While I was cooking up what crude thing I wanted to do to her next, the phone rang. I froze, and so did she. I knew without answering who it was—and so did she. It was early here, which meant it must’ve been dawn in California. I wanted to wait until tonight to talk to Tiffany, until we were face to face, but I owed her at least a quick conversation before I got on the plane.
Later. Now wasn’t the time.
We stilled until the ringing stopped. Lake’s expression had fallen, and I didn’t want the countdown to the flight to start just yet. I dropped my hand to my stomach. “Come sit down and let me do ‘that thing’ with my mouth,” I said, teasing her.
“If you insist,” she said, a smile spreading over her face. She started to step off me, but I grabbed her ankle. “Where are you going?”
“To sit like you said.”
“Why over there?” I asked, pulling her down. “My mouth is right here.”
18
Manning
It was just after ten in the morning, and I’d already worn Lake out again. She’d fallen asleep on my chest forty-five minutes earlier and had barely stirred. I’d have to start packing for the airport soon, but for now I was content to stay here and run my hand from the base of her spine up to her neck and back. She had the smoothest skin and baby fine hairs, with random freckles that reminded me of the constellations Maddy had taught me when we were kids.
Lake looked so fucking peaceful that when the phone rang, I grabbed it without thinking so it wouldn’t disturb her. She woke anyway and now I was pinned under her with what was likely Tiffany on the line.
I cleared my throat and brought the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello?” Tiffany said. “That’s all you have to say? I’ve been calling and calling. Where have you been?”
Lake furrowed her eyebrows up at me. I smoothed my hand over her hair and said, “Yeah, I’m sorry, Tiff. Hold on a sec.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked.
I put my hand over the receiver as Lake got up. “Give us a minute,” I whispered.
She nodded, wrapping a blanket around her as she ducked into the bathroom and shut the door. I watched her go, hoping last night was the breakthrough Lake and I needed to be able to talk about this. I’d need to lean on her a lot in the coming months.
I picked up the phone again. “Hey. I’m here.”
“I’ve been worried, Manning. I call late at night and there’s no answer. I called you over an hour ago and you weren’t there.”
“I was here,” I said. “Sleeping.”
“At nine in the morning? Since when do you sleep in?” Her voice pitched as if she’d already had several cups of coffee. “And that doesn’t explain the rest of the week.”
I rubbed the inside corners of my eyes. “I know.” I didn’t have an explanation, and I didn’t want to lie to Tiffany so I just said, “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy?” Her voice broke. That jarred me into waking up.
I sat against the headboard, keeping my voice down so Lake wouldn’t have to hear this. “What’s the matter?”
“I was so excited to talk to you. I called and called, and now I just feel … so stupid.”
“Stupid why?” I asked.
“You’ve been unreachable practically all week. Thank God Daddy said you’d been to your meetings or else I would’ve flown out there.”
“You’re exaggerating,” I said, my hands sweating at just the prospect.
“Am I? Or have you been avoiding me?” She got strangely quiet, and I fucking knew it was coming as she took her next breath. “Is it because you—is she …”
Fuck. Now I was wide awake. This was the exact reason I hadn’t wanted to pick up her call. If Tiffany chose now to voice her suspicions about Lake, after all the years we’d swept my feelings for her under the rug, we were about to have a brutal conversation over the phone. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, leaning my elbows on my knees. “Tiff, I …” I started. “Can we talk about this when I get back?”
“No.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
She paused, the familiar sounds of Good Morning America in the background. I could picture her curled up on our eggshell-colored sectional from Robinsons-May with a cup of coffee before getting ready for work. “I want you to say you’re coming home tonight.”
I inhaled. “I’m coming home, but—”
“Then never mind. It isn’t stupid.” The TV went quiet, as if she’d muted it. “I don’t want to start things off on a bad foot. Come home, and we’ll put all that, we’ll put New York, behind us.”
I sighed longingly at my jeans, which hung on the back of the desk chair with a pack of smokes sticking out of the pocket. “Start what off, Tiffany? I still have to pack. Can I call you from the airport once I’ve woken—”
“Manning, babe, listen.” She took an audible breath and then squealed the way she had when she’d gotten her promotion and slid down our tile hallway in socks. Stunned, I pulled my ear away from the phone at the same moment she said, “I’m pregnant.” The shrieking continued as she teased, “That’s what I’ve been calling to tell you, you big dummy.”
With the phone a safe distance from my ringing ear, I swore I’d misheard her. All the baby talk last night had gone straight to my head. “You’re what?” I asked.
“We’re having a baby, Manning.”
This time, I heard her loud and clear, bolting up so fast, I dropped the receiver and had to chase after it. I nearly tripped over the coiled wire, and as I picked the phone back up she was saying, “… believe it? You’re going to be a dad, just like you wanted.”
What hit me first was a sense of pride—my baby, I was going to be a dad—but in the next moment came the crushing realization that this wasn’t right. Tiffany was on the other end of the line, not my Lake, who was in the bathroom, preparing to jump off a cliff into a future with me. It was a baby I’d once wanted, still wanted, a beautiful blessing, a chance to atone for my father’s wrongs—and the one thing that could truly come between Lake and me.
“How … how is that possible?” Not only was Tiffany on birth control, but since I’d found out I was coming to New York, we’d hardly been intimate. I lowered my voice as I searched the tangled sheets for my underwear. I couldn’t have this conversation naked. “You can’t be pregnant.”
“I can and I am,” she said, her mood dimming. “Birth control’s not a hundred percent effective. You know that.”
“The fuck it isn’t,” I said. “We’ve been together over four years and suddenly it isn’t effective?”
She went from joyful to distraught in the flip of a switch. Any other time I would’ve rolled my eyes, but I could decipher Tiffany’s fake crying from the real deal, and this was the latter. “You asshole.”
“I’m sorry.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to wrap my head around this. All night I’d talked about wanting to have a kid. I didn’t want one just because it was around the right time in my marriage for that kind of thing. It’d been ingrained in me to take care of others from the time Maddy was born. She’d been six years younger than me, and I’d grown up protecting her—not just in a general sense, but sometimes literally, keeping my dad away from her. Or so I’d thought.
I couldn’t find my underwear, so I pulled on my jeans instead and got my cigarettes from the pocket. “I didn’t mean to curse at you,” I said into the phone. “I’m just … shocked.”
“That’s not why I’m crying. You’re whispering,” she accused. “Why? Is someone there?”
Shit. Fuck. I took the phone as far as the cord would allow and leaned back against the windowsill, facing the closed bathroom door. All I could think was fuck fuck fuck. Tiffany wanted to know if there was someone in my hotel room? Damn right there was. Lake, my beautiful, delicate bird, whose hopes and dreams were pinned on me. The love of my life, who I’d probably never deserved, and whom I definitely didn’t now. I was g
oing to be a father. I thought I’d gotten to a place where I could really do that designation justice—but how could I deserve one and not the other? I put the phone between my shoulder and ear and lit my cigarette with an unsteady hand. “Tiff, stop crying.”
“I can’t. I tell you I’m pregnant and you yell at me.”
The more she said pregnant, the more real it felt. The less control I had over the situation. “Have you been to a doctor?”
“Yes. With my mom. Do you think I’d call if I wasn’t sure?”
“Yeah, I do. Six fucking months ago, you were convinced you had skin cancer and let me think that until you admitted you hadn’t been to a dermatologist yet. Tell me, Tiffany—did you have cancer?”
“No, but—”
“You told me last year you were getting fired just so I’d come home early from a work trip.”
“We’ve been over this a hundred times,” she said. “I honestly thought I was getting fired! But this time, Manning, it’s true, and I’m sorry you’re so mad—” Her breath hitched. “I’m sorry you find it so awful.”
“I don’t find it awful.” My stomach churned, and I pulled the cig out of my mouth. Might’ve been the first time in history one made me want to puke. That was a sign. Stop smoking. I’d have to with a baby on the way. I watched it burn down. “Of course I’m not mad. I just don’t understand how it happened. We had a plan, and the timing is all off, so tell me—how did this happen?”
“I …” She stuttered, her voice breaking again. “I stopped taking birth control. You said we could start trying—”
“I didn’t say we could start—what I specifically said was that—” I took a drag of my cigarette. Even if it was making me ill, smoking was the thing that calmed me quickest, and I needed to get my fucking head right before Lake came out here. “I said after the remodel, next year, spring at the very absolute earliest.” I cursed. “I said we could once we were able to pad our nest egg.”
“But then there’d be some other expense or reason not to do it. We’re ready now. You know we are. And once it settles in, you’ll thank me, Manning. Who cares if it was a year or so early? Five, ten years down the line, you won’t care.”
It wasn’t one or five or ten years from now. There was only this moment, and it had come too early. For Lake, I had come too late. I’d never been able to get the timing right with her. If there was one thing about Lake and me that persisted, it was that—bad timing. It was this. Finding out I was going to be a father—and realizing Lake would never forgive me for it.
I got up and paced, beyond giving a fuck that it was a non-smoking room. Despite the cold coming in from the window, my hairline sweat. I thought about leaning outside and vomiting. The faucet ran in the bathroom. I needed to reverse my life to ten minutes ago, to Lake sleeping on my chest, trusting me. To when my life had finally been about to start. With that thought came a crushing guilt no man should bear. I was having a kid. How I could have just fucking wished that away? I grabbed my hair in a fist. “You should’ve told me you were stopping the birth control,” I said. “When was this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Spit it out.”
“A few months ago. September maybe.”
“September what?” I pushed. “When in September?”
She knew what I was getting at. With a contrite sigh, she said, “The beginning of the month.”
Of course. That was exactly when I’d submitted a formal request with Ainsley-Bushner to come to New York. Tiffany knew, deep down, what Lake meant to me. She’d done this on purpose. “Christ, Tiffany.”
“Are you pissed?” she asked.
The tremor in her voice stopped me from accusing her of going behind my back. She knew what she’d done. It was just like Tiffany to feel trapped and lash out however she could, not caring about who got hurt, as long as it wasn’t her. Regardless, she was carrying my baby. “I’m a lot of things,” I said. “But pissed isn’t the right word.”
The door opened and Lake poked her head out, quizzing me with her eyebrows as she leaned on the doorjamb. I forgot to breathe, noting how she’d washed her face pink and fresh, how her eyes were no longer puffy from crying last night.
“Get dressed,” I quietly choked out. This conversation would strip us both in lots of ways, and I needed her to be covered up. She came out to pick through her clothing, which was all over the place.
“I have to go,” I told Tiffany. “I’m getting in tonight, so I’ll just get a car. We can … I don’t know. We’ll talk when I get home.”
“I really was excited to tell you earlier in the week. I just got so worried when you didn’t pick up.” Her voice lightened. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you happy?”
I couldn’t speak. I wanted to be a father, just not this way. Saying I wasn’t happy about it wouldn’t be right, but I couldn’t think of anything worse in that moment than breaking the news to Lake. “Yeah.”
“Then say it, Manning. I thought you’d be so excited to get this call, I was so certain you wanted this, and now I don’t know what to think. I’d feel so much better hearing you say we’re having a baby, honey.”
I shook my head, looking at the floor, wanting to die on the spot. “I can’t.”
“Please. I need this. You don’t know how stressed I’ve been trying to reach you.” She sniffled. “Once you say it aloud, it’ll sink in, and you won’t be mad anymore—I just know it.”
Bullshit. Tiffany knew exactly what she was doing. Lake was still naked from the waist up, twisted to inspect the seat of her jeans before she buttoned them up. Well, what the fuck. I had to tell Lake somehow, and Tiffany wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted. That was a lesson I thought I’d learned long ago, but it was never truer than in this moment.
I took a deep drag on my cigarette and put it out on the ledge, bracing myself to break Lake’s heart again. “We’re having a baby.”
19
Lake
The back of my jeans was still a bit damp from the snow, but I figured Manning and I were headed to my place anyway. He had to check out from the hotel and his flight wasn’t for a few more hours. I wondered if he had any meetings today, but if so, maybe it didn’t much matter if he skipped them considering he’d be done with the job as soon as he told Tiffany the truth.
That was what I was thinking as I buttoned up my jeans and heard Manning say, “We’re having a baby.”
I glanced up to find him staring at me. The darkness in his eyes struck me first, then how he looked physically pained, sick even, when he swallowed.
A baby? I wondered. Whose baby? What was happening?
Ash from his cigarette had fallen onto his thigh. He hadn’t put it out completely, and a thin trail of smoke disappeared out the window.
He dropped the phone to his side. Slowly, the truth started to pierce the bubble I’d been subconsciously protecting the past few seconds. He’d been on the phone with Tiffany. She’d been trying to reach him for days. He wheezed as if he’d just been sucker punched. The silence made everything surreal, the air so thick that I put my hand around my throat, as if I were choking. I stood still so long that I got dizzy.
It was Tiffany. It was their baby.
The phone started to honk and he hung it up, breaking the stillness in the room. “Lake, listen—”
“Don’t.” The sharpness in my voice surprised even me. “Don’t say it.”
“I have to. Come here, Lake.”
My head pounded. Heat burned up my chest into my cheeks. I’d never been able to think straight around him. Never. Had no control around him. Not even a little. I held the heels of my palms to my temples. “I can’t.”
“That was your sister.” His pants were still undone, and his stomach flexed as he stood from the windowsill. “She’s pregnant.”
I died a little inside. That statement killed off any part of me that was hoping I’d misunderstood. I put a han
d up. “Don’t come over here.” I realized that I, too, was topless. I covered my breasts and stepped back, nearly tripping over my duffel bag. My things were strewn on the ground from when I’d dumped them out last night like an impulsive, stupid child. That was what I was. Reckless. Childish. So incredibly naïve to think this could ever work. I put on the t-shirt closest to me, and of course it was Manning’s and it smelled like him, which choked me up.
I got to my knees, grabbing my stupid pink pajamas to shove them in my bag, even though I’d just as soon leave them behind.
“What are you doing?” Manning asked.
Leave. I wanted him to leave. I wanted to leave. I couldn’t even form the word, just kept packing whatever was nearest.
“Lake,” he said, as if saying my name over and over and over would change anything. He came and tried to get the duffel from me. “Stop it.”
“You stop it.” I stood and shoved him away, but didn’t move. “Don’t touch me or my things.”
“I’m as shocked as you are.”
I’d lost him. Again. I’d thought I’d had everything—I’d told him I loved him, not hours ago. I’d never really had him, though, and deep down, I’d known that. Whose fault was it that I’d let him convince me otherwise? “You made me say it,” I said, unable to stop the sobs from breaking through. “You made me tell you I love you.” I threw my weight into my next attempt to budge him, but he stayed put, even as I pushed and pushed. “I got fired for you. I introduced you to my friends. I ignored Corbin to make you happy. And Val, she warned me—she knew this would happen.”
He grabbed my wrists finally, wrestling me against a wall. Locking my forearms over my chest with one hand, he covered my mouth with the other. “Calm down or they’ll think I’m hurting you.”
He loomed over me, larger than life, blocking out everything but him. I couldn’t look at him while he did this to me again. I twisted my head side to side, bucking my entire body to get him off me. “You are hurting me,” I snapped. “You’re always hurting me.”
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