Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty One
Paige
I don’t look away after I say it. I don’t let myself. If I break eye contact now, I won’t get it back, and I can’t stand the thought of looking up and finding him gone.
I watch the moment the words hit him—how his pupils kick wide, how his mouth opens and doesn’t make a sound, how his hands go still on the edge of the bar like he has to hold on to something to keep from falling.
I’m the one who feels like I’m falling.
He blinks once. Twice. The clock over the liquor shelves ticks too loudly. The cooler hums. The ice in my glass cracks softly as it settles.
“Say something. Please,” I hear myself whisper.
His voice comes out rough. “Are you… are you sure?”
I nod, because if I try to speak now, I’ll choke.
“Three at home,” I manage after a breath. “All positive. I have a doctor’s appointment next week.”
He shifts, elbows coming to the bar, forearms braced. “How far?” he asks, then shakes his head. “Dumb question.”
“About… six weeks?” I answer anyway.
He swallows. His throat bobs, and my eyes follow it like I’m hypnotized. I hate that I still notice him like that right now.
He clears his throat. “And, uh— When’s the appointment?”
“Tuesday. 8:30.” My voice sounds steady and not like mine at all. “A clinic out of town.”
We sit in the quiet of the bar. I can see him thinking, his mind is racing with thoughts, questions.
I have to give him credit that he didn’t bolt right away. He hasn’t cracked any stupid jokes or said any of the easy, cowardly things a man could say to get out of this.
He just breathes, and then he says, “Okay.”
“Okay?” My laugh is thin and paper-dry. “That’s it?”
“For right this second,” he says. His eyes are on mine, but there’s panic in them. “Because if I say anything else, I can’t guarantee it’ll be the right thing. So, I’m going with ‘okay.’”
I understand completely because I said all the dumb things to myself when I was staring down at the two pink lines.
“Ask whenever you’re ready,” I say.
His jaw works. “How do you feel?”
“Scared.” The word is quiet and true, and embarrassing.
“I… I was baking. It hit me out of nowhere. I thought it was nothing. Then I knew it wasn’t nothing.
” I take another sip of ginger ale, but my stomach is a seasick thing, and I put the glass down fast. “I’ve been nauseated for days.
Tired. My body feels like it’s not exactly mine right now. I guess it isn’t.”
He closes his eyes for a second and blows out a breath. “Right.” He looks at my still-flat stomach, then yanks his gaze back up to my face. “You’re sure?” he asks again.
I huff out a laugh. “Yeah. It’s early. I know that, but I’m definitely pregnant. It all adds up."
He nods slowly. Silence stretches, and he fills it with the only question that seems safe. “Do your parents know?”
I shake my head. “No. Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.”
Gratitude moves across his face. “Thank you,” he says, and for a second, I think he might put his hand over mine across the bar. He doesn’t. He laces his fingers together like they might go rogue if he gives them a chance. “And Jason?”
“God, no.” The word lands like a dropped plate. “I’m not ready for that conversation. I’m not even sure I’m ready for this one.”
He lifts his chin a fraction. “Okay.” He breathes in, breathes out. “Paige, I’m—” He stops. A wry breath leaves him. “I’m going to ask another stupid question and then I’ll stop with those and get to the non-stupid ones, I swear.”
I shrug, exhausted. “Go ahead.”
“Is there any way—” He cuts himself off, grimaces. “There isn’t. I know there isn’t. I’m the… Jesus.” His eyes flash apology. “Sorry. Brain-to-mouth filter’s busted.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You’re the…”
“Right,” he says, so quietly I barely hear it. He nods rapidly. “Right.”
We both look down at our hands. Mine are damp from the sweating glass. His are big and nicked, a thin white scar along one knuckle.
“Before you say anything else,” I hear myself say, my voice steadier now that it’s out, “I need you to know where I am on this.”
He nods once, sharp. “Tell me.”
“I’m keeping it.” There. The words are out and nonnegotiable. “That’s not… up for debate. I didn’t come here to ask you to vote.” My fingers follow a trail of condensation down the glass. “I also didn’t come here to demand anything from you. I needed you to know. That’s it.”
His eyes cut to mine so fast I flinch. “I—” He breathes, reins himself in. “Can I come to the appointment?”
My heartbeat trips over itself. Hope is a dangerous thing. I push it down flat. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it, Ben,” I tell him. “If you say it, you have to mean it. You don’t get to show up and be a hero and then disappear when it becomes too much.”
“I know.” His voice is rough, and it hits me that he really does. “I know.”
“I need to take care of the bakery,” I say, because that’s something solid to reach for in a room that just lost gravity.
“I have a plan. I don’t want special treatment on the lease.
I don’t want to owe you anything that blurs lines.
I want to pay my rent, on time, like we agreed.
I want to open on schedule if the universe lets me.
I want—” My throat tightens. I force the rest out anyway.
“I want to have this baby and keep my life from falling to pieces in the process.”
He looks like I kicked him and kissed him at the same time. “Then that’s the plan,” he says. “Nothing in the lease changes. The building stuff? That’s on me anyway. We already agreed on that before any of this. We keep it clean.”
“Good,” I say, even though there’s a part of me that would like the soft place to land. “I don’t want you to try to fix this.”
His eyes soften. “Paige, it’s not broken.”
“Feels like it,” I say honestly. “At least in my head. In my body.”
He nods. He doesn’t try to argue me out of my own experience. It’s stupid how grateful I am for that.
“Jason,” he says finally, like putting his hand in a fire because there’s no other way around it. “We’ll have to tell him.”
“I know.” My stomach flips for an entirely different reason. “But not yet. Please. I can’t—” I rub at my sternum, fingertip to bone. “I can’t do that yet. Plus, it’s just too early.”
“Trust me. I’m not in a rush,” he says. “I won’t say a word.”
“Thank you,” I say, and the words come out raw. “He’s my brother. He’s yours, too, in every way that matters. I—” I shake my head. “I’m not ready for that conversation.”
“Then we wait,” he says simply.
I nod. I’m going to live in that simplicity for as long as I can get away with it.
He looks at my half-empty glass. “Are you feeling sick now? Do you want something else? We make a syrup—real ginger. Charlotte uses it for a mocktail sometimes. Or crackers. I think we have those little cellophane packs in dry storage. It might help with the nausea.”
Unexpected tears burn hot at the back of my eyes. “Real ginger would be good,” I say, and clear my throat. “Thank you.”
He nods like having a simple instruction is a relief.
He steps away from the bar fast, moving like he has to be doing something or he’ll blow apart at the seams. The clink of metal behind the pass.
The thud of a small fridge door. He comes back with a glass full of ice and a pale gold liquid that smells sharp and warm, lime floating on top.
“Ginger, honey, a little lemon,” he says, setting it down and sliding another napkin over. “Sip. It’s strong.”
He’s right. The first taste burns and soothes in the same swallow, a heat that tingles in the back of my throat and tells my stomach to calm the hell down. I set the glass down carefully.
“Better?” he asks.
“A little,” I admit.
He nods.
“Do you… need anything?” he asks, and the question is naked and earnest and so very Ben that I almost laugh. “Like, tonight. Not philosophically. Right now.”
“I just needed to tell you,” I say. “That’s the only thing I could think clearly enough to do.” I pull in a deep breath. “I should go.”
He pushes the glass closer to me. “Have some more of this first.”
I wrap my fingers around the cold glass again, more for something to do with my hands than because I’m thirsty. The condensation slicks my skin, and I take another small sip, just enough for the ginger to sting my tongue and settle in my belly.
“I should go now. I just… wanted you to hear it from me,” I say, more to the space between us than to him, because if I look him in the eye while we’re being this careful, I’ll either cry or say something I can’t take back.
“I’m glad you came,” he says, and he means it like it’s the truest thing he has. “I’m—” He breaks off and shakes his head. “I’ll drive you home.”
I shake my head. “I drove. I’m okay.”
He looks around. “Give me a second to shut down and lock up, and I’ll walk you out.”
I almost say no. I almost say I’m fine. But the idea of stepping into the quiet street alone makes me feel uneasy. “Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
He moves around the end of the bar. Up close, he looks tired to the bone. There are shadows under his eyes I want to smooth with my thumb. I tuck my hands under my thighs to keep them where they belong.
He steps into the kitchen to do whatever he needs to do in there, then he comes back out and shuts lights as he goes.
After taking care of my glass on the counter, he gestures me to the door, flips the deadbolt, and pulls the door open. The cool night air slides in and around me, making me shiver lightly.
The night is empty and quiet, only streetlights and moths alive on the street.
We step onto the sidewalk. He doesn’t reach for me. I don’t reach for him. We don’t speak. We stand there in the half-light, two people who did a thing you can’t undo and are trying not to make it worse, and now there is this new thing that is bigger than both of us.
As we walk around to the back where our cars are parked, I push my hands into my pockets.
“I’m going to be okay,” I say, surprising myself with how sure I sound.
“I know,” he says, and he does. “But you don’t have to be alone.”
I pause with my keys in my hand, the metal cool against my palm. The words hang there—you don’t have to be alone—and for a heartbeat I almost let myself believe them. Almost.
But belief is dangerous.
So I do the only thing I can trust myself with: I unlock the car, slide into the driver’s seat, and shut the door.
Ben stands a few feet away, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, his shoulders broad against the glow of the streetlight.
I start the engine. The headlights spill across the back wall of the Pint, pale gold against red brick. For a second, I just sit there, fingers gripping the wheel tighter than they need to, my throat thick.
The light knock on the window makes me startle.
I roll it down.
“Text me when you get home, okay?”
“I will. Thanks.” I buckle my seatbelt. “Goodnight, Ben.”
“Night, Paige.” He steps back from the car and watches as I put the car in drive and take off.
Through the glass, I risk one last glance. He’s still there, waiting, his expression lost in the shadows of the backlot.
I lift a hand off the wheel, a small wave. He gives me a nod.
The tires crunch softly against gravel as I pull out of the lot. The rearview mirror shrinks him smaller and smaller until the curve of the street takes him out of sight.
My chest aches in a way I can’t soothe. Not with ginger, not with sleep, not with anything.
There’s nothing I can do except keep going.