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“Blue’s a dog, Lake.”
“She wasn’t supposed to get pregnant, and neither was Val. But I am. We deserve this.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like inside my head?” He tapped his temple, his jaw tight. “I think about you all the time. I’ve told you before, I want every one of your thoughts.”
I’d already heard that same speech once today. Manning needed to know everything about anything to do with me—that was no surprise. “Then you can thank Corbin for convincing me to talk to you.”
“Corbin?” he asked. “What the fuck does he have to do with this?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want to keep my conversation with him from Manning, but as soon as I said it, I realized I’d made it sound as if I’d said all these things to Corbin first. “I didn’t tell him any details, just that you and I have been trying—”
“You talked to him about this?”
“I’m saying no, I didn’t.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it felt like one. I bit my bottom lip. “Not really. When he saw how I reacted to Val’s news, he put two and two together and guessed we were having trouble.”
Manning shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Lake, you don’t ever talk to anybody but me about something like this, especially not him. Especially not before you talk to me.”
“I didn’t discuss it with him,” I said, exasperated. “We talked about getting pregnant, that’s all.”
“And you told him we were having trouble? Before you and I have even opened the door to that conversation?”
I thought of how tense I’d been watching Manning and Tiffany talk alone. I wrapped my arms around myself. “I guess.”
“It’s none of his goddamn business.”
“He was trying to help. For God’s sake, he was on your side. You act like he’s trying to come between us, something I thought we’d moved past.”
He snorted, pulling a pack from his pocket. “I could give a fuck about him. He’s no threat to what you and I have.” He slid out another cigarette. “But when we’re talking about the most important thing in our lives, I come first. You come first. That’s it.”
“But—”
“You have no argument here, Lake. You’re in the wrong.”
Frustration boiled up in me so fast, my chin trembled. So what if I was wrong? Didn’t I have the right to be? To get upset for no reason? To know I’d messed up and not want to acknowledge it? I might be infertile. I was trying to tell Manning this was the end of a future we’d counted on.
I pinched my robe closed at the neck. “Enjoy your fucking cigarette,” I said as I turned back for the house.
17
With each step away from Manning, my chest stuttered with the threat of tears. I headed toward our bedroom, but I knew he wouldn’t be far behind. I needed a minute alone, so instead, I ducked into the one room he’d be least likely to look for me.
The “temporary” office that had ended up staying for years.
We’d never wanted to put much effort into it, assuming it’d one day move to a more permanent spot in the house. There was only a desk, a small filing cabinet, and a computer. These days, I only came in to clean.
I rested my back against the door and looked around at what might as well have been an empty room. It was small, just big enough to take a baby through the toddler years before we moved him or her into the next room.
I put my hands over my mouth and sobbed into them, hoping Manning wouldn’t hear. I’d expected him to be devastated about my news, but instead he’d focused more on the fact that I’d kept it from him. I understood why that upset him, especially since I’d opened up to Corbin of all people, but there was a chance we might not have children. We weren’t getting the family I’d promised him and myself. That was a reason to be upset. That was why he should’ve been smoking all along. His money concerns hadn’t even scratched the surface of what we were about to face.
I walked to the middle of the room. The moon lit up the dark, and even as my eyes blurred with tears, I couldn’t keep my imagination from filling in the blanks around me. Picturing the space as a nursery was easy because I’d done it many times over the years. We’d paint the walls. Put a crib in the corner by the window, because Manning had spent part of his life without a window and was obsessed with making sure every room had plenty of light. My parents would’ve filled the room with gifts, and Manning and I would’ve been in here all hours of the night, the baby in my arms or his as we rocked our son or daughter to sleep.
