Page 107 of Losing Faith

She looks confused as she looks over at me. “How about we negotiate you two getting married?”

“I need to go.” I rush out of the room and Jackson calls out to me, but I ignore him. “I’m going to get the flour.” I nearly run out of the house.

“Take my car,” he calls out, and I grab his keys by the door before slipping out.

The minute I’m in his car, I call Bay.

“Where’s the fire?” She has the nerve tolaughat my panicked expression.

“Jackson was in my pants,” I blurt as I speed very far away from his house.

A smile grows on her face as she lays on her stomach, her phone against something on her bed. “Was it good or did you call it and he sucks like the majority of the male population?”

“That’s not why I called.” I steal a glance at her to check if she’s still paying attention and she is. “His kid saw us kissing and called me the universal phrase for what children call the people who birth them.”

Her brows pull together before she bursts into a laugh.

“It’s not funny.” I hit my head on the steering wheel when I get to a stop sign.

“Aww, she was just excited about the idea.” She smiles, her freckles more prominent as if she sat in the sun all day. “What did her dad say about that?”

I let out a bitter laugh. “He told her not to call me that.” I recall what he said about not introducing his partners to her and he looked just as scared as I felt.

“That’s understandable.” She nods to herself. “So you’re dating him? What’d your brother say?”

“Who cares about my brother? That’s not the point right now. He wants me to give us atry.” I drive off again. “Like as afamily.”

“Well… he has a daughter, so if you date it will be a family setting.” Bay watches me like she doesn’t see the issue.

I shake my head at everything in my head.

“Wait, when was this?”

“A minute ago.”

“And where are you going?” she asks lightly, but I don’t answer. “You’rerunning?”

“I’m scared,” I shout now. “This is too much too fast and they scared me.”

“Turn your car around right now.” She keeps her voice strong, nearly threatening. “Name one bad thing about him.”

I try to think but nothing comes to mind. “He’s too perfect.”

Bay says something under her breath. “You deserve him, Lis. You deserve to be happy and you love his daughter. Turn around andtry.”

I come to a red light and turn to her. “What if I fuck it up?”

Her eyes soften before she sucks her teeth. “Honestly? You probably will fuck it up, but,” she quickly adds when she sees my face fall. “Not because you’re an addict. You’rehuman. Don’t self-sabotage this. You just overdosed last week, you went out thinking you had no one, and today a great man wants to love you and raise his baby. That’s a beautiful thing.”

I feel my eyes prickling with tears as I pull over. “He said he loves me.” I bury my face in my hands.

“Okay, that would scare me too. How long have you known him?”

I lay my head against my seat. “Technically…” I take a second to think. “A little over four years, but I’ve been hanging out with him and tutoring his daughter for a little over two months.”

Bay nods in thought. “Yeah, that’s a little quick.”

“He said he loves me like how I say I love you. Notinlove with me.”

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