Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lainey
I’d meant to tell him before anything happened between us. To be honest, I didn’t think anything would happen between us. Not like what did actually happen, which was hours and hours filled with making love like we were the last two humans on earth.
In some ways, it felt like we were.
Until I remembered our families and how impossible our situation would be to explain to them.
So, when I finally let the words go out into the world like a mother bird pushing her babies out of the nest, I didn’t know how Ty would react.
Nothing could have prepared me.
He stood up and paced to the window, his steps lumbering and slow like sleep still had ahold of him. Then he whipped around. “You’re…pregnant? But—”
“I know. I didn’t think I could get pregnant.” I was still having trouble believing it myself, even with a twenty-four-hour head start.
But now my mother knew.
Because she was the one who took me to the ER, and I—never imagining in a million years that would be the reason I was sick, because I’d been told so many times how utterly impossible it would be for me to get pregnant on my own—let her stay with me the whole time I was talking to the doctors and nurses.
So of course she was there when the test results came back.
And, of course, it was bittersweet because of Noah—but she was ecstatic.
“Lainey, don’t you see? Something beautiful is coming out of this tragedy.”
I was still pretty stuck on the tragedy part.
Now Ty had fully processed my announcement, and the expression on his face was a mixture of concern, disbelief and hesitant joy. He rushed back to the bed and took my hands into his. “I—but—” he shook his head, “I mean, uh—is it Noah’s?”
I scoffed. “How the hell am I supposed to know? It’s not like I don’t fuck you both all the time.”
As soon as the words came out, it slammed into me with unexpected force that I would never make love to my husband again. And it felt like my lungs collapsed, my chest heaving with razor-sharp pain as the realization settled in.
He pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to take care of you and the baby no matter whose it is. I love you.” He bent down so his head rested against my belly. “I love this baby. Oh my god, Lainey, I never thought—”
I processed what he had just said.
No. No, it wasn’t that simple.
I wiggled out of his embrace, made my way to the end of the bed and pulled myself to my feet. My arms crossed over my chest as a sudden chill rushed through me. “I don’t see how it’s going to work like that, Ty.”
“What do you mean?” He left the bed and stood behind me, attempting to wrap his arms around my waist.
I pulled away. I didn’t mean to react so coldly, but right now everything inside me was begging me to protect myself from any more pain. From any more loss.
I saw the blood test results, but it wasn’t like they’d done an ultrasound.
How could I even believe this was real?
I was told this could. Not. Happen. Barring a miracle…
Noah promised he would always come home to me. But he didn’t.
“Lainey,” Ty’s eyes were pleading, “come on, let’s talk this out. Noah made me promise—”
Goosebumps erupted on my arms. I stiffened, freezing in place. “What?”
His gaze fell to the floor before he slowly lifted his head. “Noah’s dying words,” he choked out. His eyes sparkled with welling tears. “He told me to take care of you.”
That gut-punch feeling was back.
I staggered out of the bedroom and down the hall. No, I couldn’t have this conversation. I couldn’t—
My tongue thickened, my stomach churned, and I knew its meager contents were about to burn their way up my throat. I lifted the toilet seat just in time for it to spew with force against the porcelain. I coughed and choked, tears streaming down my face.
My god, what did I do to deserve this?
Was I being punished for loving two men?
“Lainey, are you okay?” Ty rushed in. “Let me take care of you. Let me help.”
My whole body was shaking. My knees felt like they might give out at any moment.
Steadying myself with a hand against the cool tile wall, I focused my gaze on a small watercolor painting of baby turtles crawling out to sea, the water and sky brushed with the soft brilliance of a sunrise.
Noah bought me that painting on a trip to Charleston.
“Please, Lainey. Look at me. I want to help you.” His tone had turned desperate. I’d never heard my calm, confident man sound like that before.
It triggered something inside me.
He wouldn’t be able to move on from this if I didn’t let him go.
I ventured a quick peek at him, and his features were pinched with pain. “Can you please go now?”
“No, I want to talk this out.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thick throat. His nostrils flared as he sucked in a deep breath. “I promised Noah I would take care of you. And now there’s a baby to care for as well. Let me take care of you both.”
“First of all, I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” I wiped my mouth on a towel and pulled my toothbrush out of the holder. “Second of all, what are we going to do, just waltz into the next family get-together, like, ‘hey, Noah’s gone, but now we’re shacking up’?”
He scoffed. “No, of course not. We’re going to have to take our time, build up to it.”
“Are you fucking serious right now?” I squeezed some toothpaste on my toothbrush.
“What if it’s my baby and not Noah’s?” His chest was still heaving, nostrils flaring. “It’ll be pretty clear who the father is when the baby’s born.”
“This has nothing to do with the baby!” I cried, my hands shaking as I attempted to brush my teeth. My heart was racing in my chest like it might burst through my ribcage. I couldn’t deal with this right now.
He leaned forward and got right in my face. “Then is it about race? You don’t think your family will accept a Black man?”
I stopped brushing, toothpaste lather dripping from my mouth. I spit hard and flung my head up to meet his accusatory gaze. “I can’t believe you would even think that.”
“Well, I know how your family is.” He shrugged.
They were conservative, true. But, this was about our polyamorous relationship. This was about me possibly conceiving another man’s baby when Noah was still alive. This was about my religious parents damning me to hell.
I was so exhausted. I hadn’t kept anything down for days, not that I’d eaten much. I hadn’t slept. It reminded me of when Noah used to work nights, and I couldn’t fall asleep because I was waiting for him to come home and slide into bed with me.
Except he was never coming home.
Tonight, with Ty, was the first time I’d slept four consecutive hours since Noah—
The toothbrush slipped out of my hands as I struggled to stay upright. “Please, Ty. Please. Just go. I need to be alone right now. I don’t have any answers for you. It’s just—it’s just too soon to do this. I shouldn’t have even texted you.”
“You shouldn’t have even texted me?” he repeated, incredulous. He reached down and pulled me to my feet when I started to collapse to the floor. He wiped my mouth with the towel and lifted me into his arms.
I sobbed as my legs wrapped around his waist. I was a big girl—but he carried me easily. He paced down the hall and back to the bedroom, where he gently laid me down on the bed and covered me with the blanket.
“Lainey, I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time.
I know we had our reasons for not being ‘out’ to our families, but most of those reasons were because I worked with Noah, and no one knew we had that kind of relationship.
It would have caused problems at work. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be out.
And it wasn’t because I didn’t want my family to know about us. ”
“I know…”
“Noah is gone now, so those work reasons don’t matter anymore.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t want—I can’t taint his memory like that,” I stammered.
“Taint his memory? What the fuck do you mean by that, Lainey?”
“His family doesn’t know he…liked men. His mom would—”
He cut me off, “I’m the one who has to deal with my family knowing I’m bi, and I’m willing to come out to them.
Maybe they would finally understand why this is so hard for me.
Why I miss Noah every single fucking minute of the day.
Why I’m grieving not just a brother in blue but someone I loved with all my heart—just like I love you, Lainey! ”
He fell to his knees next to the bed and took my hands into his again. “I want to be a family. I don’t want to be a secret anymore. And if you’re having a baby—whether it’s mine or not—Noah would want me to raise it. You know he would.”
I shook my head, feeling my stomach churn and threaten to revolt again. “I can’t do this now. Please, I’m begging you, Ty. I need time. I need to sort this out. I need you to be patient with me.”
He rose to his full height, a look bordering on disgust gripping his features. “I can’t believe you’d go against Noah’s wishes. He told me to take care of you. I can’t believe after everything we’ve been through that you won’t let me.”
Hurt echoed in his words. I wanted to be able to promise him things would be okay, that we would work things out, but just the thought of my parents’ reactions when they discovered our relationship—or when my mother-in-law found out…
I couldn’t face that right now. Right now, I didn’t know how I was going to make it through another day without him, let alone function like an adult.
Like someone trying to grow a baby.
I looked up, waiting to see if Ty was going to say anything else. But he shook his head, his face a study in defeat. He didn’t say another word, just turned around and walked out of the room.
I pulled the blanket up around me, squeezed my eyes tight, and let out a silent scream.
This would be better for him. In time, his heart would heal.
He had the chance to start again someday without the baggage of me and a baby.
He could go on without anyone knowing about his secret relationship with Noah—or with me.
He could go on.