“Lot of good it did us.”
He claims my lips again, and we stay like that for several minutes, trading kisses until the urgency fades.
“I should get going,” he says after a while, but his arms don’t loosen around me.
“Stay,” I say. “Just for a little while.”
He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Always.”
The next morning, I pad down the hallway toward the kitchen. My apartment is quiet except for Antonio’s voice drifting from the living room.
From what I’m gathering, he’s on the phone with Carmen. His tone is laced with annoyance.
“No, I haven’t asked her to marry me, and I won’t.” A pause. “Yes, I know what you think. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”
My shoulder finds the wall, and I lean there. The baby is pressing on my lungs, but that’s not why I can’t breathe.
I won’t.
Not “I’m not ready yet.” Not “we’re taking things slow.” Just—I won’t.
Of course he won’t. Why would he?
We never discussed marriage. He’s here because I’m carrying his child, and he’s a good man who takes responsibility for his actions. That’s not the same as wanting forever.
I knew that. I’ve always known that.
I let myself get confused with the weekend trips to the lake house, the shopping trips for the baby and video game matches. I let the way he looks at me and the way he touches me convince me this was becoming something it was never meant to be.
But this is what I expected from the beginning. The version of events I braced for when I woke up alone in Vegas. He’s not a villain for being exactly who I thought he was. I’m not a victim for wanting something he never offered.
We’re just two people who made a baby in Vegas and are doing their best not to make it weird.
Our daughter shifts beneath my palm.
“You don’t need to buy her any more clothes. She has plenty.” His voice softens. “I know you’re excited. I will call you later. Também te amo.”
Marriage was never in my life plan, anyway. Neither was a partner. I was going to have this baby alone, raise her as a single parent and love her more than my mother loved me. That was always the plan.
So nothing has changed. Not really.
I just forgot, for a little while, that the plan was still the plan.
I make my way back to the bedroom before he finds me standing there, and I climb back into bed, pulling the covers over my head.
Antonio
Something has been offwith Jasmine for the past two weeks, and I can’t figure out what.
On the surface, everything is fine. She texts me back. She lets me take her out to dinner. She smiles when I show up at her apartment unannounced, but there’s a distance I can’t name.
I’ve asked several times if something’s bothering her, and each time she waved me off.
“I’m tired, Antonio. Growing a human is exhausting.”
“Third trimester hormones. The books warned you about this.”
“I’m just stressed about how the book will be received. It’s a lot of pressure.”
