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He hit the apartment at a dead run, spent a good five minutes knocking on the door—and listening for sounds within—as he pleaded with her to let him in before it occurred to him that a helicopter was a lot faster than a car and that Desi hadn’t even made it home yet.
Once that realization dawned, he’d stood there for long seconds trying to decide between respecting her wishes and waiting outside or going in and having the element of surprise on his side. It wasn’t much of a debate—he needed every bit of help he could get.
He let himself into the apartment they’d managed to share successfully for only a short while. Because he couldn’t just sit—especially not on Desi’s hideously ugly and uncomfortable couch—he paced the apartment while he waited, going over the arguments he’d formulated in his head on the helicopter ride up. As he stood in her apartment, watching the sun rise over the City of Angels, he couldn’t help thinking that none of the arguments were good enough.
He was desperately afraid that nothing was, that there would be no way to convince her that he wanted her, that he needed her. That he loved her.
He was still angsting over it, still trying to decide the best way to make his case, when the front door opened. And then she was there, in the foyer, staring at him with wide and exhausted eyes.
He stared back. He could do nothing else.
They stood like that for long seconds, staring at each other, a million unspoken words and thoughts and feelings arcing between them like a live wire.
And then she moved, breaking the connection between them as she dropped her overnight bag on the floor at her feet. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I came for you.” It wasn’t what he’d practiced, wasn’t what he’d planned to say at all. But it was real and it was honest, which was all he had to give since she’d refused everything else.
She breathed out th
en, a long, slow thing that seemed to take more than air. It took her bones, her muscles, her very will, too, because the next thing he knew, she was slumped on the floor, sobbing into her knees.
He was across the apartment in a moment, dropping beside her and murmuring, “No, Desi, no. Baby, please don’t cry. I’m sorry. Whatever it is I did, I’m so, so sorry.”
That only made her cry harder. He didn’t know if it was emotional or hormonal or a little bit of both, but it broke his heart to see her in so much pain. Nearly killed him to think that he had somehow been the cause of it. When he could take it no more, he ignored her hands pushing him away and pulled her into his lap.
“Don’t—”
“Shh,” he told her, one hand cupping her head while the other stroked her back. “Just relax and let me take care of you.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” she said even as her hands came up to curl in his shirt.
“Believe me, I am well aware of that fact.” He continued to rock her anyway. “But I need to hold you right now. Please, let me hold you.”
She kept crying, but she didn’t protest again. She just curled into a ball on his lap and sobbed into his chest. And sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed.
When he could take it no more, when his heart was in danger of breaking wide open under the force of her sorrow, he bent his head. Brushed soft kisses over her temples and down her cheek. And pleaded, “Desi, please, tell me what’s wrong. Let me help. Please, sweetheart—”
He broke off as she stiffened in his arms, flashed back to the last time he’d called her sweetheart and what her reaction had been. “I’m sorry—”
“Stop saying that,” she told him as her tears died down. “None of this is your fault. It’s mine.”
“It’s ours,” he told her. “I’m doing something that’s pushing you away, and whatever it is, I’m sorry for it. But please, Desi, you have to talk to me. You can’t just walk away like we’re nothing. You’re carrying my baby—”
“I already said you could see the baby whenever you want.”
“And I appreciate that. I do. But it’s not just the baby I want.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do mean it.”
“You can’t.” She struggled against his hold, climbing off his lap the second he let her go.
He was up in a second, following her across the apartment—at least until she held up a hand and said, “Stop. Just…stop for a second, please.”
“Yeah, okay.” He froze in place. “Sure.”
She laughed then, and somehow it was the saddest sound he’d ever heard. “Why do you have to be so perfect?” she asked.
