Chapter Twelve #3
“So? What do you think?”
“I’m happy to talk to them.” He lifted a hand to scratch his head. “I’m not sure how helpful I can be, though.”
“You were there, a part of it.” They’d never really talked about this, she realized. “Do you remember a lot of it?”
“It’s not something you forget.” The look he shot her was half amused, half thoughtful. “You showed me that test, and I thought I was going to shit myself, I was so scared.”
“Were you really?”
“Hell, yes. I didn’t want to be a parent any more than you did.”
“You seemed so calm, so together,” she remembered. “I was the mess.”
“I’m just better at hiding it than you are. I was sweating bullets until you told me you wanted an abortion. Even after that, because I didn’t know what to expect or how to help you.”
“You did okay,” she managed.
“Because I figured out what you needed.”
“Which was?” she asked around the sudden lump in her throat.
His lips twitched. “For me to wait on you hand and foot.”
She let out a startled laugh. “Is that how you saw it?”
“That’s how it was,” he said, his smile widening so the dimple creased his cheek. “It’s pretty much like taking care of someone when they have the flu, but with more cuddling.”
“The cuddles were important,” she said, still laughing, but she was remembering.
She’d been too far along for a medication abortion, so they’d gone to a clinic in Illinois for a surgical abortion.
She’d had the first appointment of the day, so they’d traveled the day before and spent the night in a hotel room.
The day of the procedure was a blur—the IV sedation she’d opted for had left her spacy and groggy, and she didn’t remember most of it—but she knew he’d been there.
They’d spent that night in the hotel, too, and when the meds had worn off and the cramps set in, he’d dug out the heating pad they’d packed, curled up behind her in the big, lumpy bed under scratchy sheets, and held the heating pad to her belly with one big hand.
“As I recall, chocolate was important, too.”
“Well, yeah,” she said, and came out of the fog of memories to smile at him. “As my dad always says, never underestimate the healing power of chocolate.”
“Thank God it was February and all the Valentine’s Day candy was out. I think I bought Meyers out of chocolate cremes.”
“You ate your share, if I recall.”
“And half a box melted into the sheets, which you made me take home with us so housekeeping wouldn’t think we’d shit the bed.”
“God, I’d forgotten about that.”
“I didn’t. They charged my credit card to replace them, almost two hundred bucks.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding. Those sheets were like burlap!”
“An argument I made, believe me. I still had to pay the two hundred bucks.”
She laughed. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about it afterward.”
“No, we didn’t.” Laughter fading, she sighed. “I didn’t want to.”
“I know.”
“Did you?”
He was quiet for so long she wondered if he was going to answer at all. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I did.”
“Oh.” Her voice sounded faint, soft and somehow fragile to her ears.
In contrast, his voice was firm. “I understood, Bailey. You wanted to put it behind you, for things to go back to normal.”
“Yes, but…” She trailed off, unsure how to go on. “You could’ve talked to me, told me how you were feeling.”
“I didn’t know how,” he confessed. “I had a couple of sessions with one of the school therapists.”
“Did it help?”
His shoulders shifted into a restless shrug. “A little, yeah.”
Relieved, she nodded. “Good. That’s good.”
“I was terrified the first time we had sex. You know, after.”
The words were a sharp stab, right under her heart. “I didn’t know that.”
His smile was faint, and self-deprecating. “I didn’t know how to tell you that, either.”
Helpless, she lifted her hands, then let them drop. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I didn’t tell you to make you feel guilty.”
She wanted to get up and go to him, to wrap her arms around him. But she stayed where she was. “Why did you tell me?”
“I guess because we’re finally talking about it.” He smiled then, a wicked twinkle in his eye. “And I wasn’t terrified for long.”
She laughed softly. “You never were.”
“Yeah, I was,” he corrected. “I’m just better at hiding it than you are.”
The wicked twinkle had faded, replaced by a quiet, burning intensity, and she was suddenly nervous. With her heart thumping, she pushed to her feet.
“Um, I’m going to go up and call Chloe, tell her you’ll talk to the guys.”
“You can pass on my number, so they can contact me directly.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later.”
She was almost out of the room when he said, “I was thinking of going out for dinner. You’re welcome to join me.”
She forced herself to turn, to smile. “No, thanks. Today was a long day, and we’re fully booked tomorrow. I think I’m going to scrounge leftovers and turn in early.”
He nodded, his eyes hooded and dark. “Then I’ll see you later.”
She nodded, then walked out and started up the stairs, trying not to think about the ache in her chest.