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Katy: Just finishing up. I’ll meet you at the attorney’s.
I stare across the floor, taking in all the people around me, and then return to my phone, already deciding that’s a totally unacceptable answer and not caring.
Me: I’ll drive you there. You can keep your car here tonight, and I’ll bring you back in the morning since we both have a shift.
I watch as the three dots bounce, disappear, reappear, disappear, only to finish off with…
Katy: I’m fine driving myself. I was thinking of sleeping at Kenna and Keegan’s tonight anyway since I’m no longer ovulating.
The fuck?!
Not fucking happening.
Without thinking anything through, I storm down the hall, slipping my phone back into my pants pocket just as the women’s locker room door opens and Katy emerges. Only I don’t let her get anywhere before I push her back inside, shut, and lock the door behind us.
“Bennett?! What the hell are you doing?” she snaps, her voice high and loaded with shock and dismay. “This is the women’s locker room.”
I pin her to the closed door and get right up in her face. “Is anyone else in this locker room?”
She gulps, and I can see her mental debate. Not okay.
“Tell me the fucking truth, Katy. Now.”
She swallows hard. “No. It was just me.”
“Good.”
In her next breath, I slide my hands to her upper thighs just beneath her ass and lift, walking her back into the locker room until we reach the space between the showers and changing areas. I slam her into the wall and press myself right into her, putting us eye-to-eye.
“What’s going on, Katy?”
She makes some sort of bullshit, indignant noise like she’s all upset at what I’m doing right now, but I don’t give two shits. She’s going to talk to me. She’s going to stop hiding from me. There is only so much I can take, and I think I’ve officially reached my breaking point.
“I don’t know what you’re talking?—”
“Don’t,” I warn dangerously. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t do that to us and what we’re trying to do here. We have to be able to talk to each other.”
She swallows and nods before slowly raising her gaze to mine. “I know.”
“Tell me why you’ve been distant and avoiding me since the barbecue. Did I do something wrong? Did I overstep somehow or make you feel uncomfortable?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Katy baby, you have to communicate with me. I’m going out of my mind. I have so much at stake, and I can’t…” I blow out a breath, switching this up and doing what I told myself I was going to do for her. “If you need an out, you’ve got it. You’ve got it, and I won’t blame you or judge you or even be angry with you. You’ve got that out until we know if you’re pregnant, and even then, as I said, we can adjust how we do this with each other. But if you don’t want a father in your kid’s life or you don’t want me to be that father, I need to know now.”
Her arms wrap around my neck, and her blue eyes turn sheepish. “I’m not looking for an out. I want you as the father of my child.”
“But?” I press because she’s holding back.
“But I got spooked.”
I squint. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I like you, but I don’t want to love you.”
Shit.
For reasons unknown and that I can’t even begin to explain, that leaves me winded in the worst of ways. I don’t want to love her either. I don’t. But… why does it feel like there is a part of me that wants her to love me?
