Chapter 20 #3
Then, this week, I’ll talk to Carson. If he knows my intentions with Lauren are genuine, maybe he’ll be okay with it?
I’m sure he meant well years ago when he warned me that touching her would cost me my job.
Back then, she was fresh out of college, too young and wholesome for a guy like me.
I didn’t deserve her, then. But I could be someone who deserves her now.
And if my being with Lauren is an issue for him, well, maybe I will put my plan to start my own agency into hyperdrive.
My phone vibrates repeatedly in my pocket, and I slide it out to see who’s calling.
Audrey. I consider not answering so I don’t miss Lauren when she walks in, but Audrey never calls—texting is more her speed—and the fact that she’s reaching out on a Saturday night during her second weekend back at college is concerning.
“What’s up?” I ask, holding the phone tight against my ear to hear her over the din of all the people milling about. I take a few steps away from the bar, and turn my back on the room.
“Where are you?”
The question has me on high alert. “I’m at an event for work. What’s going on?” I ask, and then she’s sobbing. “Audrey, what the hell is wrong?”
“Jesus, Jameson, give me a second,” she chokes out. There’s ragged breathing, but she doesn’t say anything else.
“Are you okay?” Goose bumps have erupted down my spine and my heart is pounding. If someone hurt her, I’ll fucking kill them.
“Yes. And no.” She pauses. “I’m pregnant.”
I swear I see black, like tunnel vision, the way they say happens before you faint. But I stand there, one hand braced against the wall and my phone in the other, willing myself to breathe.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, despite how I’m feeling about this. “How long have you known?”
“I just took a test like five minutes ago.”
“Okay,” I say, then take a deep breath. “How does the dad feel about this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You haven’t told him?”
She pauses. “Like I said, I just found out. You were my first call. But, Jameson, I don’t think he’s going to be interested in being a dad.”
I press my lips between my teeth and talk myself out of punching the brick wall I’m leaning up against. “I’m going to kill him.” I barely get the words out, but I mean them with the intensity of a thousand suns. If this jackass doesn’t want his own child, I will end him.
“You probably would, which is why you’ll never know who he is. Doesn’t matter anyway, I’ll love this baby enough to make up for his absence.”
“You’ve already decided to keep it?”
“Of course I am! But I’m so scared, Jameson.”
“You won’t be doing this alone,” I tell her. “You’ll always have me and Jules.” I’m immensely grateful in this moment that Jules is just across the river, starting her freshman year at MIT, and that she didn’t choose to go far away to school.
“I know,” she says. “And it’s the only reason I’m not absolutely terrified right now.”
I close my eyes against all the thoughts flooding into my head.
This is about her and making sure she feels supported.
There’s no space for my selfishness here.
It doesn’t matter that, after dropping everything to raise my sisters and now finally having both of them off at college, I’m suddenly facing the prospect of helping raise another kid.
Me, who never wanted kids, who had a vasectomy years ago to make sure I never ended up with a child.
I will do anything for my sisters, just like I always have.
“You’re not saying anything,” Audrey says, filling the silence.
I open my eyes just in time to see Lauren walk onto this roof-deck. She’s wearing a short, green dress that I already know will make her eyes look turquoise, and the sight of all that skin is doing crazy things not just to my body, but to my heart too.
Shit. Is this what it’s like to actually care about someone who’s not family?
Lauren glances around but doesn’t see me, and she slowly walks in the opposite direction, away from me.
“I’m still processing all of this,” I respond.
Maybe the reason I’m having trouble coming up with words is because I’m busy considering all the ways I’ve failed my sister.
Was I too distracted with work, or too focused on Lauren, to see what was happening here?
And if I can’t even be there for them, can’t protect them from things like this happening, how could I ever be the person Lauren needs?
In my head, I’m also running numbers. There will be a lot of costs—a nanny so she can still finish her undergrad degree and then go to architecture school, a car to drive the baby around in, all the supplies for the baby, not to mention the college tuition for both my sisters that I’m currently paying out of pocket.
And right now, as I’m spinning all of these huge changes in my mind, feels like the worst possible time to take any risks, no matter how much I want to. And I see what I have to do: stay at Kaplan, no matter what. It’s the only safe path forward to make sure my family is taken care of.
This thing with me and Lauren . . . it just can’t happen. I can’t risk pissing Carson off right now. I can’t risk my job and the security it provides.
Maybe in another year or two I can start my own agency—things will be more settled then. But it’s too risky right now. And I can’t ask Lauren to wait around for that long.
“We can talk about this more when I see you,” she says. “How about I come home for dinner tomorrow night? I’ll see if Jules wants to come too.”
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything between now and then.”
“Just cook me something delicious for dinner tomorrow. Right now, nothing sounds good except for pasta.”
“I’ll make your favorite pasta, then,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I slide my phone back in my pocket and look up to check if I can see Lauren, when Josh Emerson approaches. “Hey, Jameson,” he says, stretching out his hand. “Good to see you.”
“You too,” I say, willing myself not to look past him.
He’s a professional skier, and a good guy—if you like the all-American, preppy, golden boy vibe.
He’s nice enough and everyone seems to love him.
He was also one of my first clients back when I was a new agent.
It was actually his parents who hired me to manage their adult son’s career, because he’s nothing if not a mama’s boy. “What’s going on?”