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“Pissed. Scared. Angry.”
“Exactly.”
“But this is Lori’s decision, Zane. She’s the one carrying all the risk.”
“Yeah, and I’m the one who risks losing her all over again.” A swell of fury crawled into his chest and sat there, burning through muscle and sinew and bone. He took several deep breaths in a fruitless attempt to control the spread, the damage. “I can’t fucking lose her, Calum. I just can’t.” His jaw flexed, and his hands curled into fists. “I won’t.”
He got off the couch and crossed over to the window, staring down at the streets awash with people going about their business, oblivious to the fact that at any second, life could put them on their ass, stomp on their chest, and shit all over them just for fun.
“I always wanted kids. When Lori and I were in high school, I used to dream about her carrying my baby, watching her get all big and round.” He snorted. “Most people would hear that from an eighteen-year-old and they’d laugh and say I was too young to know what I wanted. But I always knew what I wanted and that’s Lori. Her above everything else. Any kids we had would’ve just been frosting on the cake, y’know?”
He turned and leaned against the window, folding his arms across his chest.
“But frosting without the cake and the jelly and everything that holds it together…” He shook his head. “I can’t lose her. Not over this.”
Calum put his half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table next to Zane’s untouched one and rose to his feet, coming to join Zane by the window.
“You need to talk to her. Tell her how you feel.”
“She knows how I feel.”
“Does she? ’Cause from what I’ve gleaned so far from Laurella via Lori, and from you, is that you both got some pretty monumental, life-changing news last night right off the back of a scary-as-shit fainting episode. And then you went all alpha on her and tried to tell her what to do. Newsflash, never a good idea with strong, independent women.”
Brain spinning, emotions all over the place, Zane rubbed his temples and shook his head. “I told her it’d kill me to lose her again, and she replied that she was keeping the baby. We’re on opposite sides of this argument, and I haven’t a clue how to bridge the gap.”
“I’ll say it again. You two need to talk. Calmly. But you have to respect her decision in this, Zane. Lay out the facts of how scared you are of losing her, but at the end of the day, she gets the final say. Her body, her choice.”
“And if I can’t accept that?”
“Then I’d question whether you love her as much as you say you do.”
Zane’s jaw dropped, and he stepped right up in Calum’s face. “The fuck you say to me?”
Calum stood his ground. Zane wouldn’t have expected anything less. The two men had never come to blows, but nor had they had their friendship tested to this level.
“If Laurella told me she only had weeks to live because of a decision she wouldn’t allow me to be a part of, I’d make damned sure I savored every single second of the time we had left. Build as many memories as I could, knowing they’d have to last me a lifetime. What I wouldn’t do is blame her for bringing about her own demise and tell her she either did things my way or not at all.”
“Easy to say. Not so easy to do.”
Calum’s nostrils flared. “Jesus, Zane. You’re the sensible one. The unruffled one. The reflective one. I’m the fucking hothead.” He gripped Zane by the shoulders and shook him. “Go talk to your fucking girlfriend right this second and tell her whatever she decides, you’ll be there, supporting her every step of the way. Show her she isn’t alone. That it’s you and her against the world.”
Zane palmed his neck. “I’m so fucking scared, man.”
“Not as scared as Lori must be. This isn’t about you, Zane.”
“Christ.” Zane winced, smarting from Calum’s typical bluntness. “Say it like it is.”
The corners of his mouth curved upward. “You know me, buddy.”
“Yeah. Don’t I just.”
“Go.” Calum pointed to the door as if Zane needed help to find the exit for his own apartment. “I’ll call Laurella and ask her to make sure Lori stays put.”
Zane took a moment to gather his thoughts, and in the quiet afforded him by Calum, he acknowledged his friend was right. This might be their baby, but it was Lori’s body. She got to decide what happened and the risks she would take.
“Tell Laurella I’ll be an hour. There are a couple of things I need to do first.”
Zane drove over to Lori’s building, but by the time he parked up and rode the elevator up to her apartment, he still hadn’t any idea how to start the conversation. He knocked on her door and waited. Seconds later, Laurella answered. She slipped outside, rose on tiptoes, kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Good luck,” then slung her purse over her shoulder and hurried down the hallway. Probably to put as much distance between herself and the ensuing drama as possible.
