Chapter 20
Kevin
“So tell me what kind of space you have for Lil Bit.” I’ve started using her nickname for the baby. “What needs to be done to get it ready?”
I’ve asked before and she always said it was too soon to think about it, that she didn’t want to jinx things. But now it’s Halloween, she’s made it safely through the first trimester, and we’re at my apartment, porch light on, answering the door for trick-or-treaters every few minutes, between bites of an amazing salad she made with at least three things I’d never heard of or tasted. A win on all counts.
She still hasn’t invited me to her place. I don’t even know what part of town she lives in—only that it takes her fifteen or twenty minutes to get home. Maybe now…
She sets down her fork, props an elbow on the table, and drops her chin into her hand. “Hmm. Well…I guess first I need to go through the stuff in that room. I moved into the bigger bedroom a few months after Gram died, but everything I didn’t know what to do with is in that smaller room now.”
“Need help going through it?” So far I haven’t done much beyond getting us those books and setting up a college fund.
“Lemme take a look in there and see. I haven’t been in there lately. I’ll let you know.” She watches me as I take another bite.
Then the doorbell rings and she’s up before I am. “I got this one.” She glides to the door in that little black dress that makes my heart beat funny, the way the soft fabric wraps around her, clinging to every curve. It’s not low-cut—just shows the barest hint of cleavage—but in it she makes my teeth sweat, even though she’s barefoot now. Even with that pointy witch’s hat perched at a crazy angle on all that beautiful soft wavy hair she left loose for the occasion.
A man can only stand so much.
She compliments all the little ones’ costumes, gives out candy by the fistful, and then comes back over to the table, sliding into her seat and giving me a smile that melts me to the chair. “In a few years, that’ll be—”
“Lil Bit,” I finish weakly, smiling back at her.
Her eyes are misty—okay, mine too—and her voice is a soft, dreamy sigh. “Yeah.”
I make myself look down at my salad, chasing a sliver of steak with my fork, careful not to look at her as I ask one of the questions that’s been burning in me. “Have you thought about how we’ll explain our relationship to people?”
Beside me she goes very still, her hand gripping a hunk of the baguette we’re sharing. “Um… I’m…still trying to figure that out.”
I wait. I don’t know what I hope she’ll say. I’m praying it won’t be something crushing.
“I mean, yes, I’ve thought about it…but I’m not sure how much to say. I don’t want to lie to anybody, but I don’t want to make our relationship out to be more than it is.”
Oh god. My heart lands somewhere under my shoes. I clear my throat. “What do you mean?”
“Romantically, I mean.”
“Ahh.” Okay, fair. I’ve been wondering how to describe that too.
“It’s nobody’s business that we had a hookup before we became friends. And it’s not something I’m open to explaining or answering questions about.” The bread crumbles in her hand and she sets it down on the table and picks up a napkin to wipe her fingers. Her eyes come up to mine. “How do you feel about it? What do you think we should say?”
This is the first time she’s talked about we . Like she’s thinking in terms of there being an us .
I have to push my words out past the lump in my throat. “I’m proud to be this baby’s daddy. Proud to be…helping give our baby the best possible start.” My throat and my eyes start to burn and I have to tell her the truth. “Andi, my biggest fear is of being shut out of this. I don’t want you and Lil Bit to have to do without my help, and I don’t want to miss out on being involved. I feel…a lot of worry about that.”
When I look up from the fork I’ve been playing with, I see a sheen in her eyes.
Her voice is husky when she speaks. “This is scary for me too. I really like the way…you’ve been. I appreciate you helping, and I don’t want to cut you out. I just…worry because I’ve seen so many relationships…go bad. I feel like I have to be extra careful about who I trust, and how much, because now I’ve got somebody else depending on me for their safety.”
It’s fear that’s keeping her behind that wall. Not a lack of feeling. Fear.
My heart squeezes for her. “I’d never do anything to hurt either one of you, Andi. I promise. No matter what we… It’s my job to be here. To help. To protect you from bad stuff, not be the bad stuff.”
Her gaze roams my face. She looks deep in my eyes for a long minute, then back down at her salad. “I want to believe you mean that, Kev. You’ve given me no reason not to. My doubt is coming from inside me, and I haven’t figured out what to do about that.”
Okay, she needs more time to be sure of me. I can give her that. “Then I’ll just…be here. Trying to help any way I can. Until you see you can trust me.”
She pokes around in the greens with her fork before setting it on the table and looking up at me. Nods just a little, a tiny smile at one corner of her mouth. “It’s been good having you around so far.”
Sounds like faint praise, but it’s still an admission. A positive.
I wouldn’t have expected her to be quite so fearful with me —I’ve never been cause for anyone’s fear, as far as I know—but maybe it’s a mama-bear thing.
I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. Sooner or later she’ll see she can count on me. I am not going to let her down or screw this up.
***
Andi
It’s November. Lil Bit and I have made it safely through the first trimester together.
I pop the pepperjack-topped buns in the oven, give the coleslaw another stir, and turn down the music so I’ll be able to hear July’s car pull up. God knows I need some advice. And she’s the only person besides me who knows both the story of my family and the story of how Lil Bit came to be. So I chose an evening I knew Joe would be in class and I invited July over for dinner.
Driveway gravel pops under tires and I go to the door. Make sure it’s her, scan the county road to make sure no one has followed, and open the door as she steps onto the porch.
“Hey, you! Long time no see.” She grabs me in one of her wonderful bone-crunching hugs before following me inside. “Something smells great.”
“I’ve been wanting barbecue.” I reactivate the security system and lead her into the kitchen. “You want your slaw on the sandwich or on the side?”
“Mmm. Pile it right on top there.”
I layer pulled pork and coleslaw onto the toasted buns while July pours us fresh lemonade.
It’s a little chilly tonight so we eat inside and catch up on our news and restaurant gossip. Most of her employees came to her via the shelter so I know pretty much everybody. Once we’ve finished our meal, though, I hand her a blanket and we move outside to the lounge chairs on the patio. I touch a match to the kindling I’d arranged in the firepit earlier. We wrap ourselves like burritos and settle back to watch the flames.
I’d fall right to sleep right here if it weren’t for the stress of the impending conversation.
“What’s up? You got something going on?” July’s blond hair is caramel in the firelight.
Deep inhale, then I nod. “Yup. Need your take on something.”
“Okay.”
That’s July, always calm, always accepting. Always ready to help.
I focus on her face. “Turns out you’re going to be an aunt. Again.” Her little sister had a baby not too long ago.
July’s gray eyes widen to comic proportions and I actually laugh.
“No shit?”
“No shit. Apparently, our protection failed back in August.”
She does the math, eyes still huge. “What, so you’re…almost three months along already?”
“Yup.”
“How’d Kevin take it?”
I wince. I knew this part would take some explaining. She knows my history, but July’s in a forever relationship with the love of her life, and she had a happy, healthy two-parent family growing up, so… “He seems really happy about it. And he’s been great so far. The problem is me.”
“How are you a problem?”
“July, I can’t read my instincts about him.”
She squints. “You mean you don’t know how you feel about him?”
“Well, kinda. I mean, that’s part of it. I was trying to figure out how I felt about that, and then I found out I’m pregnant.”
“Walk me through this slowly. I feel like I need some catching up.” She settles back in her seat, hitching her blanket a little higher around her neck.
“That weekend of the pool party at Rose and Angus’s was our first weekend really hanging out. As friends.”
At her raised brows, I clarify. “Since the hookup.” I snuggle deeper into my own blanket. “It was really great. He seems so great… I left for my conference in Asheville thinking if we were still friends in a couple more weeks, I’d maybe start thinking about whether it might be okay to date him after all.”
She listens intently, without judgment, and nods her encouragement.
“But I felt lousy in Asheville, so I saw a doctor when I got home, and…” I wave my arm to indicate everything since.
She turns her face to the flames and nods again. “Well. I can see how that would confuse things. How are you feeling about that idea now?”
“So conflicted. One minute I feel like he’s great and I’m an idiot for not trusting him totally. The next minute I hear Gram’s voice screaming at me that I’m an idiot for even considering trusting him totally. And then the minute after that I feel like he’s not interested in being more than friends with me anymore anyway, so it’s a moot point.”
“Have you asked him how he feels? Whether he’s interested in more?”
Of course July’s mind would seize on the most straightforward approach.
“It’s more complicated than that. With a baby in the picture, how do I know it’s safe to ask that? I mean, I was just starting to get comfortable with us hanging out as friends, with the idea that maybe it might turn into a little something more someday in the future. I mean, that’s a pretty big shift for me, the idea of being in any kind of relationship with a man. But no sooner had that thought crossed my mind as a distant, far-future possibility than bam! —baby. And then he proposed, and then—”
July drops her blanket and waves both arms at me. “Whoa, hold, ho— what ? He proposed ?”
“Yeah, just out of the blue! Totally freaked me out. And I reacted pretty harshly and I think I hurt his feelings. But he said no worries, forget he mentioned it, and he’s been…pretty great ever since.”
July’s squinting at me, massaging her forehead. “So…okay… What’re you wanting me to weigh in on tonight?”
And here it is. “I really like what I know of him, okay? What I’ve seen so far of him with kids—of him with everybody—says he’s a good guy and would probably be a good dad. But July, I haven’t known him that long or that well. He could just be in that first good-behavior period where he’s, you know, love-bombing me, and the real Kevin won’t make an appearance until later.”
She tugs the blanket back around her. “Have you seen any sign of a Real Kevin that’s different from the guy you know?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. Which makes it almost worse, because he actually seems happy about this baby. And he’s being so sweet, finding ways to help, things he can do to help me get ready… And if he’s really that guy, we’re all missing out by me holding him at arm’s length.”
“And you’re still doing that now because…?”
“Because for Gram and for my mom both, their husbands got more violent starting with a pregnancy.” My hand has crept over my belly without me realizing it until I see July’s gaze land there. “It’s not just me in danger if I’m wrong about him.”
“Ohhh. I get it. You’re kinda between a rock and a hard place.”
I nod. That about sums it up. “Yup. Don’t trust him and risk cheating the three of us of what could be a really amazing experience together…or trust him more than he deserves and risk endangering Lil Bit and me.”
July blows out a big puff of air as she turns back to study the flames in the firepit. “Bummer.” But her brow crinkles again as she twists to face me more fully. “But you’re still spending time with him?”
“Yeah, we have dinner almost every night. And most days I go run at the track.”
“So y’all aren’t really missing out on the whole experience, right?”
“No, I guess not. I just have this feeling that there could be so much more…if only I were sure of him.”
She snorts and turns back to the flames. “Sounds like how Jen felt when she was pregnant.”
Jen is July’s little sister, the one who recently had a baby. “But she’s married.”
July glances over at me, then back to the fire. “There’s more than one way not to be there for somebody.”
I mull that over and am just wondering whether to ask more, when July sits bolt upright and says, “I’ve got an idea. I’ll invite people over. You bring Kevin and we’ll help you watch for signs of anything sketchy. We could even …give him a test.”
“What?” Not sure I like the sound of that. Doesn’t sound exactly fair to Kevin.
She waves away my frown. “Nothing weird. Maybe just a little light flirting. Joe’ll help. Or even better—you know what they say about not judging a man by how he acts when you tell him yes, but by how he reacts when you tell him no? We can find some way for you to tell him no, and see how he handles it. We’ll all be there to help you if he flunks the test.”
I frown into the fire, considering it.
It’s a terrible, brilliant, excruciating, just-might-work idea.