me. That’s the kind of thing you hear right before you end up on an episode of Forensic Files. And yet my pulse skips like I want the chains. Like the idea of being kept by him doesn’t scare me half as much as the idea of being let go by him.

This one isn’t only my decision, though.

“What if they refuse to sign it?”

He scoffs. “They’ll sign.