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I hold my hands out in front of me, watching them tremble.
“Honey, come on, talk to me.” Chase’s hands slide around mine. Tight. Warm. Unflinching.
I break. The tears coming, rolling down my red cheeks. Shoulder-shaking sobs erupt from my mouth. Sobs I’ve been holding in all summer. From the moment Glenda told me I no longer had a job. The mess I’ve made this summer has gotten worse and worse until now my whole life is just a mess.
And Chase is the only good thing about it.
No one deserves that kind of pressure. To be someone’s everything.
As if to prove just how good he is, Chase pulls me into his chest and lets me cry against him. “It’s okay… you’re safe right here.”
I cling to him. His thick biceps, broad chest, steady feet.
He deserves so much more than this… mockery of a relationship.
“Did she say something, Jude? Was she mean to you? Because if she was, I’ll –”
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t mean. It was really nice. She said something really nice.”
“Oh.”
I push myself away from him, hands still twisted around the sleeves of his suit jacket. Bet his whole outfit is twice my rent. And he’s letting me desecrate it with my snot. The perfect man. “She said I’d make a good mother.”
Chase laughs breathlessly. “You would. You will.”
I look up at him. “You know it’s not that easy.”
Softly, Chase wipes my face free of tears. “Well, no one said it had to be easy. And we don’t know what’s going to happen, do we?”
“You don’t get it, Chase.”
“I’m trying to. You have to tell me what I’m not getting, though. You’re safe… just tell me.”
I drop my head and growl in frustration. No one’s fault but my own that I can’t get out of my own head. I push myself away from him and take a few steps back, dirt kicking up around my Keds. “I’ve been totally obsessed with you since I was a kid, Chase.”
“Okay.”
“Like in love with you.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “Is that a bad thing?”
I grip my curls. “Yes. I think. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”
Chase reaches out to me slowly as if I’m some animal without front-facing vision he might be able to trick into his grip. “I think we need to take a breath, Jude.”
“No, no, no. Listen. Listen to me.” I cut my hands through the air, putting an imaginary box down in front of me. “I had a plan. A dream. For us. From the time I was a little slip of a girl. I wanted you to fall in love with me and I’d paint and you’d work and together we’d be unstoppable and we’d have lots of babies and –”
“How many babies?”
I stop, almost like I’ve been thrown off my axis. “What?”
“I’m just asking, in your fantasy, how many babies?” Chase asks.
“Um. Four.”
He looks pleasantly surprised. “Four. Wow.”
“Boy, girl, and then the twins,” I murmur.
