Page 85 of Between Brothers

“Yeah.” I felt her hand drift over her stomach.

“And now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, you have to have thought of at least something…”

“I have to keep working, obviously, and I need to tell my dad. Other than that, I hadn’t gotten very far. I mean, I don’t have money for a home of my own. I have no idea how my father will react other than he won’t be happy. I always pictured myself married before pregnant… I never wanted it any other way.”

“You’re going to be okay, you know that right?” I kissed the back of her hand again and felt her shake her head.

“No, I don’t know that, and that’s what scares me.”

“That’s fair, that’s fair…”

More silence, and I couldn’t tell you how grateful I was that it was a comfortable one. I took a breath, then stopped, then decided to fuck with it, and went for it.

“So let’s make a plan. Doesn’t have to be grand, just something to hold on to. One step, one day at a time…”

I turned to face her and she rolled her head on her neck to face me. She searched my face and dipped her chin, I couldn’t tell if it was in agreement or if it was to tell me to go on, so I split lanes.

“We both have to work, and I know I’ve set us back a long, long, ways but, Hayley… date me again. Same as before. Let me pick you up on Friday or Saturday. Let’s go do things and figure this shit out just you and me this time. As things progress, let me take you to the doctor and go to whatever classes with you… I mean, that’s a reasonable starting point, right?”

She nodded, and said, “It sounds reasonable…”

“Okay.”

I was going to make this up to her. I didn’t know how, I didn’t have the first clue how, but in her and in the baby she carried, I had everything to live for and as much as I felt overwhelmed and shit, I knew that we weren’t either of us really alone. That I had the backing of the club for all I’d been shitty to them, too.

It was as if I needed to relearn how to live my life and the guilt that came with thinking that way was pretty immense. I mean, the way I said it made it sound like I was some kind of prisoner of Cell’s or some shit…

Maybe in some ways I had been?

I lay in the dark beside Hayley, fingers entwined with hers, my thumb swiping back and forth over the silky skin along the back of it. I stared sightlessly at the raw wood beams of her ceiling, thinking for god knows how long, but when I looked back at her again, her eyes were closed, her breathing even and deep.

I stared at her sleeping face for what seemed like forever, until the golden glow of morning lit her studio’s windows.

---