The Marriage Pact: A Baby Romance

by Tia Siren

  “God,” I said, pulling my hands through my hair. “I didn’t mean what I said. It was a knee-jerk response. It came out like word vomit.”

  “Then it was exactly what your brain was thinking,” she said. “It’s okay to not want a baby, but this child is going to come, and I don’t need your lack of support stressing me out. I need to know that I am firm in my life and that this toxic thing we have stops.”

  “Cassie, please, you don’t mean that,” I said. “It’s not toxic, just a bit complicated.”

  “That may be true,” she said, shaking her head, “but it doesn’t change what has happened up to this point.”

  “But I love you,” I said, grabbing her arms.

  “Just stop,” she said, pulling away. “Just stop, please. Look, the ball is in your court as far as how much or how little you want to be in this child’s life. I will text you when I find out the dates for all my appointments, and you are more than welcome to come. When the baby is born, you can be there in the delivery room if you would like. It is your child after all. As far as you and I are concerned, it’s over. We can’t be together, not like this. I have to go.”

  I wanted to stop her, but I could see in her eyes that there was no changing her mind. I watched her walk out the door, down the driveway, and get into the Uber waiting out front. I stood in the doorway staring at the car until it disappeared around the corner. I shut the door and leaned against it, sighing loudly and shaking my head. What a disaster. Nothing went as I had wanted it to, absolutely nothing. I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Landon.

  “Hey, dude,” he said.

  “Hey, it’s a 911. I need you to meet me at Murphy’s for drinks,” I said.

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  I grabbed my keys and headed over to the bar, pulling up at the same time as Landon. He smiled at me as we walked inside, my thoughts swirling around in my head. We sat down at the bar, and I ordered us both a beer and a shot.

  “It’s funny you called me,” he said. “I’ve actually been thinking about your ideas a lot lately.”

  “My ideas?” I said, trying to get through the conversation.

  “Yeah, for the hardware store,” he said. “You know, the ones you have been working on since you were a teenager.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said.

  “Yeah. I mean, my job has been pissing me off something fierce lately,” he said. “I went into accounting thinking it would be this awesome job at some big firm with rich clients, but all they give me is quarterly taxes for the self-employed. My boss is a complete idiot, and he doesn’t want to even hear me out about taking larger cases. It’s not going anywhere. I’m not part of the club. I haven’t made any real decisions about your ideas, but it’s definitely something that has been on my mind.”

  “That’s cool,” I said, barely listening.

  “Okay, man, what’s up? I just told you I was thinking about investing in your ideas, and you are acting like I told you what I had for dinner,” he said.

  “Cassie is pregnant,” I said. “She told me over a dinner that her best friend put together to get us in the same room and talking.”

  “Holy shit,” he said with wide eyes.

  “And do you know what my response was? I was stupid and said, ‘Well, this wasn’t part of my plan.’ Which you can obviously guess did not go over very well with her. I was in fucking shock. I didn’t mean it that way, but now she is refusing to even think about a relationship and tells me that I can be there as much as I want for the baby but not her.”

  “Dude, I am still hung up on the part where you are going to be a father,” he said. “That poor kid is going to have your genes.”

  “Come on, man, be serious,” I said, shaking my head. “My whole future is hanging in the balance here. Cassie is the love of my life. How can I just walk away from that? How can I co-parent with someone I know should be with me as a family?”

  “You have got to play this on her timecard, man,” he said. “You can’t keep pushing with words. You have to show her.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Well, for starters, you show up to every single appointment,” he said. “This is going to show her that you are serious about wanting to be in their lives. It’s going to show her that you truly are a good guy. She didn’t stop loving you, but it’s going to take time for her to trust you, and trust isn’t built on words.”

  “You’re right,” I said, taking my shot. “You’re absolutely right. I need to be there every step of the way and show her instead of continuing to have talks that just go in circles. Thank you, man.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he said, tapping his beer against mine. “But seriously, you are going to be a dad. Congratulations.”

  Chapter 28

  Cassie

  After a couple weeks of avoiding my father, I realized I couldn’t ignore him anymore. He had called me the day before and asked if I would have dinner with him. I knew he had noticed I hadn’t been around and had received my texts that I was at Whitney’s house, but he wasn’t stupid; there was obviously something wrong. I sat at the table and looked down at my plate, pushing my food around with my fork. I still couldn’t understand why they would name it “morning sickness” when you felt like complete shit all day every day. They should just call it hell. That would get the point across well enough. I couldn’t wait until I got to my second trimester and all the gross feelings and surging hormones made their way out of my body. I wanted to feel normal again, not like a raging, puking crazy person.

  “I picked this restaurant because I thought it was your favorite,” my father said, looking over at me. “You have barely touched your food. Why aren’t you eating?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not feeling too well.”

  “We could have postponed,” he said.

  “No. It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll have them box it up and take it home for later.”

  “The site is coming along well,” he said. “Of course, you would know that if you had been showing up recently. Bill says you kind of disappeared and haven’t called or anything. I have to say, your disappearance at work and at home have me a little worried about you.”

  “I’m fine, Dad,” I said. “I needed to sit down and do some thinking, really understand who I am and what I want out of life.”

  “Ah,” he said, shaking his head. “The old early-twenties soul searching. And what have you come up with?”

  “Well, I think I have decided that I want to take a year off school,” I blurted out. “I want the opportunity to think about what I want out of life, where I want to go, what I want to do, and how I am going to get there. I think it’s important I have those goals locked down before spending any more money on an education.”

  “But you have a path,” he said, putting down his fork. “You were going to become an engineer for the company, then gradually step up as I got closer to retirement. Your mother and I have talked to you about this for years.”

  “You have,” I said. “Mother is never around.”

  “Well, you know she has her own mind now that you are older,” he said, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t been home, or called, in nearly six months.

  “Regardless,” I said, “construction is not for me. It just isn’t. I’m sorry, Daddy, but that was your dream, your company, and I really tried to give it my all, to get excited, but it makes me miserable most of the time.”

  “That is why they call it work, dear,” he said, not taking me seriously. “There are few people in this world who get to do what they love, Cassie, and even those people have days where they hate their jobs. This is the family business.”

  “Dad, you aren’t taking me seriously,” I said. “I mean it. I want to take a year off from school. I want to decide, on my terms, what it is that I want to do with my life. If it ends up being the company, great. But if not, I need to know that.”

  “All right,” he said, looking at me. “What do you need from
me?”

  “Financial security,” I said point blank. “I don’t have enough experience to do anything worthwhile, and I was hoping you would be willing to continue to support me financially for that time period.”

  He chuckled. “It always comes down to the dollar. I would never put you out on the street, Cassie, but eventually, if you are going to go your own way, you will have to learn how to support yourself.”

  “I know, Daddy,” I said, laying it on thick. “I just need this time. It’s important.”

  He sighed reluctantly. “All right. We will sit down next week and go over the allotment I will give you.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “A smile.” He chuckled. “That’s new these days. You have been sheltered away from me and the world for most of the summer. Are you sure there isn’t anything else going on with you?”

  “No. Nothing,” I lied. “I have had my head in other places and needed the time and space to work it all out. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions or make a rash decision, so I took the time to think it through.”

  “Well, at least I know something I taught you has stuck,” he said. “Now, for the matter of your internship, I am going to sign off on it anyway. That way if you decide to return to the engineering program, regardless of what field you decide to go into, you will have it completed.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said with a nod.

  Instantly, I felt terrible for not being truthful with him, especially since he was taking my change of heart with such class and dignity. I just didn’t have the nerve to tell him the truth. I knew he wouldn’t react in the same manner he did over the change in career. I wanted to revel in the finite moments where we weren’t butting heads and he was acting like a dad and not a warden. That, and I was terrified of what he would say.

  Just knowing how he had reacted when he found out Scott and I were sleeping together made me think he would lose his mind if he knew I was pregnant with Scott’s child. He would kill him, literally kill him, and that was the last thing I needed. His judgments were harsh enough, but the punishment for the crime of doing something outside his order of things was not something I wanted to experience, not yet at least. I wanted to be secure in myself before I took on that emotional roller coaster.

  When dinner was over, I thanked my father and gave him a hug, just glad to have survived the evening. I grabbed an Uber and headed over to Whitney’s house. She was waiting on me to finish up with my dad, thinking that I was going to tell him about the baby, but I had chickened out. As the car drove along, I stared out the window at the mountains in the Colorado skyline. I rarely took time anymore to just be there, to be present in my own surroundings. My mind was always blasting through at a million miles a minute, and there was always so much drama going on in my life. It was nice to be still for a moment, to take in the silence in the car. Of course, that silence only lasted until I walked into Whitney’s house.

  “So, how did it go?” she asked.

  “I didn’t tell him,” I said. “I chickened out and told him I wanted a year off from school instead. He took it pretty well, so I figured that was enough to spring on him in one night.”

  “You okay?”

  “No,” I said. “I miss Scott, plain and simple. I miss that man every second of the day. I think about him when I wake up, all day long, and when I go to bed at night. I’m tired of the drama, of the fighting, of the forcing myself to stay away from him when he is standing there begging me to take him back.”

  “You need to tell your dad you are pregnant,” Whitney said. “When he knows that it’s Scott’s baby, then the secret is out, and he has no real way of preventing you and him from being together.”

  I scoffed. “You don’t know my father.”

  “But at least then you could be free to make your own choices,” she said. “You can take the time to think about what you want and make it happen, and not on your father’s watch. He is the one thing standing in the way of you being completely at peace with this child, Cassie. Until he knows, you won’t ever feel comfortable with any of this.”

  “Telling my father scares me even more than opening up to Scott,” I said. “At least with Scott, I know what I could possibly expect, but my father is going to lose it.”

  “At first,” Whitney said. “But we talked about this. Eventually he will come around. He will want to be in that baby’s life. What about your mom?”

  “You mean the woman who had maids and nannies raise me and then went jet-setting all over the world when I went to college? Yeah, she doesn’t care,” I said. “And she has no pull with my father. She never has. His word is stone. I’m terrified. After what he did when he found out about Scott and me in the first place, what he will do to him with this information? On top of that, my father, brute and mean as he is, is still the only true parent I have. I am terrified that this is going to completely break our relationship. I don’t want to lose my father in all of this. He is a damn stubborn man, and he will be until his last breath.”

  “You have some serious issues with conversation,” Whitney said. “I’m pretty sure I am the only person in the world you feel comfortable telling anything to.”

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “So, even if your dad disappears off the map, life will still go on,” she said. “You will still have a child to raise, a career to find, and a life to live—one that should be what you want, not what everyone else wants. If you want a family with Scott, a happily ever after with him, then you have to get over this fear of conversation. Otherwise, you will be torn apart because you can’t have an earnest talk with the father of your child. At that point, it is no longer his fault; it is yours. He is willing to talk, to do pretty much anything you need to be okay with being together, but you keep running in the opposite direction.”

  “God,” I said, groaning as I plopped down on the couch. “I know. I know you’re right about this. I know my fear of talking things out has sprung from my father, and it’s now affecting everything else in my life. But I just don’t know how to handle it. After the other night, I don’t know if Scott will even want to talk to me now. I pretty much told him it was too late for a relationship. I mean, how many times can I say that before he finally gives up?”

  “I don’t know,” Whitney said, sitting down next to me. “But you don’t want to wait to find that out.”

  I nodded and leaned back, feeling even more upset and confused than before. If I went to him now with my heart in my hands, there was a good chance he would crush it. If I didn’t, though, I would never know if we could have been the happy family I really did want with him.

  Chapter 29

  Scott

  I felt better. I didn’t know why, but after my talk with Landon, I felt like there was hope for a future with my child and possibly even Cassie. I went to work with a bit of a new lease on life, getting through my work, thinking about the future of my child, and the future that we could all have as a family. When lunchtime came, I couldn’t wait any longer. I picked up my phone and walked off the site to a more private area and called her. I expected to get her voice mail, but to my surprise, she picked up the phone.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hey,” I said, standing up straight. “I didn’t think you would answer.”

  “I told you I would communicate with you for the baby, so I am answering,” she said. There was something lighter in her tone.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Nauseous, tired, emotional,” she said. “All the things I’m supposed to be feeling, and I am miserable because of it. But all in all, I’m surviving, and that’s a good thing I suppose.”

  “I’m sorry you are feeling bad,” I said. “Are you working?”

  “I’m trying to get through the internship.” She sighed. “My father said he would sign off on it either way, but I feel obligated to do it. I don’t want to be handed something like that if I didn’t earn it.”

  “That’s good, though I thin
k I’d understand if you wanted to rest,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, it is what it is.”

  “I’m on my lunch break, but I was calling to see what time your appointment is on Friday,” I said. “I’d really like to be there if that is okay with you.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I meant it that you could be at any appointment you wanted.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “It’s at nine that morning,” she said. “I’ll text you the address so you can meet me there.”

  “Do you want me to pick you up?”

  “No. I’ll be okay,” she said. “Probably better that you don’t. I don’t know what my father’s schedule is. I’ll just meet you there.”

  I really wanted to push it, but I knew I shouldn’t. If I was going to work my way back into her life, I would need to let her make the choices. I would always offer, but I needed to respect her answer and not pressure her. Having her be in the car alone with me would be perfect, but I figured there was plenty of time for that. I needed to gain her trust before making any other moves. We had a relationship that went from zero to sixty in five seconds flat, and that obviously didn’t work out too well for us. Maybe slowing things down would help the situation.

  “I’ll put in for time off then when I get back to work,” I said. “They’re pretty liberal with that kind of stuff since there is always someone looking for hours, so it shouldn’t be any problem at all.”

  “Cool,” she said. “How do you like it over there?”

  “It’s been great so far. No drama, just me coming to work, working, and then going home,” I said. “There’s no bullshit with the crew over here, and most of them are pretty seasoned.”

  “I wish I could say the same for over here. Still a bunch of idiots with big mouths.”

  I chuckled. “I’m pretty sure they will always be like that. It’s ingrained in them from birth by their fathers.”

  “I’d like to have a word with their fathers then,” she joked dryly. “Maybe they can teach them how to actually get a job done instead of fucking around all the time on the site. I can’t wait until this whole internship is over with.”