The timer tells us the test is ready, but neither of us moves to go look. Amber’s got watery eyes, and her already pale skin is clammy and cold. I hold her in my arms, dying to know if she’s pregnant but fucking terrified to find out. Right now there’s the possibility that shit will go on as normal or that everything is going to change. Once we look and we know, that possibility is gone. Fuck. I don’t even know why I’m getting so fucked up about this.
“I can’t look,” she says. So I tell her I’ll look because I’m a man and men do shit like that for their women. Even if looking is goddamn terrifying.
I eye the white plastic stick that sits on the edge of the sink and make out the results. One line for not pregnant and two for pregnant.
And there’s two very distinct blue lines in the results field.
Two lines that tell me we’re no longer just the two of us . . . we’re three people now. Me, my old lady, and our son. Because fuck all that girly shit. I shoot man sperm.
Our fucking son.
Goddamn, it feels good to think that. It feels good to have something that binds me to Mugs.
“Well?” she whines.
I laugh quietly to myself, selfishly enjoying this moment where I’m the only one who knows that we’re having a baby.
“Well, your ass is probably going to get fat.” I laugh so hard at her reaction—a mix of excitement and fear and irritation at my little comment.
“Come on, momma. Let daddy show you how excited he is,” I say as I trail soft kisses up and down the side of her neck.
I actually told her that her ass was probably going to get fat. Shit. I’m surprised I didn’t lose a nut sack in that moment. Fifteen years and a kid later and she still looks damn good. Curvier but somehow even more beautiful in ways I couldn’t have predicted. Like her fuller hips, larger breasts, and rounder face. As a teen, Amber had a beautiful face, but it was all sharp angles and big eyes. I barely got to touch her the other day—well, at least not the way I wanted to—but she felt thicker, fuller, more womanly than she had in the past.
My mind wonders around in my memories, clinging to some longer than I’d like and ghosting over others that I’m desperate to have a firmer hold on. It’s just penance, I guess. I wasn’t a good old man and couldn’t bring myself to put her first. She was right to leave me and take our son with her. I just hate that the guilt and self-loathing can’t chill long enough for me to enjoy even a small non-painful memory. But even those are laced with regret and sorrow. I can’t seem to shake the shitty feeling no matter how hard I try. I think of how Amber’s belly grew, and how with it, I grew into a man I’m ashamed of. I wanted to be a good brother, to be deserving of the patch, but all I did was fuck up at every turn.
Everything around her fades out, and the only thing that exists in my entire universe is my woman. She’s half-angry and half-I-don’t-even-know, but she’s here and she’s in my bed. Her naked body rests beneath mine, freshly fucked and gasping for breath. Her eyes are focused on the ceiling above her, and no matter how I touch her, she won’t look at me. Since she came, she’s been somewhere else. I want to make the last ten—or is it eleven—years better. I want to erase them and be there with her and our son. I want to be a better man.
“Stay,” I say. My voice is quiet, afraid of scaring her off. I feel like we’ve been here before, but what the fuck do I know? I’ve run through enough coke in the last week that I could’ve financed my own goddamn war if I wanted to. I won’t, though. The only thing I want—no, need—is lying underneath me, sated and perfect.
“You’re high,” she says back. It’s simple but heavy. She isn’t pointing out the obvious—she’s telling me why she can’t stay. And fuck if I can’t let that be the reason she leaves me again. My gut feels like it’s being chopped up into tiny pieces, and the buzzing behind my eyes intensifies. There’s this sweet spot with coke and whiskey where everything is perfectly numb. The world actually buzzes. But one extra sip, one too many lines, and it’s all shot to hell and you end up in oblivion. I think I’m there now. Amber won’t stay, and it makes no sense. I’m here, so this is where she belongs. My vision blurs as I stare into her distant expression. There’s a lot going on behind her green eyes that she won’t talk about. Maybe she wants to come home, but she’s afraid. Or maybe she’s moved on. Maybe she just needs convincing.
“Stay.”