Page 30 of Home Run

“What are your plans today?” I asked.

“Aside from apartment hunting, Radley and I have a gym date, then”—she tapped the pile of leaflets—“I have some light reading.”

“I’ll read these.” I picked up half of them. “Do you want to come to the game tonight?”

Millie took another small, slow sip of her coffee. “I don’t know, I’ll see how I feel. If Radley’s going I might.”

Millie hadn’t been to many games this year, mostly because of school, and every time she had, she’d been wearing a generic Lions tee. I couldn’t count how many times I’d wanted to see her wearing a shirt with my name on it. I wasn’t about to ask her whether she’d wear one tonight because I already knew the answer. But the flicker of hope I’d been carrying inside me since the day we met, burned a little brighter. Because the next time she came to a game, she’d be watching with my baby growing inside her. And that was better than any shirt—no matter how much we were still panicked about it.

Which led me to the other thing I’d been thinking about almost nonstop the past seven weeks; the sex we’d had, and the parting shot she’d left me with.This was a mistake.

It probably wasn’t the smartest move right now to bring the subject up, but I also wasn’t the smartest guy.

“So while we’re talking about things, I have a question.”

Her mouth pulled in a big smile as she picked up a leaflet and waved it at me. “Is the answer to be found in here?”

I huffed a laugh as I took it. “No.”

“Then what can I help you with?”

I paused, questioning whether this was the right time. Probably not, but while Millie had spent nearly two months ignoring me, I’d been working on what I would say the next time I saw her, which hadn’t exactly gone to plan. But nothing about this was going to plan.

I’d been with enough girls to know when they were lying, plus I had a sister who won awards for it—okay, technically, that wasacting, but same difference. And Millie had been stone-faced lying, she’d thought it was a mistake as much as I did. Which is to say I absolutely did not. And I didn’t want to go another day without getting it off my chest.

“I want to talk about us.”

Her head crooked to the left. “Us?”

“Yeah, you and me.”

“As in you and me together?”

“As in you and me, and how we made that.” I pointed to her belly. Her mouth opened to interrupt, but I wasn’t done. “Let me speak. Please.” Millie closed her mouth. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought over the last couple of months, and what you said to me?—”

“Tanner, I apologized?—”

“Iknow. It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

I scrubbed a hand through my hair, trying to stop my tongue from tying itself in knots. “I have never made any secret of my feelings for you. I’ve liked you since the first day I laid eyes on you, but I realize that you might not have thought I was sincere.”

I paused. Waiting to see if she was about to say something because, let’s face it, she was Millie. But this time she stayed silent.

“If you need me to prove myself worthy of being with you, then I will spend as long as it takes doing so. But I don’t believe you think us having sex was a mistake. Even now you’re pregnant. There was something between us that day, there’s been something between us since the day we met. If you need time getting used to the idea, then I’ll give it to you. But make no mistake, we are anus.”

“Tanner—”

“You don’t need to say anything right now, but just know that I’m not giving up on you. I will never give up on you.”

I picked up my coffee and drained it while she stared at me with her big, chocolatey eyes. I’d said all that needed to be said.

My perseverance with Millie had got me to this point, but now I was way out of my depth.

Having a baby hadn’t been on my bingo card for this year, but having one with Millie was a whole different story, and if I played my cards straight, by the time our baby was born, we would become a family.

I had a lot of work to do.

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