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“Do you think that many men actually donated or do you think they started at like five thousand?”
I feel him shrug, but I still can’t look in his direction. The warmth of his body right up against mine threatens to make me sweat, but I wouldn’t want to be any other place.
“I have no idea how it works,” he says. “What’s so special about this guy?”
I point to the bio. “It says he’s a small-town guy.”
“That’s it? That’s enough to pick him? It says he’s a student.”
“It doesn’t say how old the donation is, but I read an article that says if sperm is stored right, it can be done indefinitely without issue. So he could have donated fifty years ago or something.”
“I don’t think this sort of thing existed fifty years ago,” he mutters. “But do you really want to get pregnant by a grandpa?”
I take a deep breath, an attempt to not let irritation settle inside of me.
“Would you fu—have sex with someone that old?”
I clear my throat. “I’m not having sex with anyone. The sperm is just as viable many years later as it was the day it was collected. It’s not grandpa sperm. It says right here that he was nineteen at the time of collection.”
“Fine,” he says, a hint of agitation in his tone. “Who else have you picked out?”
“Only those two so far, but I want a down-home kind of guy.”
“Because you want to trap the child here?”
I clench my jaw. Cash and I don’t fight very often, but there are times he just rubs me the wrong way. Instead of wrapping my hands around his throat and squeezing, I close out the tabs on my tablets and place it back on the side table.
“You don’t have to help me with this if it annoys you,” I tell him.
I can’t expect him to understand. He didn’t have the same upbringing as I did. He’s lived in Lindell as long as I can remember but when he left to attend college at Sam Houston State University, his adoptive parents moved away. They wanted their biological kids to go to a more prestigious high school, and Lindell didn’t have that to offer.
I remember being heartbroken that he’d move away and just knew we’d drift apart despite him telling me it would never happen. He finished college, and right after he completed the police academy and his field training, he was right back in Lindell.
“It doesn’t annoy me,” he says, but when I look over at him, he seems relieved not to have to be bored with helping me, even though, for me, this is life changing.
I know the man doesn’t want kids, but I never thought that choice of his would make him so grumpy that he’d get attitude with me because I’ve decided to have one.
“I’m really tired,” I lie, knowing I’m going to toss and turn even more tonight than I would’ve if I’d just snuggled up next to him and pretended to be afraid of flesh-eating zombies.
He presses his lips to my forehead like he always does before standing. He doesn’t argue to stay. He simply tells me he’ll see me soon before leaving.
Chapter 7
Cash
There aren’t many times I show up for dinner with Adalynn’s family that I wish I had declined. Sometimes around the holidays, I get a little lost in my own feelings, and seeing all these happy, smiling, loving people makes me remember just how little I have in that regard. But I shouldn’t feel that way as I climb out of my truck on a random Wednesday to have dinner.
I can’t help the surprised look on my face when Adalynn opens the door before I can even knock.
“Hey,” she says, stepping out on the porch and pulling the door closed behind her.
The stoop isn’t very big, and she has to look up to make eye contact with me.
I can’t even count the number of times I pictured the two of us standing just like this. It started on a break I had from college when I came back to town to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. It was the day I finally gave myself permission to see her in a different light, as if she was more mature and more accessible since she was legally an adult. In those fantasies, we’d kiss, and I’d swallow the gasp of surprise on her lips. I’d smile against her mouth before gripping a handful of her hair and angling her body perfectly against my own.
It was that flash of need that made me go back to college and break up with the girlfriend I had at the time.
“Hey,” I say, my feet frozen. As much as I’d like to make that fantasy a reality, I know that I can’t. I can’t allow my sexual desires to take over my head, especially not right before sitting down to a meal with her parents.
