Chapter 15
Tate
“Hey, Tate. It’s… Summer. I need to talk to you about something… will you please call me?”
I’ve listened to her message three times and still haven’t called her back.
There’s something in her voice that tells me she isn’t calling because she misses me. Something has happened, and I can only hope it’s not that her mom passed away. I don’t know how I can get away to attend the funeral, but I’ll do my best if she needs me there.
It’s just been a busy week.
When she called, I was doing a radio interview, and we had to go straight to the venue once it was over.
There was a radio station contest that gave one winner and five of their friends tickets and backstage passes to come meet us, so I didn’t even see that she’d called until I got back to the hotel around one in the morning.
We were in Chicago last night, which means it was close to two in the morning in New York and I didn’t want to call and wake her up.
It’s morning, though, and we’re on the bus heading to Green Bay, Wisconsin.
I know I have to call her back but for some reason I’m dreading it.
We’ll be in Green Bay in another hour, so I’ll wait until we get to the hotel where I can have some privacy.
Otherwise, the boys will be all up in my business and they’re already giving me shit because so far, I haven’t so much as looked at another woman.
There’s been some flirting and lots of hugs and pictures and autographs, but hooking up?
My libido has become a big, fat zero and the band thinks it’s hilarious.
Fuckers.
Thank goodness Angus seems to have my back and is keeping his mouth shut about our conversation.
Ryleigh, Taryn, and Kirsten are with us now for the foreseeable future, so there’s always something going on, somewhere to be, plans that they’ve made for us. It’s nice, because it breaks the monotony, but it’s also a pain in the ass because sometimes I just want to chill. Alone.
By the time we get to the hotel, I’ve listened to her voice mail at least six times, as if I’m trying to decipher some cryptic message. Her voice doesn’t sound happy, and it’s freaking me out a little.
“Hey, you want to go to lunch?” Jonny asks me. “The couples are going to some museum.”
“No thanks.” I toss my backpack over my shoulder. “I have to make a few calls, but I’ll catch up to you.”
“Okay.”
I get up to my room and sink onto the bed. Finally, I reach for my phone and press the button to call Summer back. It rings three times. Four. Just when I think it’s going to voice mail, she picks up.
“Tate.”
“Hey, honey. How are you?”
“I’ve been better.” Oh, yeah, there is absolutely something wrong.
“Is your mom okay?” I ask automatically.
“Oh, um, yeah. She’s hanging in there.”
“Okay.”
Huh. Now I’m a little confused. She was the one who said she couldn’t get away to come to a show, didn’t have time to see me again, so this seems out of character for her.
“I, uh…” She blows out a breath. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Whatever it is, just say it.”
“Tate. I’m…pregnant.”
At first, her words don’t register.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant. About five weeks.”
“Five…” My brain is still refusing to make sense of what she’s saying. “I don’t understand. I was there…” I wrack my brain, trying to come up with dates. “Three weeks ago, tops.”
“I know.”
“I don’t understand. That means the baby isn’t mine. Doesn’t it?”
“No.” Her voice is a little shaky. “I was confused at first too, but I hadn’t been with anyone else in more than four months.”
“But then how…” My heart is beating a little too hard and my stomach feels weird. How can she be five weeks pregnant with my kid if we only had sex three weeks ago.
“Apparently, the way they calculate your due date is based on the first day of your last period, which is approximately two weeks before conception. The way the doctor explained it, the average pregnancy is 280 days from that day—the first day of your last period. And then you’re due in forty weeks.
But anyway, you can look it up. I’m not lying.
I’m pregnant, and it’s definitely your baby. ”
Fuck fuck fuck.
Everything in my field of vision swims for a second as I try to catch my breath.
Pregnant.
A baby.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
I’m not even ready for a relationship so I’m definitely not in the market for fatherhood. I can’t have a kid. Not now. Maybe in like, ten years, but not now. I’m on tour. About to go on the road. Maybe—wait.
Is she calling because she needs money for an abortion?
“Tate?” Her voice sounds small, nothing like the vibrant woman I got to know for two days a few weeks ago.
“I’m here. I’m, uh, not sure how to respond. This definitely isn’t in the cards for me.”
“What, you think it’s in the cards for me?” she snaps, the first snippet of her personality coming through.
“Are you going to…keep it?”
“I don’t know. I went to a clinic and then just sat in the parking lot. I couldn’t bring myself to go in.”
In all fairness, I’d probably struggle with it too.
But I can’t have a kid right now.
Jesus, this is the clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks. For me, anyway.
“What does that mean?” I ask finally.
“It means we need to make a decision. Together.”
“I can’t tell you what to do with your body.”
Yeah, that’s a copout and I know it, but it’s the only thing I can think to say.
Because this isn’t going to end well. For either of us.
“It’s your baby too.” She hesitates. “Do you want me to get a paternity test? I guess there’s a non-invasive blood test they can do that’s accurate. But I can’t afford it.”
“Oh. Uh, how much do you need?” Why do I feel like such a jerk?
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I didn’t get all the information yet because I wasn’t sure what…you might want me to do.”
“Get the test,” I say abruptly. “Okay? Text me what you need from me, like if I have to go to a lab or something, and send me the information on where to send payment. Once we do that, let’s talk again.”
“But what do you want to do?” she says a little more firmly. “Do you want me to…get rid of it?”
“I don’t know!” I snap, my voice rising a little.
Fuck.
Yelling at her isn’t going to make the situation better.
“Don’t you think that would be best?” I ask instead. “You’re not in a place to take care of a kid, and I definitely am not. I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, but this is a disaster, Summer.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“So why didn’t you just take care of it?”
God, I’m a fucking asshole.
“I wish I knew. I just…couldn’t go in.”
Great.
This means she wants to keep it.
A baby.
I’m twenty-six years old, about to go on an international tour, and a woman who isn’t even my girlfriend is trying to tie me down.
I can’t do it.
I don’t want to do it.
“Well, now what?” I demand in a surly tone.
“I just thought…you should know. That maybe you could…help me decide what to do.”
“We both know what the smart decision would be.”
“An abortion.”
“Like I said, I don’t want to force you to do or not do anything you’re not comfortable with, but I’m not going to be great dad material so all of this is going to fall on you. I can send money, but beyond that, what do you want from me?”
There’s a long, uncomfortable silence.
I know I’m being an ass, but this is—I can’t even wrap my head around this new development.
We fucked up, plain and simple. There’s an easy option available to us but she doesn’t want to do it so now she’s making me the bad guy.
“Money, I guess,” she says after what feels like a long time. “So I can get the medical care I need.”
“Let’s start with the paternity test,” I say abruptly. “Once we do that, we can discuss options. But I have to go—we have an interview scheduled.”
That’s a bald-faced lie but I can’t sit here and continue a conversation that’s going nowhere.
“Okay.” Her voice is small and shaky again, like I’ve disappointed her.
Hell, I’m disappointing myself right now, but it’s hard to breathe and if I don’t get off this phone and out of this stuffy hotel room in another minute, I might explode.
“Send me the information, yeah? I’ve gotta go.” With that, I disconnect.
Fuck, I’m such a jerk.
But right now I’m a jerk on the verge of a panic attack.
I stuff my phone in my pocket, grab my wallet and make a beeline for the door.
I need fresh air before I heave.
This is a really big fucking mess and I have no one to blame but myself.