AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you in love? Do you want to be with her?” I was afraid of how he would answer. My eyes darted toward the door. I wanted to leave, but my muscles had gone limp. I didn’t think my legs could carry me across the hardwood floor.
“No. Nothing like that. It was just ... I don’t know. A bad decision.”
Oh, okay then. A bad decision. You can use your Get Out of Jail Free card or maybe take a mulligan. Asshole!
“It didn’t mean anything.” Kyle’s gravelly voice, which I used to find so sexy, hurt me now, scraping my heart with every word he said.
“Actually, it does mean something,” I spat. “It means you’re a cheater. Not at all who I thought you were.”
His chest collapsed. “Nikki, listen to me. Things weren’t good with us.”
“Don’t you dare.” I balled my fists so tightly that my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands.
“It was the night I found out you lied about the bonus.”
“So you decided to get even by having sex with someone else?”
“I didn’t think we’d ever recover from that. I had too much to drink. I—”
I flung the pillow at him because I didn’t want to hear any more. “Why are you telling me this? To clear your conscience? Get forgiveness? Because you’re not going to get it.”
He bit his lip and stared down at his feet. “She’s.” It was barely a whisper. “She’s pregnant.”
The room felt like it was spinning. The crickets outside became deafening, or maybe the sound was a buzzing in my head. I couldn’t tell. “She’s pregnant? It’s yours?”
He collapsed on the couch beside me, leaving a foot of space between us. Still, I scooted away from him. “She says it is.”
“She’s lying. You can’t ...” Everything we’d done to get pregnant over the past few years flashed through my mind: the miscarriage, the ovulation-prediction kit, the injections, the needles, the implantations, talking to the therapist, Dr.Evans’s grim face telling us the blood test was negative. “You slept with her one time, and you got her pregnant.” My voice cracked. “It can’t be. It’s not yours.”
He leaned forward with his elbows resting on his thighs. “I know. It’s ...” He buried his face in his hands without finishing.
It was a bigfuck youfrom God to me was what it was.
“She doesn’t want to keep it,” he said.
There was a burning sensation in my chest. The heat crawled up my neck to my face. My entire body shook in anger. Kyle had gotten a woman pregnant, and she wanted to abort the baby. The whole damn universe was mocking me. “So why did she even tell you? Why didn’t she just get an abortion?”
“She’s going to have the baby. Give it up for adoption.” He picked a clump of Oliver’s red hair off the couch. “She’s Catholic.”
I laughed, a hysterical laugh, not because I thought what he said was funny but because the woman’s reason was so ridiculous. “Someone should explain to her about adultery, or the church’s view on premarital sex. Though apparently, she has that part about no birth control right.”
“I don’t want strangers raising my child.”
His child.Kyle was going to be a father.
He scooched down the sofa in my direction and reached toward me, dropping his hand on my thigh. “I know this is crazy, but you’ve wanted a baby for so long, said we couldn’t be a family without one. Now there’s this baby coming that needs parents to raise her or him, my baby.”
I jumped to my feet, unable to believe what he was suggesting. “Absolutely not!”
“I know it’s unorthodox, but just think about it, Nikki, please.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but my mouth was too dry. “I want you to leave.”
“Nikki, please.”
“Get your stuff and get out,” I said louder.
Kyle sat there for several minutes with his head buried in his hands. Finally, he sighed and stood. The stairway creaked with each step he took as if it were moaning in sympathy. A few minutes later he slouchedback down the stairs, slumping at the bottom. “Nikki, I’m sorry.” His voice broke. He closed the door softly behind him on his way out.
