“She was pretty sure you were done with her.”
Samson spun around. “How? How could she think that? I told her how much I love her!”
“Because, Sammy. She spent most of her life not being loved.”
Samson felt his shoulders slumping from the weight of the difficulty in front of him. With any of the girls in any of the cities he’d been in, he would never have felt the burden of teaching them what it felt like to be appreciated and loved. He would never have cared enough to do so.
“Thanks, sis,” Samson said. He headed for April’s room.
Inside, he could hear some soft jazz music. It was from a band they’d heard play several weeks ago. It was hard for him to believe that they’d only been dating since the middle of the summer. Samson felt like April had become such an integral part of his life. He rapped on the door.
“I’m decent,” April said.
Samson poked his head in. April was sitting on the floor in the middle of several boxes, clothes in different piles, and a little black dog sniffing around each. “It’s me.”
“I know. I heard you yelling. Your secretary needs therapy.”
“She needs to be blacklisted and sued into the ground.”
“You would know better than I about the legal ramifications of birth control sabotage. Or the legal ramifications of anything. It’s not my specialty.”
Samson came over to sit next to her. “April, I don’t want to talk about her.”
April kept starring down at the dress in her hands, her brow scrunched up as though she didn’t know where to put it.
“Are you leaving? Are you going to New York?”
That caused her to look up. “What? I’m not going to New York.”
“Then why are you packing?”
“I’m sorting clothes that I need to put away until after the baby comes,” she said flatly. “And looking through some that Garcia’s wife dropped off, since apparently I can’t keep a secret about anything. I don’t know how you kept me out of the tabloids.”
“Money. Bribed ‘em.”
April laughed softly. “That’s not true.”
“It is. I knew how important it was to you that our relationship not affect your work. Imagine my surprise when you left the job you love.” Samson started to move closer, but the dog barked at him. He stared at it until it hopped in place and then hid behind the chair.
“I can’t work there. Not with you, not if… Not if we aren’t together. It’s too hard.” April covered her face. “I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m just, you know, knocked up and all that.”
Samson tentatively put a hand on her knee. “You can cry if you want to. I will admit to drinking a lot of wine over the past week. With whatever emotional outpourings that might lead to.”
April arched a brow at him skeptically. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to move in. April, I love you. A baby doesn’t change that.” He reached over and wiped some wetness from her blotchy cheek. “It was never that I didn’t want you. And I would never want to do anything to hurt you or make you leave. It was only that, because I have no relationship to speak of with my father, I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
“Well, you’d better get ready, Samson! Or get out! Because if you want me, the baby’s part of the deal now. I know you didn’t choose it, and neither did I, but this is where we are.” Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and she sobbed once before spitting out, “Dammit!”
Samson slipped in behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “I just have to admit how I’m feeling about being a father. I’m not ready now, but we have time.”
“Not that much time.”
“Given that we were already moving towards some kind of commitment, or we would have if I’d been able to convince you to live with me, I think we were already on this path. It’s simply new and very, very shocking.” Samson kissed her temple, and April sobbed again, then buried her face in his chest.
“I thought I’d done something wrong. I thought I’d ruined it.”
“No.” Samson cupped her cheek, and she looked up at him again. He found her beautiful, even like this. “You are everything, April. You are my night and my day. You are my lioness and my mouse. You are my person.”
April laughed and leaned up to kiss him. “You finally got it.”
“We may not have had the families we wanted, but that’s no reason for us not to try to build one. That’s what we do every day. We take what’s there, and we make something new and beautiful.” Samson pulled her closer to him. “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to pick up the bulk of the work on this one.”