“You haven’t been taking your pill?” His question is quiet. So quiet I barely hear it.

“You’re not exactly an effective reminder for birth control, Seth. I mean, look at you. You take your shirt off and my brain stops working, my ovaries ache, and my body forces itself into ovulation regardless of Mother Nature or the pills I’m taking.”

“We’re going to be parents?” he asks, not once looking at me.

“I… I guess so.” My bottom lip quivers. “Seth-”

“I can’t be a father,” he whispers, crouching low and cupping his face. “I can’t be a parent.”

“It’s a bit too late for that, don’t you think?” I snap, stepping forward.

Abruptly, Seth straightens and towers over me, but I refuse to cower from him. “It’s not too late, Olivia.”

I flinch as my breath hitches painfully in my throat. He would never suggest I do anything like that… abort my baby—our baby? “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to hurt our child.”

He frowns, genuinely perplexed with my response. “It’s not a child, not yet.”

My heart splinters and jabs painfully into my lungs. I can’t breathe. Tears burn my eyes, but I don’t dare pull away from his stare—his dark, chocolate stare.

“What you’re saying to me…” My voice cracks and my nose runs, but I don’t care. “Is not something a husband is meant to say to his wife…”

There’s pain in his face… I can see it as clear as day, but he won’t express it. He’s not giving me a reason to sympathize with him. He wants to be blamed, he wants me to hate him, to make it easier on him. Seth’s looking for a way to hurt himself, I know it. It’s what he does.

“You say you always want the truth from me. There you go.”

I growl as I shove my hands into his stomach. He barely flinches, taking a subtle step back. “Why are you doing this? You said we were going to be okay!”

I shove him again and he takes another step. I’m ugly crying—my eyes feel puffy, my throat clogged with sobs. He promised…

“And we will be okay, but we need to sort this out.”

There’s nothing to sort out. If he’s too scared to be a part of this, then fine, I don’t need him to be.

“I’m going to keep it, Seth,” I sob. “And I’m not asking for your permission.”

“You’re backing me into a corner!” he snaps. Regret immediately fills his glistening eyes, but that is the last straw.

“Is that what I’m doing? I’m backing you into a corner? How do you think I feel?” My shouts echo through the bathroom, bouncing off the walls. “You don’t think I feel trapped? You don’t think I’m fucking petrified? I’m not ready to be a mother.”

“At least you know you’ll be a good mom. I can’t be a good father, I’ve had no one to learn from—hell—how can I be a good dad when I’m not even sure if I’m a good person?”

My fight softens… it always comes back to Seth and his inability to see the good in himself. “You are a good person.” I swipe away the inundating tears. “How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?”

He shakes his head and pushes past me. “I have to go.”

I turn with his body, watching his back as he enters the bedroom. “What? Where are you going? If you walk away from me now, then every good thing I’ve ever thought about you isn’t true.”

He doesn’t respond, he just leaves… slamming doors in his wake. I stay rooted in my spot, expecting him to come back with a beautiful smile on his face and laugh it off, telling me it’s all part of some sick joke.

He doesn’t come back. I stand still, waiting for twenty minutes but he doesn’t come back. A single, scalding tear falls from my eye and tolls down my cheek. I wipe it away, along with my sadness. The only thing that fills me now is rage… He fucking left? Just like that? I storm through the room, scooping up a pretty lion ornament. I pull the bedroom door open and, for the first time in my life, I throw something… it sails over the stair banister and onto the floor, shattering into a million tiny pieces, just like my relationship, the relationship that I defended from the beginning. I turn on my heel and throw myself onto our bed. It smells like him—of course it fucking does. God forbid it absorbs my scent, something that doesn’t set me on fire or crush my soul. I bunch up the satin sheets and bury my head in them. He’ll come back. I know he will… but even as I think that, there’s an uncertainty swirling around my stomach. I have to call him. I sit up as I pull my phone from my pocket and dial his number. It rings out, going straight to voicemail. After the beep, I leave my message.

“I want you to come home… I need you to come home.” I swallow a sob. “This whole time that I’ve let you have me—let you do whatever you want to do to me—was because I love you and I believed you would take care of me no matter what. I don’t blame you, Seth. I don’t blame you because I tricked myself into believing that you weren’t the person that everyone said you were. My heart is telling me that you are a good man, but my brain is telling me that a good man would never have walked out on his wife when she needed him most. I’m scared, too. I have a human in my belly that I have to take care of. I have this baby that’s half me and half you that I have to share my body with and I’m terrified. I’m terrified that I’m responsible for another life when I can barely look after my own.” I angrily wipe away a tear. “You’re not ready for this? I’m the one that has to take all of the risks and I’m mad! I’m mad that you were man enough to stick it in, but not stick around. I’m alone in our room… it’s empty and it’s cold, and it smells like you.” I can’t help the smile that pulls at my lips as his amazing smell filters in through my nose with every inhale. “You know, my father promised me that you were a good man… he vouched for you when no one else would. Please don’t make him a liar. Come home to me, Seth… I love you.”

I hang up the phone and fall against the soft mattress. I let my fingers trail over my abdomen and I wonder if the baby can feel how sad I am… am I making it sad? Can it hear me? Does it have ears yet? I’m pregnant… and I have no idea what that entails exactly. I’m not mad at Seth anymore… I forgive him. He’s scared and I want him to come home.

I close my eyes and take calming breaths. In my chest, my heart still beats fast and my throat tingles. Seth’s face flashes through my mind. I see his gorgeous brown eyes and heartbreaking smile, and I lose it. Sobs erupt from my throat and I roll onto my side, gripping the sheet and pulling it into my face to catch the tears…

He left.

***

Seth

“You know, my father promised me that you were a good man… he vouched for you when no one else would. Please don’t make him a liar. Come home to me, Seth… I love you.”

Her sad voice plays through my phone speaker and I rake my teeth over my bottom lip to stop it from trembling. To hear her so destroyed and knowing it’s because of me makes it so much worse.

“Fuck!” I shout as I throw my phone against the concrete wall.

It impacts with tremendous speed, sending pieces of cell phone in every direction. Leaving it in on the floor, I keep heading down the hallway towards Darryl’s room. I know he’ll give me some good advice or help me in some way. I didn’t mean to bail on Olivia… I panicked. I subconsciously knew the test would be positive… but I wasn’t expecting it to be, if that makes any sense at all. I’m not ready for this. A kid is a big deal and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.

“What you’re saying to me,” her voice cracks, “is not something a husband is meant to say to his wife…”

I drop my head. I told her to get rid of our child… more or less. I didn’t mean to tell her to get rid of it. I don’t want that, not at all, but I said it and once I said it, it seemed like a sound solution. We can always try again when we’re both ready, right? I’m an idiot… a heartless, selfish idiot.

I knock on Darryl’s door and wait a few seconds. I don’t expect him to answer. I pissed him off pretty badly today and I don’t know if I can come back from it. What I do know, though, is that I need his advice more than anything right now. I need him to kick me in the ass and send me right back upstairs to Olivia, who’s probably crying her ass off and not sure if she’ll ever see me again. I need someone to tell me it’s not a big deal and that I should stop being selfish and be happy—excited, even.

To my surprise, the door opens almost immediately.

“I had a feeling I was going to see you,” he grumbles. “Unfortunately, I’m a little caught up with this ridiculous riot on the news, so you’ll have to come back later.”

He attempts to shut the door, but I jam my foot in and prevent it from closing. “It’s about Olivia.”

Darryl smirks. “Did she have enough sense to leave your ass?”

I shake my head. “She’s pregnant.”

His body stills and he drops his hand from the handle. Darryl always expects me to do something stupid so it’s not often I surprise him like this. “She’s…”

“That’s right. Olivia’s pregnant.”

He steps back from the door, giving me enough room to slip in. He watches me closely—shocked as all hell—as I enter his room and stroll down the hallway. His room is nice—a little too small—but still nice. I step into the living room, and sure enough, the riot he was talking about was the one Jackson, Selena, and I started at the Aria casino. The sight of it makes my stomach churn. As I drop into a leather armchair, Darryl leans for the remote off the coffee table and switches off the T.V.

“Seth, what are—”

“I know, what am I doing? I don’t need this distraction two weeks out from a fight.”

“No.” He folds his arms, making his bright orange shirt tighten around his biceps. “What are you doing here? You need to be upstairs with your wife.” A smile splits his face and he lowers himself onto the edge of the coffee table, directly in front of me. “You’re having a baby!”

I quirk an eyebrow. He’s happy? “Wait… what? You’re okay with this?”

His smile doesn’t falter. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I…I just assumed you’d be pissed. A child is a huge distraction.”

His groomed brows pull together. “I should slap you. A child is a blessing, not a distraction, and it’s attitude like that that makes me think you’ve absorbed more of your father’s stupid advice than mine.”

“A blessing? Well… I never thought of it like that.” Even so, the word doesn’t ease the absolute fear of being the head of a family—an actual family—with a kid and all. “I fucked up,” I groan, dropping my head into my hands.

“You’re having a baby, I’m sure Olivia can bring herself to forgive what happened today.”

“No,” I shake my head. “It’s not about that. I… I told Olivia to—I’m not ready for a baby, Darryl. I freaked out and I yelled and I told her to—” Jesus Christ. I can’t even bring myself to say it. I’m shittier than I thought.

Darryl doesn’t need a further explanation. The silence tells me everything, and when I lower my hands, the look of disgust solidifies his silence.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demands. His voice is low and laced with bitter disappointment. “She’s your wife… not some one night stand you picked up at a club.”

“I know that.”

“So why are you treating her like it?”

I drop my gaze to the carpet. I have nothing to say to that… I can’t contest something that’s true. I can’t say I’ve been treating her well—like the princess I promised her father or the queen I promised her brother on our wedding day.

“I’m scared,” I mutter. I don’t think that’s something I’ve ever admitted aloud before.

“I know. The first time is always the scariest, but by tomorrow, you’ll come to terms with it.” He slaps my knee. “You can’t hide down here, Seth. You need to be upstairs.”

I almost cringe. Olivia isn’t going to want to see me. What if she wants to end it? To leave me for what I said?

“If you think she doesn’t want to see you, then you’re stupider than I thought,” he says, reading my mind.

“I told her that when I have kids, I don’t want to fight anymore…” His face remains neutral and I clear my throat. “If I’m going to do this… then Don is my last, Darryl.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting him to say… maybe he’ll call me selfish? Maybe he’ll tell me I can have both. I wait with bated breath until he nods at me finally, and with a proud smirk, he says, “So I’ll call your lawyers in the morning. We have more than enough proof to claim a breach of contract. If you want out, I’ll get you out.”

“Just like that?”

He flashes his palms before running them over the thighs of his pants. “Just like that.” He pushes himself to his feet. “Now get the hell out of here. You have a lot of sucking up to do.”

“Yeah…” My chest fills with something light and warm. Love? Happiness? Acceptance? Excitement? I can’t tell. “I guess I do.”