Page 18 of Home Run

“Does what?”

“Go without saying?”

“Of course. If that’s what you decide. I’ll support you. However, you want.”

“What? You’re not going to tell me to get an abortion?” She sniffed, her eyes filling up again.

“I’m not going to tell you to do anything,” I replied, wiping my fingers on a napkin. “Do you want an abortion?”

“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what to do.” She sobbed. “Please help me, I’ve fucked up everything.”

I pushed away my plate of food and moved back into the spot next to her. “Millie, you’ve fucked up nothing. And we’re in this together, if you’ve fucked up, then so have I.” I just didn’tfeellike I’d fucked up.

“But…but I told you…birth control…and now…” she stuttered through her breaths. Luckily the people in the booth next to us, the ones I’d soaked with my coffee, had moved somewhere drier, so we were relatively private. No doubt everyone else thought we were going through the worst breakup ever and were giving us space.

“Mills, this isn’t just on you. There were two of us there, you didn’t see me running out for condoms.”

“Yeah, but I bet that happens to you all the time. You just got unlucky with me.”

Unlucky wasn’t the adjective I’d have used. At no point ever would I call myself unlucky. Quite the opposite. I also wasn’t going to tell her that it did happen all the time, girls always tried to make me go bare.

Using the tip of my finger, I eased her chin around until her eyes locked into mine. “Millie, you’re the only girl I’ve ever had sex with and not used a condom.”

I didn’t think her reaction would be another round of wailing. It was loud enough that Giuseppe came over to see if everything was okay.

“Her dog died,” I told him, which only made it worse. He hurried off, only to return with a plate he placed on the table in front of her.

“Mia bella. This is the best chocolate brownie in New York. You eat this and you’ll feel better.”

“Thanks, man,” I replied as Millie sobbed through her gratitude.

I reached for my breakfast, and another slice of bacon while Millie continued crying quietly on my shoulder. No point letting it get cold, and I figured she had a lot of tears to get out. I wasn’t entirely sure why I wasn’t crying, too, or where this eerie sense of calm was coming from, but no matter how hard I focused on it, I couldn’t bring myself to panic.

I was worried she was about to dehydrate when she sat up, reached for her glass of water, and downed it in one. Then her eyes landed on the brownie and her tears dried, providing concrete and irrefutable evidence of the power of chocolate.

“Good?” I asked as she put half of it in her mouth at once.

She nodded.

“Have you told your mom?”

She shook her head.

“Are you going to tell her?”

She huffed a smile. “I think it’s going to be hard to hide, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I chuckled. “Does that mean you want to keep it?”

Her shoulders jerked up. “I dunno. There’s so much to think about. I’m still in school. Where would I live? Do I just give up school forever? What about my future? Do I have a future if I have a kid, or does it get put on hold for twenty years? How will I pay for everything?”

Money was the least of her worries, I’d make sure of that. But as I stared at her panic-filled face, I realized how much there was to think about and it was stuff I had no control over. I knew I’d play ball for the rest of my life,but I could get transferred any minute, and then what? I’d have to leave her, would they come with me? Is this how it began? Millie had a twenty-four-hour head start on this news; maybe this time tomorrow the meltdown would be mine.

She licked the chocolate off her fingers and picked up the mint tea, which had to be stone cold by now, though she didn’t seem to notice.

“Do you want to be a mom?” I asked, because I figured any decision she made should probably come from that answer. If she said no it would be a problem solved.

“I mean, yeah, sure. Someday. Do you want to be a dad?”

---