by Emma Chase
I have no idea what to make of her.
Lainey pushes her empty plate back, and takes a drink of her water.
“You don’t have to decide this minute—we have time. You should think about it, figure out what you want.”
She looks up into my face, her big eyes shining, her jaw set.
“The thing is, Dean . . . with kids . . . you have to be sure. Jason’s father isn’t in his life—he never was and I know that was hard for Jason. But it was a clean break, the hurt was allowed to heal. He has uncles and a grandfather who love him and have filled in that space when I can’t. But if his dad had been half in and half out—if he’d let him down, said he’d do things with him then didn’t, if he’d messed with his emotions—that would’ve been like ripping off a scab over and over. It would’ve . . .”
“Scarred,” I finish softly.
Because I get it. I understand what she’s saying. I’ve seen it in my students, and because of my own screwed-up parentage. Kids know when they’re wanted, and when they’re not—and it’s really fucking important that the people closest to them, want them.
“Exactly.” Lainey folds her hands across her stomach, and her pretty mouth purses. “So, if you decide that you’re not up for this—I’ll understand—no hard feelings, really. But if you decide that you’re in, you have to mean it. You have to be sure. You have to be all in.”
I look back into her eyes and it’s like everything inside me is shifting and spinning and upside-down. I don’t know what I’m doing—and I have no idea what I want.
I nod slowly. “That makes sense. Totally reasonable.”
Lainey gives me a soft smile and stands. “Call me if you want to talk some more or if you have any questions.” She tilts her head toward the door. “I’ll be over in the haunted house on Miller Street.”
I chuckle. Then Lainey leans over and presses a kiss to my cheek, and the scent of her surrounds me. I remember that too—the fragrance of her skin, the taste of her—warm and clean and honey-sweet. The way I craved another taste of her for days . . . weeks, after we hooked up.
She straightens up and turns toward the door.
“Hey,” I call softly. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why are you being so cool about this? How are you so . . . not freaked out?”
She thinks a moment before she answers.
“I had Jay when I was nineteen—this is not my first time at the unplanned pregnancy rodeo. And, though my family has helped out, I’ve raised him on my own. Every instinct I have tells me you’re a good guy, Dean. A decent guy. So, while I want to do this with you, if it turns out I have to do it without you . . . I know I’ll be okay.” She puts her hand on her stomach. “We’ll be okay.”
~ ~ ~
After Boston Market, I swing by Garrett’s house. Two of his brothers, Connor and Tim, are there and the four of us sit out on the deck around the firepit having a few beers while Connor’s three boys are down at the dock skipping rocks on the lake.
There are four Daniels boys in total—Connor the doctor, Ryan the cop, Garrett, and the youngest—Timmy the fireman. Being best friends with Garrett gave me a taste of what it was like to be a part of a big family, to have brothers who looked out for you, ragged on you, knocked you around. They always treated me like one of their own. They still do.
“I say run, dude. She gave you an out—take it. You’re the genius, right? Don’t be stupid.”
That heartwarming bit of advice comes from Tim.
Every family has a dick in it. Timmy is the Daniels’s dick.
I like the guy, don’t get me wrong. But he’s got youngest child syndrome and he’s got it bad. That means he’s selfish, self-centered, with the mentality of a sixteen-year-old. An immature sixteen-year-old.
“You’d really ditch your own kid that easily?” Connor gives his brother a judgmental look.
“Depends.” Timmy thinks it over. “Does Mom know?”
“Can you not be a dick?” Garrett asks. “For like, two seconds? Is that even possible?”
“Probably not.” Tim pats his brother’s shoulder. “But, good talk, bro.”
Garrett goes to smack him—but through the years Tim’s learned to be quick with the block.
“Dude, I’m joking,” he says, laughing. “I swear to Christ, Callie’s hormones are catching—every time you get her pregnant you get all oversensitive and emotional.”
“Shut up, dumbass.”
“I’m not going to run,” I tell them, steering the conversation back into focus. “I’m paying her child support—obviously. I’m not going to leave her hanging.” I shake my head. “But the whole dad thing. . . I don’t know about that.”
Discipline is not my strong suit. I think you’re only young once—and you should make it last as long as possible. I think partying is good for the soul. I think teenagers should learn how to handle their alcohol years before they actually turn twenty-one. I hate green vegetables. I eat them, because they’re good for me—but I don’t think I could make someone else eat them.
I always saw myself as more of the fun uncle type of guy, who’d send Garrett’s kids birthday cards full of cash and who’d eventually retire to Florida with a rotating harem of girlfriends half my age.
As far as life plans go, that was the extent of mine. Children, a wife, a family—they were never part of the picture.
“I mean, really, could you see me raising a kid?”
Garrett looks me dead in the face, his brown eyes dark and serious.
“Definitely.”
Connor—who’s opinion I’ve always respected, agrees.
“Absolutely.”
“For real?” I ask.
“Hell, yeah,” Connor says. “I’ve seen you with Will—you’re good with him.”
I jerk my thumb toward Garrett. “Will is his. I can give him back.”
Garrett shakes his head. “But when they’re yours, you don’t want to give them back. Everything they do is amazing. They take a shit and it’s like a miracle.”
Timmy grimaces. “That’s gross, Gar.”
“And yet, still true.” Garrett takes a drink from his beer, looking at me. “You’re great with your students.”
I wave him off. “They’re teenagers.”
“Teenagers and babies aren’t so different. Most of the time, the babies are easier to reason with.”
Connor points at his brother. “This is a fact.”
Connor’s youngest son, seven-year-old Spencer, calls up to his father to come skip rocks with them. Connor got divorced about two years ago—he only gets the boys every other weekend, so when they’re with him—he makes damn sure he’s with them too. He puts his bottle on the table and heads down the steps to the dock.
“There is the baby-momma perk,” Tim throws out thoughtfully. “That shouldn’t be discounted.”
Garrett shakes his head at his youngest brother. “Please don’t frigging help.”
Still I ask, “What’s the baby-momma perk?”
Tim leans forward. “I’m assuming this Lainey chick is good-looking?”
“Gorgeous.” I confirm.
“Well, she’s going to need someone to bang her during the next nine months. It’s not like pregnant girls are big on trolling for hookups, so that duty will more than likely fall on your dick. We’re talking unlimited, easy access booty calls—condom-free—it’s not like you can knock her up twice.”
That is an excellent point. I’m shocked I didn’t think of it myself.
I’ve been dreaming of getting back inside Lainey for months. And now she’s here. Available, eager—I saw the way her eyes roamed over me on conference night and at lunch today—the way her pupils dilated and her nipples hardened. I know when a woman is interested in me, and Lainey is definitely up for a repeat of the summer. Probably several repeats.
I picture how she’ll look a few months from now—her breasts fuller, her stomach rounder and heavier—and yep, it fe
els slightly wrong, but it’s even more of a turn on.
Tim’s phone rings and he glances at the screen, wiggling his eyebrows. “Speaking of booty calls.” He heads up the steps toward the house as he answers, “Hey, baby,” leaving Garrett and I alone on the deck.
I look out across the lake and take a long drag on my beer.
“I’m just not sure if I can do this, D,” I tell him softly. “What the fuck do I know about being anyone’s dad? I don’t know if I have it in me, you know?”
Garrett nods slowly.
“Yeah, I get that. I really do.”
Even back in high school, Garrett always had his shit together. He was the quarterback—steady, solid, consistent—and I was the risk-taking wide receiver who liked to push the limits and go for the big plays. It’s why we made a good team, why we still do. I could kick his ass on an IQ test, but between the two of us—he’s the wise one.
“But the question you have to ask yourself, Dean, is a year from now . . . five, ten, fifteen years from now—how are you ever going to look at yourself in the mirror again, if you don’t do it?”
~ ~ ~
The next afternoon, I’m in the living room, pulling old dusty photo albums out of Gram’s antique bureau. Looking at pictures I haven’t even thought about, let alone seen, in decades.
There’s a Polaroid of my mother on the day I was born, propped up on pillows, holding me wrapped in a light blue blanket—looking like the baby-faced, dark-haired, sixteen year old girl she was when she had me.
Afterward she dropped out of high school, got her GED, then left me with Grams and took off when I was three. She bounced around the country for a while—I only saw her a handful of times—before she finally settled in Vegas about ten years ago.
I turn the page and it’s the standard toddler fare of messy highchair eating and bare-assed bathtub shots. A few pages after that is a picture of me on my first day of kindergarten. I remember Grams taking this one—next to the tree outside Lakeside Elementary. I grin with a gap-toothed smile, and square glasses and a white button down shirt with a Superman backpack slung across my shoulder.
I was a handsome, nerdy little bastard.
Grams shuffles into the living room, holding Lucy in her arms, rubbing a towel on the beast’s damp black fur. On a good day, the cat hates the world, but on bath days she’s especially vengeful. Grams sits on the couch beside me, and Lucy does a little shimmy in her lap. Then she turns around, lifts her tail and shows me her asshole before flouncing away.
Subtle.
“Look at you—such a sweet boy.” Grams leans over, tracing the kindergarten picture with her shaky hand.
I flip through the rest of the pages and there, at the end, not actually in the album, but stuck in the back is a picture of my father.
It’s weird to think of him as my father, because the only image I have of him is this one—when he was younger than most of my students—at the skate park at sunset, smirking into the camera with a sticker-covered skateboard tucked under his arm. Just a boy.
I flick the picture with my finger. “He looks like a punk. A total smartass.”
The kind of kid who’d be parked outside McCarthy’s office every other day. Guaranteed.
Grams confirms my suspicions. “From what I remember, he was quite the little shithead.” But then her voice softens as she looks up at me. “Though he had a part in making you, so he couldn’t have been all bad.”
He was tall for sixteen, and broad, with familiar thick blond hair—but that’s where the likeness ends. Our features are different, the jawline, the nose. I don’t think I look like either of my parents . . . or maybe they just weren’t around long enough for me to pick up on the similarities.
“Did he ever see me?”
“No.” Grams shakes her head. “He was already a dropout when your mother told him she was pregnant. And he hightailed it out of town months before you were born. Left in a van with those friends of his, said they were going surfing in Hawaii or some nonsense.”
I never resented my mother for leaving, not really. On some level, I knew it was the nicest thing she ever did for me. That she just didn’t have it in her to be a real mother. And she knew Grams would take care of me, love me, raise me right.
This dickhead is another story.
“How do you do that? I guess I can understand taking off when he was younger, but when he was an adult—didn’t he ever wonder if I was okay? He would’ve been thirty when I was fourteen.” More than old enough to have grown the hell up. Take responsibility. Fucking care, even a little. “What if I needed a kidney or a blood transfusion? How does someone have a kid out there in the world and just not give a shit?”
Grams pats my hand and shrugs.
“It’s the way people are built, Deany. When the unexpected happens, some are the type to stick around and some head for the nearest exit. If you’re asking that question, you already know which one you are.”
Growing up I used to suspect Grams was psychic. She just knew things. If I snuck in after curfew or smoked weed with the band in the woods, even if she didn’t actually catch me, she knew. I get that same vibe from her now.
“Where’s this coming from, Dean?”
I don’t lie—the woman’s a gray-haired polygraph. But I don’t give her the whole truth, either. Not yet.
“Some stuff has come up that has me thinking, that’s all.”
~ ~ ~
Later, I go for a drive around town. Hitting the drums didn’t help clear my head, but maybe some aimless driving will be just the ticket.
As I head down Main Street, I spot Old Mrs. Jenkins looking like a hunched ball of brown coat as she walks the bouncy caramel-colored Shih Tzu her great-grandkids got her for her ninety-fourth birthday. Mr. Martinez is cleaning the big picture window in the front of his furniture store with a long black squeegee. A group of boys ride their bikes down the sidewalk—and I instantly flash back to the day I learned to ride when I was six. The day I taught myself, bruised elbows and skinned knees galore, because there wasn’t anyone around able and interested enough to do the job.
Then I see Tara Benedict, a girl I went to high school with, pushing her new baby girl in a stroller with one hand and holding her son Joshua’s hand with the other. Josh is Tara’s son with her ex-husband, but he’s not in the picture. He calls her new husband Dad.
All the women I’ve screwed, all the girlfriends I’ve had and broken up with—I was never possessive. Not once. I don’t think I ever cared enough to put in the effort to be jealous.
And yet, when I picture Lainey in Tara’s place, when I think about her raising my soon-to-be kid with some other guy, any other guy—probably a douchebag—one word echoes through me like the screech of an overtightened guitar string that’s ready to snap.
Mine, mine, mine.
Lainey was mine that night—every beautiful inch of her. And the baby we made that night is mine. Ours.
And I feel that, right down to the center of my bones.
The sun is just setting on the west side of the lake, reflecting on the water like an orange ball of fire when I drive down Miller Street and pull into Lainey’s driveway. The wind gusts when I get out of the car—a flock of crispy brown leaves swirl around my feet as I take long, deliberate steps across the lawn.
The song “Shallow” from that Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper movie plays loudly from inside. I hear it as I walk up the steps and across the porch, toward the door in the back.
But I stop when I catch the sight of her through the window. And that aching throb in my chest comes back with a vengeance—a steel-fisted punch right to the heart.
Lainey’s hair falls around her shoulders in long, loose waves. She’s wearing soft gray shorts and a tank top that reveals about an inch of skin just above that rounded little bump. An oversized beige sweater flares out as she spins in a circle—dancing slow and barefoot on the shiny hardwood floor.
And it’s instantaneous—immediate—everything lock
s into place inside me. The free-falling, freaked-out feeling is gone . . . because . . . okay, I may not know what I’m doing—but I know what I want.
I want to be more than my father and better than my mother. I want to be here for her and for them. I don’t want to be a faded fucking picture in the back of an old photo album.
I want to do this, and more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life—I want to be good at it.
I rap my knuckles on the oak wood, so she’ll hear the knock above the music. When Lainey opens the door, she looks up at me, her pink lips parted, her long, pretty lashes blinking around those big gorgeous eyes in a way that makes me want to kiss the hell out of her.
“Dean, hey…”
The music swells from inside the room—two voices singing about diving into the deep end, leaving the safe shallow far, far behind.
And my tone is clear with the simple, unshakeable truth.
“I’m in. I’m all in.”
Chapter Nine
Lainey
I’m in trouble.
“This is so weird.”
“It is. You’re right. Totally weird.”
Dean and Jason are on the back porch steps. Sitting beside each other. Looking out over the lake. Talking. Mano a mano, guy to guy, teacher to student, baby-daddy to son.
“It’s so . . . disappointing.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.”
“How so?”
And I’m in the kitchen peeking out the window and eavesdropping through the crack in the door, like the pregnant creeper I am.
“You’re my favorite teacher ever—”
“That means a lot to me.”
“And now, I find out you’re the guy who . . .” Jay can’t bring himself to say it. Picturing it probably is no picnic either. “That you and my mom—”
“It’s better if you don’t think about it. Just block it out.”
“She’s getting bigger by the day—kind of hard not to think about how that happened.”
“Fair point.”
I think I’ve handled the whole situation well. I’ve been calm, mature, strong and dignified. I meant it when I said I’d be fine doing this on my own—I would’ve been.