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“I told you, that’s not what I meant. But you know, it is kind of a practical issue.”
“How? How is this a bigger issue for me? You could get any number of the women that you sleep with pregnant by accident. Assuming they can track you down. Because you only sleep with strangers. You might have kids out there. You might not be any better than Travis. You justthinkyou are. Because you don’t know. You think you do—you think you know everything, control everything, but it’s a lie. Maybe none of them called you, because they had the sense that you wouldn’t be there for them.”
His face was dark as a thunderstorm. “I’m here for you.”
“I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know what to say.” Her chest felt like it was splintering. And everything just felt gross. Wrong.
He reached out and grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. “I don’t judge you. I don’t. I’m sorry that I said it like that.”
“Why did you say it if you don’t think it?”
He only stared at her, his eyes bleak. There was a desperation radiating off of him now and it made her feel light-headed. Weightless. Then he reached out, and dragged his thumb across her lower lip, and it felt like the striking of a match. Rough, leaving a trail of fire behind.
She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to lean in. She wanted that touch to linger forever.
Then he drew back like he’d suffered an electric shock.
“I’ll see you later.”
She felt sideswiped. “You can’t just leave!”
He took a step back and walked away, and she let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. When he was so close. When he was touching her.
“Gus,”she said.
“If you don’t want to cook for me, that’s fine. There’s still pizza in the freezer.”
And then he got in his truck, and he drove away. She just stood there, feeling like her chest had been ripped to shreds, and he was gone. She couldn’t yell at him. She couldn’t fix this.
And then she just... She got in her truck, and sat in the passenger seat, and she let hot tears spill down her face.
How had the day turned into this? Because he had been so sweet and soft this morning. He had been so...
And this man was like a stranger. And she didn’t know what the hell to do with it. So she just cried. And she couldn’t even sort out why.
Why it mattered so much what he thought.
And then she had the nagging feeling that maybe she should just call her mom. Since she didn’t want to talk to her. And she didn’t want to be living in this moment anyway. That was funny. Take one bad feeling and throw another one on top of it. Maybe she should call her dad too.
She scrubbed her eyes, and dialed her mom’s number. Right there in the parking lot.
“Well, I was wondering when you were going to call.”
“You could’ve called me,” Alaina said, realizing too late that she had maybe made a mistake in pursuing this interaction. Considering that she usually put in an effort to not call her mom out on her lack of contact, which had gotten more and more sporadic over the last couple of years. That she didn’t get on her mom’s case for not telling her about her personal life, or for her general lack of interest in Alaina’s.
“I assume you talked to Fia,” Alaina said.
“I have,” she said. “She mentioned that you married Angus McCloud.”
“Yeah. Did she tell you why?”
“No.”
Oh, screw Fia. Honestly. What good was she only telling half of her secrets? Alaina didn’t want to drop the bombshell, and now she had to.
“I’m pregnant. So, congratulations. You’re going to be a grandmother.”
“Alaina!” And to give her mom her due, the exclamation sounded genuinely excited. “Really?”
