“Didn’t ask her to move. Just one night.” Sam slouched in his chair, looking less like an arrogant trust-fund baby and more like a regular schmuck having his heart broken. “I can’t let her walk away from me again.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the guy to be patient, but he couldn’t spit out the words. He had enough experience with trying to be patient and it sucked. Royally. And, as far as he could tell, it didn’t get a guy anywhere but frustrated.
He’d seen the effect his teasing about the chocolate cake had on Beth at the baby shower but, as usual, she’d resisted caving to what he knew she felt as badly as he did. And they were back to square one. Neighbors having a baby while one of them slowly died inside.
Sam scowled at his beer. “I think this is where you give me some lame shit about being patient and, if it’s meant to be, she’ll come around. And I say, right back atcha.”
Kevin laughed and twisted the top off his water. “How ’bout them Red Sox?”
“Beckett looked damn good the other night. And Papelbon’s in good form.”
“Keeping us in first. Yankees coming up. Should be a helluva game.”
Like real men did, they spent the next hour talking sports, both pretending they weren’t upset by the fact they had no clue how to make their women happy.
***
Airport chairs weren’t the most comfortable seat for a pregnant woman, but Beth wanted to spend every last minute she could with her parents before they got on a plane back to Florida. They’d be flying back when the baby was born, but she was going to miss them in the meantime.
When her father went off in search of coffee, her mother’s expression turned serious and she rested her hand on Beth’s knee. “Honey, Kevin seems like a very nice young man.”
And here it came. “He is nice. One of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, actually.”
“Mary told me he wants to have a relationship with you, but that you’re insisting you only want to be friends.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Love usually is.”
The word hit her like a wrecking ball and, going to miss her or not, she was tempted to get up and walk away. “There’s no love, Mom. We had a one-night stand. He collects women’s numbers on cocktail napkins, for goodness’ sake. And I would never have seen him again if I hadn’t gotten pregnant.
“We were done with each other and a defective condom doesn’t change that. We had no future together before, so therefore any future we have now is only due to the baby and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life knowing that.”
Her mother squeezed her hand, but didn’t say anything. She probably knew Beth well enough to know there was more.
And there was. “I was going to Albuquerque. That’s where I was going to go next, but then I met Kevin and I was stupid enough to sleep with him and now everything’s different. My entire life is different and upside down and I’m tied to him forever because he’s going to be a great dad.
“He overwhelms me and I’m already so overwhelmed I don’t know what to do. I can’t think straight when I’m around him, but what we do will have such a huge effect on the baby’s life. And I just don’t want to spend my life wondering if Kevin really wanted me, or if I was just the first woman to give him a child.”
Pouring her guts out was exhausting and, when her mother pulled Beth’s head to her shoulder and stroked her hair, she didn’t resist. For once she didn’t feel smothered. Just comforted. “You’ve always been independent. And stubborn about it. You were only four years old when you told me you didn’t need me to tuck you in anymore and you could do it yourself. I could never make you understand it wasn’t whether or not you could do it. It was about sharing those last few minutes of your day with you. You have a way of not letting people in.”
“If I let him in any more than I have, I’m going to fall in love with him and there’s no going back from there.”
“I think you’ve both fallen in love a little already.”
Beth closed her eyes to will the tears away. “We’re okay right now. We’re friends and, as long as it stays the way it is now, we’ll stay friends. But if we think we’re in love and get married, what if someday he realizes he was more in love with the idea of a family than with me? Or what if I realize I only thought I loved him because he’s such a great guy and I’m not sure I could go through this without him?”
“At least you’ll have tried.”
“And if we fail, it’ll be ugly. Love doesn’t end amicably and I don’t want us to hate each other. I don’t want that for the baby. I want her—or his—parents to be friends.”
When she opened her eyes, she could see her father coming, trying to balance two paper cups of coffee and a bottle of water. A waiter, he wasn’t. Straightening, she swiped at her face, not wanting to look upset.
“Take it slow if you need to,” her mother said. “Just don’t close yourself off to him completely.”