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“Yeah. Well.” There were spots in front of his eyes. A baby. A damned baby. And suddenly, all he could see was Sophie. Small and vulnerable and sick. Dying. And there was nothing he could do. The crushing weight that he felt every night when he went to bed. The need for her to be better. The knowledge that she wouldn’t be.
And he just never... He never wanted to feel those things again. He never wanted to feel responsible for that sort of thing again.
He turned and looked at her. Hell. She was pregnant. Pregnancy was not an altogether safe condition. And so many things could go wrong. For her. For the baby.
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“No. I just took a test. I suspected... I suspected about a month ago. But I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. I’ve never been pregnant before. And I’ve tried. So... I didn’t actually think that I could.”
“Shit. I didn’t even think about protection. I didn’t even...”
“I didn’t either,” she said.
“It’s not your fault. I mean, it’s not your fault entirely. It’s mine too,” he said.
“Well, how generous of you to acknowledge your part in a process that I would be physically incapable of completing on my own.”
“I’m not suggesting that I’m being heroic in taking responsibility. But you can’t deny that some men don’t or won’t. And I’m not that guy. I’m not going to blame you or say that you should’ve said something or done something different.”
But there was panic rolling through him. A sense of horror that he couldn’t seem to shake, a sense of urgency. He needed to do something. He needed to take control of this somehow.
“I had to tell you, because I told my sister, and she can’t not tell Chance. She told me there was a very tight clock ticking on that.”
“Would you not have told me otherwise?”
She was silent for a long moment. That silence told him a hell of a lot.
“I don’t know. Because I was thinking about moving away. And I feel like that offer still needs to be on the table. You don’t have to be involved in this. I’ve wanted a baby for a long time. This isn’t how I saw it happening. I told you. I didn’t see it happening this way at all. I didn’t think that I could. But I wanted a baby. I wanted to be a mother. You don’t have to be involved. You can consider yourself an anonymous sperm donor.”
“Like hell I will. Like hell I will. I’m not a sperm donor.”
“What are you, then? We had a one-night stand, Kit. A one-night stand that might’ve been a long time coming, but you don’t owe me anything. You and I do not owe each other anything. It was sex. Nothing more.”
“I’m the father of the baby.” And as soon as he said it he realized it was true. “The father, do you understand? Not a sperm donor.”
“Do you want a child?”
“It’s immaterial. I’m having one. That’s how it is for me. I can’t have a child walking around on this earth and know about it and not claim him. Bottom line. That’s just how it is. For me, that’s how it is.”
He hadn’t wanted this. Hadn’t wanted this worry, this burden or this responsibility. But it was here, it was happening, and he couldn’t contort it into something else. There was no way. Absolutely no way at all. For him, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not he decided to step up. He would.
“I could still lose it.”
“But it’s here now.”
And suddenly, the silence seemed to swell between them. The enormity of that. The reality of it.
Even though it was barely the promise of a heartbeat right now, they had... Made something together. It couldn’t be nothing. Not to him. It could not be nothing. “We should get married.”
“No,” she said, the denial abrupt and sharp.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not 1950, you dope. We don’t need to get married. This is not a reason to get married.”
“It’s about the only reason I can think that I would ask a woman to marry me.”
“Well, I’m flattered. How many women have you had to propose to?”
