Too Late

“Is it your brother? We’ll go see him this weekend. We’ll go with an escort to make sure we’re safe, and he’s still got security outside his room.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, wanting her to know that I’m here. She’s safe. Her brother is safe.

She lowers her head even more and somehow folds in on herself, gripping her arms with her hands.

“I think I might be pregnant.”





She didn’t want to be in the bathroom while we waited the two minutes for the results. I stand here, staring down at the stick. Waiting.

As soon as she told me she might be pregnant, it felt like I had failed her. Like all that I’ve done to protect her was for nothing. She sat there with tears streaming down her cheeks, her head lowered and her voice barely above a whisper, and there wasn’t anything I could say to take her fear away. I couldn’t tell her not to worry, because this is definitely something to worry about. We can do the math. She’s been with both Asa and me in the last couple of months. The odds of it being mine are even slimmer than the odds of it being his, so if I were to tell her not to worry, I’d be lying.

The last thing she needs right now is the stress of carrying part of that man inside her. Something that would tie her to him for the rest of her life. The last thing she needs right now is the stress of caring for a baby, no matter whose it is. The next few months are crucial to her safety. She’s going to be locked up inside this apartment, waiting for the trial. Not to mention once the trial begins—if she’s pregnant—she’ll have to testify on stand near the time she would be due to give birth.

I inhale slowly as I stare down at the test. It’s the kind that doesn’t show a line. It actually displays the words, “not pregnant” or “pregnant.” I went to the store as soon as she told me. The last thing I want her to do is wonder. The sooner she knows, the quicker she can decide what she wants to do.

I wait, my hands raking through my hair, my feet pacing the small bathroom. I’m facing the other direction when the timer on my phone chimes, indicating the wait time is up.

I blow out a calming breath, and when I turn around and see the word pregnant, I make a fist, prepared to punch the wall. The door. Anything. Instead, I punch the air and cuss under my breath, because I know I’m going to have to walk out of this bathroom and break that girl’s heart.

I don’t know if I can do it.

I debate staying in here for another few minutes, just until I can shake off the anger. But I know she’s out there, scared and probably even more nervous than I was. I open the door, but she isn’t in the bedroom. I walk into the living room and she’s in the kitchen, stirring the soup again. It’s been simmering for over an hour now, so I know she’s just wasting time. She hears me, but she doesn’t turn around to look at me. I walk into the kitchen, but she doesn’t look up at me. She just continues stirring the soup, waiting for me to break the news to her.

I can’t. I open my mouth three times, but I can’t fucking find the words to tell her. I grip the back of my neck and watch her for a moment, waiting for her to look at me. When she refuses to look up and I can’t find the words to speak, I close the distance between us. I wrap my arms around her from behind and pull her back to my chest. She stops stirring and she grips my arms that are wrapped around her. I can feel her whole body begin to shake with her quiet sob. My silence is all the confirmation she needed. All I can do is hold her tighter and press a kiss into her hair.

“I love you, Sloan,” I whisper.

She turns around and presses her face against my chest while she cries. I close my eyes and hold her.

This isn’t how it should be. This is not how a girl should feel when she finds out she’s a mother. And I feel partly responsible for her sadness.

I know we’ll have time to talk about it later. We’ll have time to discuss all of the options, but right now I just focus on her because I have no idea how incredibly difficult this must be for her.

“I’m so sorry, Luke,” she says against my chest.

I squeeze her tighter, confused as to why she’s apologizing. “Why are you saying that? You have nothing to apologize for.”

She lifts her head, shaking it, looking up at me. “You don’t need this stress. You’re doing everything you can to keep us safe and now I’ve gone and made it even worse.” She pulls away from me and picks up the damn spoon and starts stirring again. “I’m not going to put you through this,” she says. “I’m not going to make you watch me carry a baby that you don’t even know is yours or not. It isn’t fair to you.” She sets the spoon down and grabs a napkin, dabbing it beneath her eyes. She turns and looks at me, her face full of shame. “I’m sorry. I can...” She swallows like the next words are too hard for her to get out. “I can call tomorrow and see what I need to do to get it...to get an abortion.”

I just stare at her, letting all of that soak in.

She’s apologizing to me?

She thinks I’m the one who will be stressed by this?

I take a step forward and slide my hands through her hair, lifting her gaze to mine. Another tear begins to roll down her cheek, so I wipe it away with my thumb. “If there was a way we could find out this baby was mine, would you want to keep it?”

She winces, and then shrugs. And then she nods. “Of course I would, Luke. The timing is shit, but that’s not the baby’s fault.”

As much as I want to wrap my arms around her in this second, I continue to hold her face in my hands. “And if you knew right now for a fact that this baby is Asa’s, would you want to keep it?”

She doesn’t respond for a moment. But then she shakes her head. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Luke. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“I’m not asking about me,” I say, my voice firm. “I’m asking you. If you knew this was Asa’s baby, would you want to keep it?”

Another tear falls and I let it roll down her cheek. “It’s a baby, Luke,” she says quietly. “It’s an innocent baby. But like I said, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

I pull her to me and I kiss the side of her head and hold her there a moment. When I find the words I want to say to her, I pull back and force her to look at me again. “I’m in love with you, Sloan. Madly in love with you. And this baby growing inside of you is half you. Do you know how lucky I would feel if you allowed me to love something that was a part of you?” I lower my palm to her stomach and rest it there. “This baby is mine, Sloan. It’s yours. It’s ours. And if your decision is to raise this baby, then I’m going to be the best damn father that ever walked the earth. I promise.”

She immediately brings her hands to her face and begins crying. She cries harder than I’ve ever seen her cry. I pick her up and I take her to our bedroom where I lay her on the bed again. I pull her to me and I wait for her tears to subside. After several minutes, the room is quiet again.

She’s now lying with her head against my chest, her arm wrapped around me. “Luke?” She lifts her head and looks at me. “You’re the best kind of human there is. And I love you so, so much.”

I kiss her. Twice. And then I lower my face to her stomach and I lift her shirt and I kiss her skin. And I smile, because she’s giving me something I never even knew I wanted. And as much as I can hope this baby is mine and not Asa’s for Sloan’s sake, it truly doesn’t matter. It won’t matter because this baby is part of the one person I love more than anything else. How lucky am I?

I sidle up to her side again and kiss her cheek. She’s not crying anymore. I brush the hair back from her forehead. “Sloan? Did you know that concrete pillars dissolve into donuts every time a clock falls off a turtle’s head?”

She laughs, hard, and her smile is huge. “Well, a victory isn’t a victory if the empty room fills with dirty socks when the Christmas fruitcake is stale.”

Our baby is going to have the strangest two parents in the whole world.





I’m not sure if I inherited my intelligence from my mother or my father, because if you ask me, they’re both a couple of ignorant fucks who somehow managed to only get one thing right during their combined years on this earth: My conception.

I didn’t know my grandparents, but sometimes I like to imagine my paternal grandfather, rest his soul, was a lot like me. They say things skip generations, so I probably looked a lot like him. I probably act a lot like he did. And like me, he’s probably disappointed as fuck that his son—my father—turned out to be such a fucking twat.

He’s more than likely proud of me, though, and he’s probably one of the few humans, dead or alive, who appreciate what a goddamn fucking genius I am.

Let me explain.