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My heart hurt as I sat there, utterly confused. “Jason…I don’t know what to say.”
His eyes were watery. “Say you’ll come back to New York, no matter the outcome tomorrow. Say you’ll be with me.”
I needed to buy myself some time. “I don’t know.”
Jason’s nostrils flared. “Is it him? We should talk about your feelings for Archie if that’s what’s holding you back.”
“Archie hasn’t expressed that he wants to be with me,” I said.
“Have you slept with him?”
My stomach churned. “We started sleeping together after you and I broke up. Nothing happened before then.”
Jason grimaced as if my admission physically pained him. “That wasn’t what I wanted to hear…but I can’t fault you for it.” He took my hand. “Even that doesn’t change how I feel.”
I looked down at our hands. “I can’t even begin to process this.”
“You don’t need to say anything now. I just needed to let you know where things stand. Promise me you’ll consider everything I had to say tonight.”
Feeling more unsure than ever, I nodded.
• • •
When Jason dropped me off back at the house that night, I opened the door to find Archie sitting in the living room. He stood the moment I walked in the door.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, thrown completely off kilter yet again.
“I came to see you. I figured out why you left the restaurant.”
My head spun as Roz retreated to her room.
“What happened with Jason?” he asked, a vein about to pop from his neck. “Why is he here?”
My eyes filled with tears as all of the stress came crashing down on me. “I can’t rehash everything tonight, Archie. I’m spent.”
His tone softened as he pulled me into an embrace. “Come here. I’m sorry.” He spoke into my neck. “I don’t mean to stress you out. I came to make sure you were okay. I know you ran into Andrea in the ladies’ room.”
I pulled back. “That did rattle me.”
“I had no idea she was coming to the States, but you know there’s nothing going on between me and her, right?”
“That certainly wasn’t what she was hoping.”
He drew in his brows. “I don’t care what she was hoping. You’re all I think about.”
“You are who you are, Archie. You said yourself you don’t have any plans to get married again. The reason I got upset tonight wasn’t because I thought something was going on between you and her, but because of my reaction. It told me I’m getting too emotionally attached to you when I shouldn’t be. I knew this would happen if we had sex.” Crossing my arms protectively, I added, “I mean, you’ve given me no indication that you want a future with me. Maybe this was the wake-up call I needed.”
Archie shut his eyes briefly, looking conflicted. But he remained silent, denying nothing. “I need to know what Jason said to you,” he said after a moment.
I pulled myself up taller. “He says he loves me. He wants me to give him a second chance. He wants to help me raise this child.” I paused, bracing for his reaction. “And if I’m not pregnant, he’s decided he wants to get a vasectomy reversal and—”
“What?” Archie practically screamed, his tone jarring. “You don’t believe that shit, do you?”
“You think it’s so unbelievable that he could love me?”
“God, Noelle.” He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant at all, and you know it.”
When I started to cry, a look of alarm crossed Archie’s face.
My lip trembled. “Archie, I’m just really confused and tired. We have a big day tomorrow, and I need to prepare myself.”
“Okay,” he whispered. “I know it’s late. I’m sorry.” He rubbed my shoulder. “Get some sleep. I’ll be here at eight in the morning to pick you up.”
I tossed and turned the entire night. I loved Archie, but I knew Jason had a much smaller chance of breaking my heart. And that counted for something.
• • •
My mood when Archie came to get me the next morning was worse than it had been the night before. Neither of us had much to say, and though Archie had picked up breakfast on the way to get me, I had no appetite.
I was no closer to clarity about this situation. There was no doubt my feelings for the man next to me were stronger than my feelings for Jason, but I couldn’t survive a rejection from Archie. I needed to walk away first. Offering to father my baby and actually being a life partner were two different things. He’d yet to express clear interest in the latter. There was something holding him back. And I wasn’t going to stick around to get hurt.
As my thoughts raced on the way to the doctor’s office, I convinced myself that if I wasn’t pregnant, it would be a sign to go back to New York and reassess. That didn’t mean I would never try to have a baby with Archie again, and it also didn’t mean I was going to run back to Jason. It just meant I needed time to evaluate my life.
