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“Wow. Shit.” His fingers go through his hair again, and he blows out another long breath. “And you didn’t know? At all?”
I shake my head. “I feel fine. I just…had a feeling this morning.”
“I knew something was wrong with you.” He drops his hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I raise my eyebrows. “On a gut feeling that could have been nothing but paranoia? Really?”
“Okay, but you should have called me. As soon as you fucking knew, Liv! Fuck. If you feel half as rattled as I do right now, I should have been here for you!”
It clicks.
His anger isn’t at me.
It’s because he wasn’t here with me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just… I panicked. Then it was positive and I had to get that stupid failing piece of crap out of my body so it didn’t hurt our baby and then I panicked some more and then you called and then I panicked a little more and then I panicked myself all out.”
His lips twitch. “Still got a little in there, huh?”
I exhale shakily. “A little? A lot. But I figure I have eight months to panic, so why waste all that in one day?”
“You…” He sighs and walks toward me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me into him.
His hold is strong and certain. Warm. Steady. I turn my face into his chest.
I turn my face into his chest. “You don’t have to stay, you know. If you need to go to…digest it…I get that,” I murmur into his shirt.
“Silly woman,” he says into my ear. “My silly, panicky bitch.”
I crack a small smile at those words.
Tyler pulls back and rests his palms against my cheek. “Look at me.”
I do.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says slowly and clearly. “You got that? You’ll have to remove me with brute force to get me out of this apartment, and even then, I’d put up one hell of a fuckin’ fight.”
“Why? How?”
“I’m not saying this again,” he breathes, pulling my face closer to his. “You and I, we’re in this together. We both made this baby, so we’re both going to raise this baby. Every day. Every single day, I will be there. And not because I have to be. Because I want to be. Because, dammit, Liv, you’re a pain in my bloody arse, but there isn’t a place I’d rather be than right by your side.”
I swallow harshly to stop the buildup of emotion.
“I’m not saying this is going to be easy. I’m not saying we’ll always get along or that we’ll get it right. We won’t be perfect. I’m shitting myself. I’ve never been so afraid of anything in my life.”
“But us?” I whisper. “We’re fucked up, Ty. We’re volatile and we’re not good for each other.”
“Then we’ve got eight months to sort our shit out, haven’t we?”
“What if I can’t do it?”
“You don’t have to do anything. We will do it all.” He lowers his lips to mine. “We’re all kinds of fucked up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be fixed. It doesn’t mean we can’t fix it.”
He drops his hands to mine and pulls my arms from around me. My arms fall limply to my sides. I’m still afraid.
He rests his hands against my sides and trails his fingertips down to my hips. They linger there as he hesitates. I breathe in slowly as he moves his hands across my stomach and stops them in the center, right above my pants.
He brushes his thumb back and forth across my skin, sending tingles and shivers through me.
