He turned for the door. “I’ll just wait for you in the car.”
I folded and restacked the clothes I’d chosen onto the display, my happiness now just a pile of smoldering ashes. By the time I got back out to the car, I was ready to do battle.
“So you think I’m put off that you don’t make much money?” I asked bitterly. “What have I ever done or said to make you think that?”
“You may not even realize you’re put off by it. And believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have enough to take care of the baby. I have savings.”
“And you think that’s what I want?” He gripped the steering wheel and exhaled deeply. “The clock’s been ticking for almost three months now and the pressure’s fucking intense.”
“What pressure?” I touched his arm gently.
“To move up. Make more money. Be able to support you and the baby.”
I sighed softly. “Bennett, I don’t need that.”
“And you never fucking fail to mention it.” He started the car and backed out, not looking at me. “You tell me at every available opportunity how little you need me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Like hell.”
“Bennett, I do need you.”
“For what, moral support?”
I furrowed my brow, considering. “I wouldn’t characterize it that way, but—”
“You just have to keep control of everything.”
“What’s so bad about being in control of everything?” I challenged. “It’s gotten me this far in life, hasn’t it?”
He laughed bitterly. “You’ve got it all figured out, as usual.”
“I don’t know where this is coming from.”
“You wouldn’t even give me the time of day if it weren’t for the baby. You threw my fucking number away, remember?”
I balked at his mention of the morning after we met. “And what did you want from me, exactly, Bennett? Besides more sex?”
“Just more.” He parked in front of the courthouse and gave me a dark look. “The same thing I’ve been trying to get out of you for three months now. But you’re too damned resolved not to turn into your mother. I’m never breaking through.”
“Okay,” I said in my calmest tone, “I’m going back into work now. I think we should talk some more later when you’re not so angry.”
He just stared out the windshield, his jaw set tensely. I got out of the car, still confused about where all this had come from. Wasn’t I the one who had irrational emotional outbursts?
Apparently today was his turn.
Bennett
I’d been a douche to Charlotte. I realized it about a minute after she got out of the car. Of all the days to unleash my pent-up insecurities on her, I’d chosen the one she’d said was one of the happiest of her life.
It had been looking like one of the happiest of mine for a while. When I’d seen our son on that sonogram monitor, my feelings had come into clear focus for the first time. Being next to her in that moment had made me realize I wanted her by my side permanently.
I loved her for her, but the fact she was the mother of my son added an intensity to my feelings that was almost unbearable. Her swelling belly was the most beautiful sight in the world to me. The three of us were already a family in my mind.
Moving past my guilt over Kelly enough to fall in love with Charlotte had been hard. Admitting it hadn’t been easy, either. And then she’d rejected me.
She didn’t love me and she didn’t want to marry me. My drive home was spent in pensive thought about it.
I’d never had trouble attracting women. Kelly had been the first and only one besides Charlotte that I wanted more than a casual thing with. Her death had crushed me for a long time. With Charlotte, I’d started to finally heal. I’d let go of the guilt over how happy I was with her.
But for what? To be Charlotte’s on-call fuck buddy and baby daddy? I wanted much more than that from her.
I passed the turn onto my street and headed to the ice rink instead. No one was there, so I laced up my skates and took a bucket of pucks and a net out and shot for practice.
There was no giving up on this. With every puck that slid home into the net, I realized I’d just have to be patient. Her mother had set such a shitty example that Charlotte had gravitated to the other extreme. Her rejection of me wasn’t actually personal. She had a wall up against all men.
But after five years of certainty that I’d never love a woman again, there was no wall I wouldn’t scale to get inside the fortress Charlotte had set up around her heart. It was like my goal of getting called up to Chicago—I’d just have to work harder.
Charlotte
James and Brian couldn’t keep their eyes off each other. I could see where James’s transformation from annoying asshole to decent guy had come from.