Page 24 of What if It's Us

Shouldn’t I be offering to pay him?

It’s the right thing to do.

I can’t expect something for nothing.

“I…”

He wipes a hand over his face, smiling but shaking his head in disbelief at the same time. “Marlee, you’re not paying me a fucking dime for this.” He hitches his thumb over his shoulder. “I mean I’d take you back to my place and fill you with kids right now if you said the word. Why would this be any different?”

Holy hell.

That’s an offer that is seriously hard to refuse.

The way he just said he’d fill me with kids right now has me blushing fifty shades of red.

“But—”

His face grows serious but I can tell he’s not angry. “Mention trying to pay me one more time and I take my sack of kids and walk away.”

“I’m sorry, Ledger. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just didn’t want you to feel like I’m using you.”

“Youareusing me.” He shakes his head. “And I’m not upset about it in the least.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” he says. “And I haven’t thought that even once, Marlee. Trust me, if I didn’t feel comfortable with this arrangement, I wouldn’t have said yes.”

His jaw ticks as I watch him across the table. I hate that I might have upset him. Ledger’s too nice of a guy to put through any kind of discomfort.

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I just want to do this for you. That’s all. Can’t a nice guy do something for someone he cares about Don’t nice people do nice things for others?”

I shrug my shoulder. “Cut their grass. Make them brownies. Give them sperm. It’s all relative, right?”

He laughs and finally some tension drips away. “Exactly. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe.”

I take a long sip of my water as I try to redirect our conversation.

“Do you think you’ll tell the guys?”

He inhales, a slight smirk on his face. “Probably not right away. And definitely not until you’re comfortable with my doing so. But also, if you decide you don’t want me to be involved at all, I’ll never say a word to them about it.”

I tilt my head, a pang of guilt hitting my heart once again. “Ledger, I don’t want this to become some big secret that you’re forced to hold onto. I trust you one hundred percent so if you want to tell the guys or even one of the guys or someone else just so you have someone to talk to about all this, I’d completely understand. And if you want to be involved, I…I mean, that would be okay with me. We would just need to talk about what that would look like for us.”

He leans forward and covers my hands with his. His grasp is protective but tender. “It’s sweet of you to worry about me, Marlee, but I promise you I’ll be fine. This is about you,” he counters. “I’m here foryou. I want this to go smoothly foryou. I want to do everything I can to get you what you want. You deserve to be a mother if that’s what you wish, and I have no doubt you’ll be a great one.” He squeezes my hands beforeletting go, leaning back and grabbing his bottle of water looking more relaxed. “So, tell me how this is going to go down. When do we start? What can I do?”

Okay. I guess we’re ready to go there.

“Well, umm, I’ll start taking ovulation tests in a few days.”

“And what are those?”

“Ovulation tests?”

He takes a bite of his last hotdog and swallows it down. “Yeah.”

“Oh, they’re like pregnancy tests but instead of telling you if you’re pregnant or not, they tell us when we’re the most fertile during our cycle so we have the best chance at conception.”

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