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“That’s why you asked me to wear a condom, isn’t it?”
She nodded again. “I just…I’m going to go to a clinic and find out for sure, but I just…I know that I’ve been all over the place, giving you mixed signals and everything, and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship because I…because I made a mistake.”
Talk about your chest getting kicked in.
“Made a mistake,” I echoed.
“We should have used protection, Hunter,” she muttered sadly, and it was fucking killing me.
I stared down at her worried face, and I just couldn’t find it in myself to agree with her. Cumming inside Alexandria would never be a mistake in my eyes, pregnant or not. While it couldn’t be argued that using condoms was the responsible thing to do, Alexandria was it for me, so how could it have been a fucking mistake?
There was also how she’d mentioned not wanting to ruin ourfriendship. I mean, what the fuck was that? We weren’t just fucking friends anymore. We weren’t kids from Lakeside that just hung out together for fun anymore. I mean, what in the fuck was I doing so wrong that Alexandria couldn’t see what she meant to me?
Doing my best to set my spiraling emotions to the side for a minute, I asked the one question that I did not want to fucking ask. I mean, I knew all the arguments about a woman’s body, but I also believed that a man’s feelings should also be considered when discussing an unplanned pregnancy. “So, if it turns out that you really are pregnant, have you…given any thought to what should happen next?”
“I might skip a day of classes and work, then drive home to see my parents,” she answered, and it was taking everything in me not to lose my shit.
“You know what I’m asking, Alexandria,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“I’m not expecting you to marry me, Hunter,” she murmured softly, and I knew that I needed to get out of here before I did or said something stupid.
Everything in me wanted to demand that she keep our baby and marry me, but this wasn’t the 1950s, and I had no say in what she wanted to do with her body or what she wanted out of her future. I could not force Alexandria to be a nineteen-year-old wife and mother, and that fucking sucked from my point of view. All I wanted was for Alexandria to be with me, but it didn’t matter what I wanted. It didn’t matter that I wanted her and our baby. Alexandria had the right to walk into any clinic in California with no regard for how I felt or what I wanted.
She also didn’t owe me anything. While I’d be happy to take the baby if she didn’t want it, she didn’t owe it to me to go through the hardships of pregnancy just because I wanted our child. Yeah, it’d be hard as fuck to be a single parent in college with a job, but I could do it. I’dfinda way to do it. It might cost me sleep and a bit of my sanity, but I had no doubt that I could do it.
Nevertheless, none of that mattered.
Nothing mattered, except for what Alexandria wanted to do.
“Well, thanks for letting me know that you’re not interested in marrying me,” I said, losing the fight to keep my emotions out of what was best for Alexandria. “How about you…you get that test confirmed, and then you can let me know what…what you decide after that, yeah?”
Alexandria’s eyes started to shine. “Hunter, I-”
I put my hand up to stop her. “Look, there’s no point in getting excited about something that we can be wrong about, Alex. Let’s just…find out for sure, then you can let me know.”
“I’m scared,” she confessed, and her words broke my heart because if she trusted me, then she wouldn’t be scared.
I reached out, then tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “No sense in being scared before you know anything for sure, Alexandria.”
“I never meant for this to happen, Hunter.”
Little did she know that she was holding all my life’s dreams in the palm of her hand.
~
Alexandria~
Iwasn’t sure how I had managed to get through the rest of my classes today, but I’d had, and I’d also been fortunate enough not to have to work this evening. After that horrible encounter with Hunter, I had no idea where we stood. He hadn’t reacted the way that I’d been expecting, but I wasn’t even sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I had expected him to be pissed or panicked, but he’d been neither. All I could do was give him time to process that I was pregnant, hoping to salvage something, anything.
At any rate, instead of heading back to my dorm after classes, I’d driven out to Cooper’s Landing, a beautiful park that was hidden away from the fast-paced life of Southern California. It was considered a bit of a hidden gem for the locals, and the only reason that I’d known about it was because Jessica had told me about it when we’d first met. She’d said that it was a good place to go when you were feeling overwhelmed. When I had asked her about knowing the place, she’d said that one of her sister’s friends had told her about it. Since it wasn’t a popular spot for college students, it was usually nice and quiet.
So, sitting on one of the many scattered benches that littered the greenery, I was staring out at the small lake that took up the center of the clearing. There weren’t any ducks in it, but it was still very pretty and very peaceful out here.
However, that quiet peacefulness was interrupted by my phone chiming with an incoming text.
Kidnapper #2:Whatever my brother did, 4give him
I couldn’t stop the grin that took over my face.
