14. Liam
LIAM
To say that I haven’t been on pins and needles all week would be a lie.
These last seven days have been so damn excruciatingly long that there were more than a handful of times that I wanted to run over to Chloe’s apartment and beg her to give me an answer.
Am I going to be a dad?
Am I not?
I needed something.
Every time she would call or text to ask me a question, I would think that this was it, that that was the day I would finally get an answer. And every time, a little bit of me died inside when I didn’t.
But even if I didn’t get an answer, I would have continued to wait it out. I wasn’t about to force her to make a decision that she wasn’t ready to make. I would continue to wait until she said otherwise.
The whole thing even affected my game. Instead of concentrating on what was happening on the ice, especially during the season opener, I was thinking up scenarios that would probably never happen.
I’ve been completely out of it.
So when I got out of practice and saw that Chloe had texted to call her when I got the chance, I got out of the locker room as quickly as possible.
Now the leather in my car reeks of sweaty balls because I didn’t shower before leaving the locker room, but I’ll handle that later.
The only thing that matters right now is getting to Chloe and finally finding out if our life is going to look different after today.
My head is spiraling with ideas of what she wants to talk about and I don’t know how I feel about every single one of them.
When she tells me, will I be excited? Mad? Indifferent?
The only way to find out is for it to happen.
Getting to Chloe’s is the easy part, finding parking is a bitch and a half. It takes me a whole ten minutes to find a small ass spot that I could slide my car in.
As soon as the car is parked, I don’t waste any time and run up to Chloe’s apartment.
I knock on her door the second I make up her fourth floor walk up, feeling like I spent the whole morning doing speed training.
I’m able to catch my breath before Chloe opens the door, but as soon as she opens it, its as if I’m breathless all over again.
She is stunning but for some reason she looks like she’s on a completely different level today. My cock seems to like it a little too much.
Because I’m too busy taking in how damn beautiful she looks, it takes me second to realize that she’s covering her nose.
“What?” I ask instead of a greeting.
“Why do you smell like that?” She mutters behind her hand.
“Like what?” I take a whiff of my shirt and its the same smell that is currently penetrating my car. Ball sweat, but out of the confines of my car, it doesn’t smell that bad.
“Like you cooked yourself in rotten cheese.” Chloe tells me, stepping back from the door and putting space between us.
Rotten cheese?
I smell bad but not that bad.
And she wasn’t that close to me, how did she get a whiff so fast?
The heightened smell.
I read a few blog posts in the last few days and a lot of them say that women tend to have their sense of smell heightened when they are pregnant.
A part of me didn’t believe it, but now that I have Chloe in front of me looking like she is going to puke, I have to.
“Sorry, I skipped the shower after practice to come over here.”
“You didn’t have to come right away,” she says, gagging a little. “I can’t have this conversation with you when you smell like rotten cheese. Go shower.”
She points behind her, down her hallway.
She wants me to shower here?
“You’re serious?” I ask, trying to keep my laugh in.
“Yes.”
“I have no clothes.” I say, walking into the apartment and closing the door behind me.
“Stay in a towel for all I care, just go shower before I puke.” She continues to back away from me like I had the plague or something.
Shaking my head, I throw a smirk in her direction and make my way to her hallway bathroom.
I don’t wait for the water to heat up before jumping in.
Even though we’re about to have a serious conversation, my cock still remembers all the stuff that we did the last time I was here.
Every single memory still fresh as if it happened yesterday.
So the colder and quicker the shower I take, the better for me.
So it doesn’t help that I’m using Chloe‘s body wash. Her scent all over me is going to make a certain body part a lot harder than it should be.
Ignoring what smelling Chloe’s shampoo is doing to my dick, I finish my quick shower and I am out within five minutes with a towel wrapped around my waist.
The second that Chloe sees me bare chested I know she regrets telling me she doesn’t care if I stay in a towel.
The woman cares and by the blush that creeps up her cheeks, she cares a lot.
“You seriously don’t have any clothes? Not even in your car?” She asks, trying really hard to not look at my torso.
I give her a smirk. “I thought you didn’t care.”
“I don’t,” she says, her blush getting deeper.
As much as I would love to teaser her some more, I drop it.
“The clothes I was wearing were what I wore to the arena. I didn't think to grab my extras.” If I knew that my sweat and bad body odor affected her so much, I would have grabbed them.
Chloe’s eyes travel down my body quickly before they settle back on my face. She looks almost embarrassed that she was caught looking, but I don’t give a shit.
This woman can look at me all she wants. I just have to keep my dick at bay.
“You might have left a shirt the last time you were here, I think. Let me go check,” she says, rushing out of the living room and heading to her bedroom.
The fact that I left a shirt should have been my first clue that I would have Chloe in my life a lot longer than just one night. I never leave clothes behind.
Chloe comes back a minute later and hands me an over worn Knights t-shirt that I definitely left behind.
“I’ve been looking for this,” I say, taking the shirt from her and sliding it on.
Memories from the last time I wore it try to sneak into my mind, but I stop them.
No need for me to think about eating sushi off Chloe’s body while I’m in a towel.
“I found it under the couch and figured I would give it to you whenever I saw you next,” she’s blushing again, which means that she might have worn it once or twice since then.
Something that I’m more than okay with.
I give her a smile.
When I’m half dressed, we stand in awkward silence, something that we haven’t experienced in the time that we have known each other. Chloe is pulling at her fingers and I’m the dumb fuck wearing a towel in the middle of her living room.
We have to talk, so might as well get on with it.
“Should we take a seat?” I ask, waving towards the couch, trying to break the awkwardness.
I get her a nod, and we both take a seat, more than a cushion between us.
“So,” I start
“So,” Chloe repeats, shifting in her seat.
“I’m guessing you made a decision.” It’s not a question, but a statement. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for her to say something
She gives me a nod.
“I did.”
I’ve been waiting for this moment. I’ve been waiting for her to say something for the last week, and now that she has made it, I don’t know if I should be relieved or nervous
I let out a sigh preparing myself for what I am about to ask.
“What did you decide?” I ask my question carefully, trying really hard not to say the wrong thing. I’ve never been in this type of situation before and I want to do it right.
I turn my body towards her.
She sits with her arms folded on her lap and her eyes looking anywhere but up. I want to reach over and make her look at me, but what she’s about to say is probably hard for her.
After a long minute she looks up, and I notice that she has tears in her eyes.
Every inch of me wants to know what type of tears they are.
Good? Bad? Angry tears? Tears of hate towards me for putting her in this position?
She looks at me for what feels like forever but it’s really only thirty seconds and takes a deep breath before answering my question.
“I-I decided to keep the baby,” she finally says, her shoulders sagging as if the weight off her shoulders has been taken away.
So many things run through my body and mind all at once.
Two of the major things that I feel are excitement and uncertainty.
Excitement over the fact that I’m going to be a dad, something that I didn’t know I was excited for, and uncertainty because I have no idea how the hell we’re going to do this.
“You’re going to keep the baby.” It’s a statement not a question.
I might have to repeat that sentence a few times for it to stick in my mind that in a few months there’s going to be a tiny life that is going to depend on me.
“I’m going to keep the baby,” Chloe says with a nod, wiping her tears away.
I take a few minutes to digest everything.
When she told me she was pregnant I tried to hold back all the emotions that came rushing with it.
I wanted to be excited, but at the same time I knew I couldn't. Especially if I wanted to stand by her with whatever decision she made.
Keeping the baby or not, it was her choice to make, not mine, even if she did include me in it.
I told myself that I would be ok with whatever decision she made and that was the truth, even though a small part of me did hope that she kept the baby. It was a very small part, but I have to admit that it was there.
Now that I know what she is doing, my body wants to jump up in excitement in a way that I didn’t expect.
While I’m trying to digest everything, Chloe takes my silence as something negative.
“It’s okay if you don’t like my decision,” She starts, her voice shaking all the while more tears escape from her hazel eyes.
“It's also okay if you do not want to be involved either. I know I sprung this on you and it was a lot all at once. We don’t know each other. We’re not together and you sure as hell don’t owe me anything.
So if you do not want to be involved, that’s okay.
Just tell me so I can mentally prepare myself for it.
I would love for you to be a dad to our child, but if you don’t want to, I’m not going to force you. ”
She’s giving me an out.
She’s letting me know that she doesn’t need me and that she could do this on her own.
She probably thought that I wanted her to go in the opposite direction.
Not giving a shit anymore about not touching her, I break the distance between us and take her hand in mine.
“I’m just trying to digest everything.” I say explaining my silence.
I give her hand a reassuring squeeze before I continue.
“I told you that I will be there for you with whatever choices you make. Yes, we don’t know each other.
Yes, this was all so sudden but just because it did, doesn’t mean that I won’t be there for you.
Or that I wouldn’t want to be a part of my child’s life.
I do. I wanna be a part of every single moment.
If that’s okay with you. I don’t want to go anywhere.
I just have to wrap my head around it. I’m actually going to be a dad and that feels weird saying out loud. ”
Saying it out loud feels more than weird, but I’m sure with time, I’ll get used to it
I’m going to have a fucking kid.
“Yeah, it felt weird for me too,” she says, giving my hand a squeeze back.
Against my better judgment, I wrap my free arm around her shoulders and bring her closer to my body.
Chloe doesn’t push me away, she follows the motions and places her head against my chest, taking in my comfort.
“I have something else that I want to talk to you about,” she says, her voice just above a whisper.
“Okay, and what’s that?” I ask, looking down at her but not letting her but any space between us.
“Us being romantically involved,” she says, pushing herself away from me just a bit to look at my face.
Not a topic I was expecting her to talk about.
Have I thought about me and Chloe being together? Sure. Up until last week it was all I could think about.
Now though, jumping into a relationship doesn’t seem right. Especially if we’re only doing it because she’s pregnant.
I want to be with this woman, but I want to be with her when the time is right, not when we are forcing it.
But maybe Chloe does want to force it and see what happens.
“Do you want to be romantically involved?” I ask, feeling my eyebrows rise.
She shakes her head. “I was going to tell you last week that we should pause whatever was happening between us until the new year. That I wanted to concentrate on dance for the time being. Then this happened, and it cemented that thought process. There are other things we have to concentrate on.”
I guess that’s confirmation that I was getting friend zone.
But I’m one hundred percent on board with it now, even if I wasn’t last week.
“I agree. There are things right now that need our attention and a relationship isn’t one of them.” I want to add at least not right now to the end but I keep those words on the tip of my tongue.
“So you’re okay with us not jumping into a relationship together?” She asks, like it’s hard to believe.
I give her a nod. “Yeah, I’m okay with it.”
She gives me a smile, like she appreciates me beyond belief.
“Thank you, Liam. For understanding,” she says, her head landing back on my chest.
“You’re welcome,” I say, placing a kiss against her curls. Something I have to put a stop to. “So we are really doing this? We are really having a baby?”
Chloe nods against me. “We really are.”
We really are.
Holy shit.
Things just got a whole lot more real.