Wednesday
The events of last night sat heavy in my mind for the remainder of the evening, continuing to linger into the morning, taking up every waking moment of my thoughts. Hudson had that look about him again, that one where he seemed like he desperately wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get the words out, and at this point, it was beginning to become frustrating. If he had something to say, I’d rather he just say it.
The sound of the door opening pulled me away from the Lego set Jamey and I were building. “Just a sec, bud,” I said to him, lifting myself to my feet and feeling the tightness in my lower back. As I stepped around the corner, Hudson shut the door behind him, his scrubs dry and crisp in comparison to last night. I didn’t know how much longer we were going to be awkward around each other, sidestepping the problem until both of us forgot. I was already tired of it.
“Hey,” he sighed. I watched as he placed his keys on the entryway table, the way his hand opened and closed, the ligature that sprung to life beneath his skin. I hated looking at him. He was too perfect, too handsome, too well-built that it was infuriating rather than intoxicating. In another situation it would have been exhilarating.
“Hi.” I bit my lip as my gaze wandered lower, along the ridges of his abdomen and past the way his pants were a little too tight around his hips and the why between them. “How was work?”
“Fine.” He looked around me, toward the living room. “Where’s my little guy?”
I chuckled. “He’s very invested in his Lego set right now. Honestly, I’m thankful you’re home. My back was starting to kill me from being on the floor for so long.”
He smiled lightly as he stepped around me. “Take some acetaminophen. Lower back pain is quite common in the first trimester.”
I shoved him lightly with my shoulder, knocking him slightly off course, liking the calm that had overtaken the awkwardness. “Thanks, Dr. Brady.”
————
“I’m pregnant.”
The glass of wine in her hand nearly dropped, and I reached out to steady her fingers around the stem. “What?”
“I’m pregnant,” I repeated, unable to contain the little smile forming on my lips. It felt so good to say it properly to someone who didn’t know.
“I…” Lisa’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, entirely lost for words. “I’m… happy for you. I just didn’t expect it to be this quick.”
“Well, I haven’t even started IVF,” I admitted, watching the way her shoulders shifted beneath the fabric of her white blouse, wondering if she’d catch on or if it would go right over her head. “So it’s a surprise to me, too.”
She nodded as she sipped her wine, her eyes lost in a daze somewhere behind my head, off toward her kitchen. The couch we sat on was one she’d gotten from a thrift store three years ago, and no matter how many times I’d offered to buy her a new one because the springs were going, she resisted. “How far along are you?”
“Four, five weeks maybe. It’s early. There’s still a chance things can go wrong, so don’t go off telling everyone.”
“Wait a minute.” Her gaze found me again, her eyes narrowing. “I thought you weren’t going to the sperm bank anymore.”
“I’m not.” The glass of water in my hand was suddenly incredibly interesting, and I watched the way the ripples moved across the surface, blotting out as they reached the edges.
“So…”
“Yeah.”
“No,” she gasped, her eyes going wide. “No way. Tell me it isn’t your sexy neighbor’s.”
I nodded, lifting the glass to my lips and taking a sip. Fuck, I was going to miss wine. I already did. “It’s Hudson’s, yeah.”
“Oh my god, Sophie. Are you okay with that? Have you told him?”
“Yeah, of course he knows. I think he’s excited about it, actually. He said he wants to be involved through all of it,” I explained, my finger scrubbing the side of the glass and leaving a trail devoid of condensation. “As for how I’m feeling about it, I honestly don’t know. It’s a lot, and it’s not what I’d envisioned when I started all this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’d planned on being a single mother, not knowing who the father was. I planned on doing it all myself, and now I have this man involved, this man who is a wonderful father, a stable provider, a genuinely nice person, and I still don’t know how I feel about it. I should be more excited, right? I mean, I am about the baby of course, but having it with Hudson has made things so different from what I originally planned.”
She shifted herself, turning toward me on the couch, and part of me wanted to just burst into tears when she took my hand in hers. “Sophie. I am so happy for you, honestly, and I don’t want you to think that what I’m going to say means that I’m not. But I think a lot of this might be because deep down, you do have feelings for him. Feelings you maybe can’t admit to yourself yet. I think that scares you because he’s cemented in your life now.”
I fucking hated when she was right.
She hit the nail on the damn head, explaining every bit of frustration and stress that had surrounded my worry about Hudson being involved. It explained why I wanted to push him away at every opportunity, why I had to fight myself to not tell him he couldn’t be a father to this baby. Why did she have to be right?
“You’re right,” I sighed, leaning back onto the sofa as I watched her eyes turn softer, more sympathetic. “But I highly doubt he feels the same. He’s said multiple times that he’s not interested in anything serious, not after what happened with his ex. It’s pointless. I don’t want to have to be around him, feeling the way I do. It’s just constant disappointment.”
She nodded as she squeezed my hand, nearly crunching my bones. “You should talk to him. What’s the worst that could happen? He shoots you down? At least then you know and you’re not left wondering ‘what if’ forever.”
I chuckled as I tried not to bury myself in thoughts of what could happen if I told him how I felt. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“I know you don’t. But you’ll never get anywhere with him if you don’t at least try, whether it’s platonic or more than that. You owe it to yourself,” she pressed, leaning a little bit closer to me. “You owe it to your kid.”
Well, shit.
