“Hannah?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you go?” Barry said. His lips were upturned, but I reminded myself that I wasn’t looking at his lips anymore and instead focused on where my hair sat over my shoulder. The ends were still dripping, and I watched as a drop fell onto my sweatshirt.
“What will you do when you retire?” I asked instead of answering.
“Age-old question. I’m embarrassed to admit that I have no idea.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something. I bet I can get you a job at Harvey Janitorial if your millions run out.”
“How kind of you.” Barry grinned.
“Yeah, well, father of my baby and all. Can’t be a scrub, it would be bad for my reputation.”
“Well, of course.” Barry shook his head, laughing, before locking his iPad and rotating on the stool to face me fully. I still leaned against the countertop, and he pulled out the other stool and patted the seat twice.
Sitting right next to him felt intimate, but I’d stalled enough, and if he was going to tell me that this arrangement wasn’t going to work out, I wanted him to tell me now.
On the island between us was his mostly eaten salad (kale, chicken, and fruit, maybe? Mandarin oranges? I think I saw some almond slices too) and the jigsaw-themed salt and pepper shakers that Ron gave me for Christmas last year.
Barry picked up the salt one and ran his fingers over the curved shape.
“You have a thing for puzzles.” He put the saltshaker down, sliding it to fit into the side of the pepper. “I didn’t know that about you.”
“Whatdoyou know about me?”
Barry leaned closer, just barely, still watching the ceramic pieces. “I know all sorts of things. You’re a janitor, you like strawberry ice cream with a sugar cone, always a sugar cone.”
I couldn’t help but stare at his face as he spoke, inching toward me.
“You were fired from your last job, you have a degree in communications from Utah State.” He glanced at my diploma, semi proudly displayed on my gallery wall. “Your full name is Hannah Belle Harvey and your sister’s name is Katelyn, but you call her Kate. And you have a little mole on your right side, just under your ribs.”
I reached for my water, unscrewing the lid and taking a long drink. “Okay, none of that.”
“What?”
“No flirting.” I motioned to his face and the space between us. “No romantic stuff.”
“Why not?”
I heaved a big breath and then looked at him directly. “Did you forget that I’m pregnant?”
“No?” Barry looked lost. “Did you forget how you got pregnant? I still like you, and if anything, the baby is even more reason to try, right? I’d marry you, even. If you wanted. That’s what I wanted to talk about.”
I laughed then, but it was more of a squeak. As far as proposals went, this whole “I’m beholden to marrying you because I made you pregnant” thing was about as romantic as it could get. Super promising.
“You would marry a stranger because you knocked her up? What year is this?” I’d thought him being over thirty meant he’d have better judgment, fully developed frontal cortex and all that, but this was obviously not the case.
“You’re not really a stranger,” Barry objected. I stood from the stool and paced back and forth in the little kitchen for a few moments, his eyes following me as I went.
“What’s my favorite color?” I asked.
“Green?” he guessed, and it was a very good guess, but proved only that he’d spent more than five minutes in my home—which abounded in green things. Greg Junior still sat on the counter, now spread out on Barry’s iPad, nudging Barry’s hand for scratches, which he gave absentmindedly.
I stopped pacing.
“What’s my religious denomination?”
