An image of me knocking her up right here in my truck sprung to mind—but there were contracts to negotiate and sign, lawyers to talk to. This was inheritance, after all.
Not just her. Not just her laugh and her blush and her breasts and her hips.
I cleared my throat.
"Two weeks," I said. "You said you needed two weeks for the lease."
"Yeah." She was still smiling, a little flushed. She tucked a piece of hair back that had come loose and looked down at the spreadsheet. "I'll break it, get my stuff out of storage—I don't have much. Most of it's my mom's anyway."
"You need a truck?"
She looked up. "For moving?"
I gestured at my pickup. “Just that I’ve got one, if you need it.” I paused. "And a trailer. If you've got furniture."
She tilted her head. "You'd send a truck and trailer to San Antonio for a woman you met three hours ago."
“Not just any woman,” I said. “The mother of my child.”
That made her go quiet.
“I’d also like to cover your rent and any expenses from breaking the lease,” I said. “Plus…prenatal vitamins. Appointments. Testing. You name it.”
She opened her mouth to argue.
I preempted it. “I can afford it,” I said. “And I figure you’ll be doing most of the heavy lifting. It’s the least I can do.”
She closed her mouth.
Opened it again. "Gage."
"Millie."
"I'm not—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together. I could see her working through something, the specific internal negotiation of a woman who had been handling her own logisticsfor long enough that someone else offering to handle them felt like a trap. "I have savings."
"I know. I saw the spreadsheet."
"Then you know I can manage?—"
"You can," I said. "That's not the point."
She looked at me.
I looked back.
"The point," I said, "is that you're doing something significant for me and my family. The least I can do is make sure it doesn't cost you anything to do it."
Silence.
The June heat pressed down on us both. Somewhere across the lot a car alarm went off briefly and stopped.
She looked down at the spreadsheet in her lap. At the numbers that had been saying no all morning.
"Everything," she said quietly. Not a question exactly.
"Everything," I said.
She was quiet for another moment. Then she folded the spreadsheet one final time and put it in her bag and didn't take it back out.
