Page 155 of Whispered Sins

Then I thought of something. I set the bouquet of flowers and the tea on the ground.

“What are you…” she started.

I reached in my jacket pocket and felt the glossy photo against my fingertips. The same photo I had been carrying around since I found out she was pregnant. The one her friend gave me that day just a few feet away from this very spot.

I pulled the ultrasound carefully out of the pocket and heard Heart audibly gasp when she saw it. The baby was just a little speck on the paper. It was probably just over twelve weeks old.

“Where did you get that?” she asked, her voice breathless.

“Your friend gave it to me.”

She looked at me questioningly. The look on her face told me she didn’t know I had it or that her friend had given it to me.

“Short. Dark hair. Fiercely protective.”

“That would be Monica,” she said with a hint of a laugh.

She gently took the ultrasound from my hands and looked at the picture. Her eyes welled with tears as she looked at it.

“This was from so long ago…” she said, almost to herself.

“I’ve had it ever since.”

“But why? You’ve just been carrying it around with you?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I have. I don’t know why. I just felt like it needed to be close to me.”

She twisted her mouth as she looked from the photo and back to me.

“Is this a bad time?” said a voice from the stairs.

Heart and I both looked over simultaneously to see who was interrupting this moment. I saw her landlord standing at the top of the stairs, clutching the banister as she looked between the two of us. An expression of amusement and enjoyment was on her face, as if she had just walked into a soap opera as a live audience member. Her cat weaved between her legs and purred at us with the same curious expression as its owner.

“Yes, Edna. Not a good time,” said Heart, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Edna nodded, but didn’t take any initiative to leave.

“Can it wait?” asked Heart, sighing.

Edna’s eyes widened as she realized she was indirectly being told to leave. Clearly, the lady could not take a hint. Heart had told me how nosy she was. As I looked at her in her pink fuzzy robe and matching slippers, I realized she must just be lonely. I kind of felt bad for her.

“Yes, yes. Sorry. I’ll be going,” said Edna as she scooped up her cat and held it to her chest. She began walking down the stairs and Heart waited until we heard her door close to continue our conversation.

She let out a sigh of a laugh before bringing her hand to her head.

“Are you okay?” I asked worriedly, reaching my hand out and wrapping my fingers gently around her arm.

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s just Edna. Sorry about that.”

I nodded, but didn’t let go of her arm. She looked down at my hand, but didn’t pull away. I took that as a good sign. It was time to goNotebookon her. With no speech planned, I just let every feeling I had do the talking.

“When I first met you, I wasn’t looking for anything. Relationships weren’t on the table for me. I wanted to believe I was too busy for one or too disinterested in the same women who only wanted my money or status. But I think I was also scared. But then I met you. Somehow, those fears just kind of washed away. It was so easy with you, like I had always known you or something. Like you had known me before I became ‘the Daniel Jacobs’—and I say that in the most humbling, embarrassingly way.”

Heart’s lips lifted into a smirk and it took everything in me not to lean in and kiss her, but I knew I had to get everything off my chest. If our past had proved anything, it was that we needed to learn how to talk to each other.Reallytalk to each other.

“At first, it was just about the sex. I never thought it would turn into something else or that you would become pregnant.”

I saw her mouth open as she was about to say something, but I continued.

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