Tuesday
I glanced at the time on my phone, the clock creeping far too quickly for comfort. “Jamey!” I shouted. “Get dressed!”
I watched as he ran up the stairs at lightning speed, his pajama pants swishing about his ankles. I didn’t have time to take him to my mom’s, he was going to have to come to work with me. I’d only had to do it once before and thankfully my coworkers took him in shifts, but I hated the idea of putting that on them without warning. If Sophie wasn’t going to come, it was my last resort.
“Daddy! Can I wear my superhero suit?” Jamey called from the top of the stairs.
“No, bud, come on. Just put on some shorts and a shirt. We gotta go.”
He pouted as he turned, and I realized at that moment that trying to get a four-year-old to respect the idea of being late was just impossible. I stepped toward the stairs, fully anticipating a showdown while just simply trying to get him dressed, but the moment my hand touched the banister, the doorbell rang out. My saving grace. My green light.
I yanked the door open, relief washing over me as Sophie blinked at me. “I thought you weren’t coming,” I said, moving to the side to let her through. “I was going to take him to the office.”
She rolled her eyes as she stepped into the house, kicking off her slippers by the mat. “Just because you and I are arguing doesn’t mean I’m going to punish Jamey. It’s not his fault that his dad’s an ass.”
Ouch. I deserved that. “That’s fair. I’m sorry—”
She held up one hand, silencing me. “I don’t want to hear it. Go to work. You’re going to be late.”
“Sophie, come on. I know I fucked up. Just let me apologize.”
“Nope,” she said, popping the p. “Go.”
I bit my lip as I checked the time again. Fine. If she wasn’t going to hear me out then I might as well leave it, even though she was being annoyingly stubborn. I’d try again this evening. I’d try again tomorrow. I’d keep trying until she finally fucking believed that I wanted to be involved without messing up her life.
————
Work was slow and tiresome. Not enough to keep me busy, not enough to keep my mind away from Sophie, the argument, and the baby. I just wanted to apologize. Why wouldn’t she let me? Why did she have to be so damn stubborn?
The door to my office opened, stealing my attention away from my racing mind. I clicked out of whatever I’d absentmindedly opened on my computer as I looked toward the door. Shit. Jannie and Steven. I hadn’t even checked my calendar to see who was coming in; I really should have been more prepared for the couple who had been coming to me the longest.
“Hi, Dr. Brady,” Jannie said, sidestepping her husband and plopping down into one of the chairs. “Today’s the day.”
“One second.” I flashed her a quick smile as I clicked through my documents on the computer, pulling up the notes for her appointment on my screen. Final appointment, I’d written. No more rounds of IVF after this. Last pregnancy test. I swiveled back around to her. “Indeed it is, Jannie. Nice to see you, Steven.”
I pulled open a drawer, fishing around inside of it for a pregnancy test instead of sending her off with the nurses to have one done. If it was going to be her last one, I wanted it to not have all the horrible connotations that had gone along with each one she’d had previously. The likelihood was sure to be the same, but I wanted her to be comfortable, to ideally not be expecting the worst.
“Here,” I said, offering the plastic-wrapped test to her as well as a clear cup for her urine. “Why don’t you go test in the bathroom and bring it back here to develop?”
She bit her lip, her eyes latched onto my outstretched hand, and slowly, her mouth spread into a smile. “I don’t need to,” she said calmly as she leaned back in the chair, one hand coming to rest on her stomach. “I tested myself this morning. I’m pregnant.”
Steven grinned as he looked at his wife, his eyes practically shining, and as I watched him I couldn’t help but wish that was the reaction I’d had when I’d found out that Sophie was pregnant. Maybe things wouldn’t be where they are now if I hadn’t come home guns-a-blazing. “That’s… amazing. I’m so happy for you guys.” Lie. Well, it wasn’t a lie exactly, it was more that I couldn’t fucking focus enough to actually be genuinely happy for them. Every time I tried, my thoughts drifted back to Sophie, to the mystery of what our future held, to our current argument. And every time that happened, the sinking feeling in my gut that I was beginning to potentially be falling for her became more intense, more overwhelming. There was no other reason that I’d care this much that she was upset with me.
I needed to make things right once and for all.
————
“I’m really sorry to have to ask you this, but is there any chance you can watch Jamey for an extra hour today?” I said to Sophie’s name brightly lit on my car’s display. Traffic wasn’t horrible despite the rain, but I needed extra time. I needed to think, and I needed advice.
“That’s fine,” she said, her voice sounding tinny through the speakers of my Mercedes. “I’ll make Jamey dinner.”
“No, don’t worry about that. I’ll grab something to bring home for both of you. You can take it back to your house if you want. Just hang out with him or something, okay? I’ll be home soon.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Sophie.”
“Bye, Hudson.”
I hung up the call as I turned into Nathan’s neighborhood, the slender, tall townhouses taking up the majority of the land. It was a nice area of Boston. We’d gotten into a lot of spats back in college about who would become wealthier once our careers were established but we were such close friends that those silly bets became a moot point.
Pulling into his driveway, I placed the car in park and pushed the door open, not caring if I got wet from the absolute torrential downpour. I raced up the curved walkway toward his front door, thinking to myself that I should have called first, probably should have warned him. Oh well. Hopefully, I wouldn’t get trapped here all night catching up with the whole family.
I rang the bell. My anxiety released its hold on me as Nathan opened the door, and before he could call out to his wife or kids, I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him out under the covered awning of his front porch, shutting the door behind him.
“What the fuck—?”
“Listen,” I said, my voice a little loud over the sound of the rain. “You were right. You were fucking right, okay? I think there’s something there between me and Sophie.”
“Well, obviously,” he drawled, and I dropped my hold on his shirt.
“What do I do?”
He raised one comical eyebrow at me. “What do you mean?”
“How do I make it go away?” I pressed, taking a step closer to him. My heart was already racing from the admission, hammering so hard in my chest that I could hear it in my ears. “I don’t need this, Nathan. What do I do?”
He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, but closed it a second later, his eyes looking me up and down. I was damp, my scrubs almost soaked through, my hair a soggy mess. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Sophie like this. “You can’t do anything about it, man,” Nathan mumbled, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him over the pouring rain and the thumping in my head. “You have to feel it or get her out of your life.”
“You know I can’t do either of those.”
“Those are your only options, Huds. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck,” I groaned, pushing one hand through my hair to get the dripping strands off of my face. “I can’t deal with this. It’s going to drive me insane. But I can’t let her go, either. Not when I have these feelings, not when she’s carrying my child.”
“Tell her, then,” he said, the words falling so easily from his lips as if telling her was the easiest thing in the world. “What are you afraid of? If she’s going to be in your life, you’re going to have to tell her eventually. You can’t run from it forever, and you can’t keep it bottled up.”
“Absolutely not,” I scoffed. “What if she doesn’t feel the same? Or worse, what if she does? I can’t go through it all again, Nate. I can’t do what I did with Becks. I can’t.”
Nathan shrugged, the sleeve of his dress shirt clinging to his arm from where it stuck out into the rain. “This is something you have to figure out yourself. I can’t do it for you. I’m not in your head, man, but I think you should tell her. The benefits outweigh the risks.”
“I can’t just—”
“Huds, respectfully, I’m in the middle of cooking dinner and my roux is certainly burned now. I need to go back in. You’re welcome to join us for dinner, but I can’t promise you’ll get out of here very quickly.”
————
I parked my car in the garage again. My leather seat was soaked and soggy, my ass collecting the majority of the water that slid down my skin as I drove home, leaving me sitting in a horribly warm puddle.
I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to make things even harder between us, not when they were already so difficult, but fuck, what else could I do? It seemed the more time I spent with her, the harder things got. And the amount of time spent with her was only going to increase.
I pushed the car door open and grabbed the bag of Chinese I’d picked up, hopped out into the oil-fumed garage, and made my way inside.
“Hey,” Sophie called from the kitchen, her head poking around the corner. “I got the table set for you guys. Jamey’s upstairs changing into his pajamas.”
“Thanks,” I sighed, kicking off my damp shoes and socks and padding across the wood floor, each step making a wet thwap. “I got you chow mein and some egg-drop soup. Hope that’s okay.”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks, Hudson.”
I met her gaze as I started pulling out the boxes of food. Her blue eyes shone far too brightly, her freckled skin so perfect that I just wanted to plant my lips on it. Her brown hair was swooped up and away from her face, sitting high on her head in a messy bun. No Harvard hoodie today. Just leggings and a tight-fitting shirt, showing off every inch of her curves.
Suddenly, it was as if a switch flipped in my mind—the thought of not telling her how I felt hurt more. I didn’t want to keep it in, I wanted to let it fall from my tongue, I wanted to explain everything.
But the words just wouldn’t come out. So I watched her leave, out into the rain, her chow mein and soup clutched to her chest, leaving me alone in my house with my son and my far too warm heart.
