48. Chapter 48
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m definitely pregnant.”
“That it’s mine?”
“Pretty sure.”
Jase dropped two tumblers on the table, yanked the cork from a bottle of whiskey—he didn’t know what, but it was brown and wet and made of alcohol—and poured as much in the glasses as he spilled on the table.
“Pretty sure?” he asked. “Outside you said it was mine. Now it might not be?”
“There was this one other time with this other guy, but we used protection.”
“So did we. I thought you said you were on the pill.”
“I said I was on birth control. I never said it was the pill. Nothing is one hundred percent effective.”
“Condoms. We used condoms too.”
She chuffed. “Until they ran out.”
Jase choked down the whiskey in one glass and pushed the other across the table to her.
“I’m pregnant, you ass,” she said.
“Oh, right,” he said. “What do we do? How do we find out, for sure, if this kid is mine?”
“There’s a paternity test they can do in utero.”
“Okay. Okay.” Saliva slowly returned to his mouth. Jase swiped the second glass, pacing from where Chloe sat at the head of the kitchen table, to the wall Lindsey, Graham, and Helen were listening behind. “How far along are you? I haven’t been around much lately.”
She stared at him like he was a jackass. He didn’t disagree.
“I haven’t been to the doctor yet. It could be two weeks, it could be two months. I don’t know.”
“Ha! Then it can’t be mine. We weren’t together two weeks ago.”
“It’s you, Jase. I don’t sleep around.”
“Except with one other guy, right? Some other guy might be the sperm donor?”
Chloe crossed her arms, pushing her breasts up in the sheer top he used to appreciate. Jase looked away and polished off the second glass of whiskey, remembering as the room tilted how many beers he drank by the fire and thinking he should lay off the booze.
But Chloe was pregnant in his kitchen with a kid that could be his, so Jase poured himself another.
“Can you try not being an insensitive prick for five minutes?” Chloe asked.
“I’m sorry. What do you want me to say?” Jase erupted. “You’re talking about a baby. A baby we didn’t plan for. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not even together.”
“I never wanted to have your baby, and it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to figure this out.”
Sweat dripped down his temples. He swallowed another gulp of whiskey and gripped the back of a chair to stop the room from spinning.
Chloe’s face softened, or maybe it was the booze, and she stood. “We were good together, Jase.”
He dropped his head with a terrible feeling where she was going with this.
“Chloe.”
“Really good. Don’t you think so?”
We have a good thing. It might even be a great thing. Don’t tell me you don’t see it.
Lindsey’s words from the pier were almost exactly what Chloe was saying now.
“Jase?”
He blinked hard to bring the room back into focus. What he wouldn’t give for his old man to walk in and tell him what to do. He squeezed the chair until his knuckles almost split the skin.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally.
“Am I wrong?”
“No,” he admitted.
“I know this isn’t what either of us wanted,” Chloe said. “Is there any chance you’d want to try to raise this baby with me?”
“What?”
“This thing with what’s-her-face…”
“You mean Lindsey?”
He could practically feel her pulsing with justified rage in the den on the other side of the wall.
“Your brother’s ex, or whatever,” Chloe said. “It’s not serious.”
“How am I supposed to answer that? Either way, I’m going to lose my balls.”
“It wasn’t a question. You barely know her. We’ve been together for two years Jase.”
There was a loud thump behind him. Probably Lindsey’s fist pretending the wall was his face.
“We’ve known each other two years. We haven’t been together for two years. That’s a big difference, Chloe. It’s the difference between being on the pill and not.”
“I told you, I was on birth control. I didn’t plan this.”
Jase swirled what was left of his whiskey in a grip that almost shattered the glass.
“We could do this, though, you know,” Chloe said. “It wouldn’t be all bad. You and me. What’s to stop us from trying?”