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“No one will ever treat her better than I will.”
“Layla doesn’t need taking care of.” Jack rolled his shoulders back irritably. I noticed he was wearing a T-shirt instead of his usual professor garb. The better with which to beat the shit out of your best friend. I wondered if he was still considering it. “She’s too smart and too strong.”
“I know.”
“She needs someone who can match her, and–” he finally turned to me with something other than anger in his eyes. Instead, it was worry. “–and no offense, pal. You’re younger than me, but not by much old man.”
I almost laughed, but the moment was too serious. The stakes were too high. “I am old compared to her,” I agreed soberly. “But that’s not all bad, Jack. I know who I am. I know what I want. I’ve made my mistakes. I’m ready for whatever she’s ready for. And yeah, in forty years, she might be pushing me around in a wheelchair, but I’ll give her the best four decades of her life first.”
Jack’s lips almost twitched before they flatlined again. “She wants to be a mom. You’ve never wanted kids.”
My heart pinched. “I know,” I said neutrally. “Until I fell in love with her. Now I get it.”
Jack studied me, and again I had the feeling he knew something I didn’t. “Layla’s an adult,” he said finally. “I’m not going to stand in the way of what she wants. I couldn’t if I tried. But she isn’t here, and don’t even ask me where she is because I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew. Which I don’t. And if you do fuck this up–”
“You’ll beat the shit out of me. I know. And I’ll deserve it. But I promise you I won’t.”
I stood up. Now that I knew Layla wasn’t here, I was itching to get back in my car and drive over to her apartment. Then I’d check the office, and then, hell, I didn’t know. But I would find her.
* * *
When I knocked, Layla opened the door to her apartment like she’d been expecting me.
Surprise and joy leapt up in my throat, but the look on her face held me immobile. She had a faint smile on her lips, but there was a clear, determined look in her eyes that I’d never seen before. She was dressed casually in comfortable drawstring pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, but there was an aura of confidence around her. She glowed.
“Come in,” she said when I just stood there, looking at her.
Inside, there was a large water bottle on the breakfast table. One of the big reusable ones with the markings tell you how much you should have drunk by what time. I studied it, wondering when she’d gotten it. It seemed significant somehow. I knew Layla had had bigger things to worry about besides hydration over the last few days–and yet…
Turning back to her, I cleared my throat. I wasn’t sure what to say.
Layla started. “I’m sorry I turned off my phone. I was processing…a lot.”
“I was processing it too,” I said evenly. “It would have helped to do it with you.”
She lowered her eyes and they found the focal point of the water bottle, too. “I know.”
There was a wall between us, but I couldn’t see what it was made out of. I walked into the living room, then came back. This apartment was nice enough, but it failed the pacing test. I would have to stand still with my confusion and questions. I’d thought, subconsciously, that the reason Layla had stopped communicating with me was because she was traumatized. I still didn’t know everything that had happened between her and Blake. She didn’t look traumatized though; she looked beautiful. A little paler than usual, but there was a glow to her skin I hadn’t seen before. The dichotomy further complicated my struggle to understand.
“What happened?” I asked quietly, lowering myself onto one of the wooden chairs. I didn’t want to sit on the couch and find out whether she chose to sit next to me or on the loveseat opposite.
Layla sat in the chair nearest me, pulling it out so that our knees were facing each other. She felt both very close and very far. Again, I had the feeling I was looking at two things that couldn’t be true at the same time. That had to be love shining in her eyes, but why was she sitting so rigidly with her fingers fighting each other in her lap? She looked like I had felt when I told Shara I wanted a divorce. Guilty and sad and hopeful that I was doing the right thing. But I hadn’t loved Shara by that point, and Layla loved me. I could see it.
“What happened with Blake was… not great,” she said, her eyes sliding away from mine. “Thank God you were there.”
A knot of tension loosened in my stomach. “I’m just sorry I wasn’t there sooner.”
She waved her hand. “You were there in time. I’m sorry about the lies Blake told. I didn’t know about them until a couple of days ago. It wasn’t just my phone I was avoiding. It was everything.”
I nodded like I understood, but I didn’t.
Layla took a deep breath. “Aiden, what you don’t know is that the same night you got arrested, I found out I’m pregnant.”
For a minute, the syllables separated themselves and floated just out of my grasp, refusing to come together and reveal their meaning. I mentally grasped for them, knowing that if I could fit them together, everything would make more sense. Then, like magnets, they slammed back together, and the meaning burst into my brain.
Layla was pregnant with my child.
I didn’t know what she read on my face, but the few seconds of silence while I put together her words had dimmed the hopeful look on hers. Her fingers stopped their restless knitting and froze in her lap. The bones of her knuckles glistened through her skin. “I’m going to have this baby. But I can do it alone.”
