“You won’t.Wewon’t. We’re not them, Gabe. We’re not our parents.”
He shakes his head. “Parents. We’re gonna be parents.”
I nod as I stare into his eyes; the fear gives way to what looks like a twinge of happiness, and the tension in my stomach eases. I’ve loved this man for as long as I can remember, and now I get to love a part of him for the rest of my life.
Regardless of what the future holds, or whether or not we’re together, we’re having a baby, we made a baby, and nothing the world throws at us can ever erase the fact that Gabe and I will be inexorably linked for the rest of our days.
There’s a beat, an awkward pause where I glance at him and he glances back and we just exist in the space of weird and wonderful awkwardness, and then he wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me close, and I melt into his chest.
With the exception of today, I haven’t cried. Not once. Not when I was staring down at those positive tests, and not when I pictured what my life might look like as a single mother if Gabe had run in the opposite direction with this news. I haven’t cried, but being in his arms now, the dam doesn’t just break again the way it did with Arturo, it fucking detonates. Tears spill over my lashes, and I sob like a little kid. I don’t care that I’m soaking his flannel, that I likely have panda eyes, or that I sound hysterical because he’s here. He’s not running, and we might have a real shot at happiness, whatever that looks like.
Gabe squeezes me tightly as he kisses my hair and tells me it will all be okay. He leads me to my bedroom, where he takes off my boots and pulls me down on the bed. He holds me, and we talk late into the night, musing about what our baby will look like, whether it will be a boy or girl, whether he or she will take after Gabe or me. I don’t even have the barest hint of pudge yet, but he strokes my belly as if his careful hands were caressing our baby’s tiny face. My eyelids grow heavy, and Gabe pulls the blankets around us and kisses my hair as I fall asleep and fall even more in love with my best friend.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Lo
The following morning Clementine is sitting at the breakfast table sipping coffee as she scrolls through her phone. She glances up as I walk in, presses her fork into her third eye and squeezes her eyes tightly closed. “How much do you want to jab this fork into my forehead, right now?”
“About ten percent.”
She opens her eyes and tosses the utensil back on the table. “Only ten? Shit, girl. You either hate me so much I’m not worth going to jail for, or you’re okay with me opening my big, fat mouth.”
“I would have liked to tell him myself, but I’m okay.”
“I am so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought because he was here, and you guys were making out and barely able to keep your hands off one another that you’d told him already.”
“Nope. But it’s a good thing you can’t keep your fat trap shut. I’m glad he knows. It might have taken me forever to tell him otherwise, and I’m pretty sure he’d figure it out anyway sometime in the next eight months.”
She laughs. “Better now than in the delivery room, right? So, how did he take it?”
“Good. I think?” I head to the cupboard and pull out the Saltines and Easy Cheese, then I load one up and stuff the whole thing in my mouth because these days I can’t get food into my belly fast enough.
“He spent the night?”
“Yeah.”
“He still sleeping in your bed?”
“Yep.”
“Lucky bitch. I can’t even get my regular hookup to spend the night, much less see him sleeping in the next morning after I’ve dropped a pregnancy bombshell.”
“Are you planning on dropping a pregnancy bombshell anytime soon, because I would really advise against it.”
“Nope. I’m just here to watch the two of you go through it.”
“Gee, thanks. I think?”
“Oh my god, did you guys bang it out again?”
I laugh. “No. We did not bang it out. We didn’t really talk about where any of this leaves us. Maybe we’ll both just stay single and raise this baby together?”
“Oh, no. That’s not maybe written on your face. You’re already planning that stupid wedding you guys have been talking about for years.”
“I am not. We are not getting married.”
“Shut up. You’re already picking out wedding dresses in your head.” She singsongs, “You love him, you wanna have his babies.”