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I’d taken the day off work specifically for this. I had a lot of money on Dylan—it was his last fight—plus I’d bought us the best seats in the house. I couldn’t miss it just because Jamey was angry about going to my mom’s.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?” I replied, pushing my arm back between the seats and grabbing his foot where it dangled from his car seat. He giggled.
“Can you just let me out here? I’ll walk to Sophie’s.”
I laughed as I shook his foot, the idea absolutely ludicrous. We were already deep into my mom’s neighborhood, at least a fifteen minute drive from my house. Oh, and he was four. “Absolutely not.”
————
“I’m sorry, back up. How the fuck is she pregnant, Hudson?”
I sighed as I pulled into the VIP parking spot at the Agganis Arena. People were already filtering through the lot heading toward the stadium, decked out in merchandise and sweatbands to support their favorite fighters. “We didn’t exactly use protection.”
Nathan’s mouth gaped, his expression trapped somewhere between surprise and disbelief, either with me or my stupidity. “Well, why the fuck not?”
“She hadn’t started treatment yet and her file suggested that the likelihood of her becoming pregnant was one in a goddamn million. I didn’t think for a second that this would happen, but here we are.” I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel, reminding myself to breathe and that everything was going to work out. I’d been on edge since Sophie and I had talked the other night. “She didn’t even tell me herself. I had to find out from the nurses in the office. She’d called them to let them know she no longer needed treatment.”
Nathan leaned back in his seat, his head tilted back, gaze locked on the roof of my car. “Well, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I have no fucking clue. I want to be involved in the kid's life, obviously, but Sophie seems to want to keep me as far away as possible.”
“Have you told Jamey?”
“Fuck no.” I cracked my knuckles, watching each one as it popped. “I love being Jamey’s dad. I didn’t plan on being a dad to another kid, but now that this has happened, I want to. I want to be there. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. But where Sophie and I stand… it’s rocky. It’s really fucking rocky, man.”
“Do you genuinely think she’d cut you out of the kid’s life?” He asked, turning his head toward me.
I sat up straight as I took a deep breath, combing through my thoughts and the memories of our argument the other night. “Honestly? No, I don’t think she would. I know she feels she can do it alone but I don’t believe she’s the kind of person to keep my child from me.”
“Then you just have to give her time to calm down, Huds.”
“Time?” I scoffed. “I don’t have time, Nathan. What the fuck am I supposed to do about the rest of it? I don’t even know if we’re still engaged. What am I supposed to say to my parents?”
Nathan blinked at me, one brow raised above the other. “You know you just referred to it as an engagement, right? Not a fake engagement?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious. How do you truly feel about her? I’ve never seen you like this over anyone, man. I mean, I know there’s a kid involved now, but this is different.”
I had no idea how I felt about Sophie. On the one hand, I knew there was a lot between us, a lot of unspoken lust and desire, but on the other… I didn’t want to go down that path. “I don’t know,” I admitted, rolling my shoulders, my neck, anything to let out the tension I felt inside of me. None of it worked. “She’s a great neighbor. A great nanny. The sex is fucking incredible. But I don’t know.”
I watched as Nathan plucked at a loose thread on his shorts, the fabric unraveling. “Maybe you should give it some serious thought.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. I knew exactly what would come from giving it too much thought. “There’s nothing to think about,” I snapped. I pulled the handle on my door, swung it open, and hopped out. “I’ll be the father to my new child. No doubt there. But there’s no room in my life for a relationship.”
Nathan shuffled out his side, grabbing his bag from the back, and looked at me through the open car door. “Hudson?—”
“No. Don’t. I’m not making that mistake again, Nate, and you’re not going to talk me into it.”
————
We sat in near silence as the fight played out. The crowd cheered around us, Nathan and I occasionally joining in, but there was a heaviness between us, the same heaviness that felt like a crushing weight against the ice in my chest. I didn’t want to think of Sophie, but there she was, as always, tucked neatly into the back of my mind.
I cheered as Dylan won round after round, my winnings piling up, but I couldn’t find the energy to actually be excited. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be with Sophie, I wanted to work out whatever the fuck was going on between us, and the more I sat there and thought about what I absolutely shouldn’t have been thinking about, the more I wanted to see her. Feel her. Taste her. Fuck her.
I hated when Nathan was right.
