Page 90 of Dash

And like before, I can feel this slipping through my fingers before I’ve had a chance to grasp it.

But Dayna isn’t Kendall. She’s scared, not vindictive.

My anger flares before I can control it, rationalise it.

“You tell me you’re pregnant and your first assumption is that I’m going to walk away?”

Her arms tighten around her stomach at my tone, as if she’s holding herself together with sheer willpower. “I don’t know. We don’t know each other that well. Our whole relationship is built on fucking, Dash.”

That lands like another bullet to the chest. I’m trying to remember that she’s scared and also in a war with her own body right now.

“Is that all you see this as? Fucking?” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Babe, are you serious? You think I buy helmets for any fucking girl? You think I make them food? Change their locks? Spend all my free time with someone I’m just sticking my cock in?”

My words are harsh, and I know I need to pull them back, but I can’t.

She needs to hear this because I’m not even sure she believes half the stuff she’s saying.

She’s doing what Dayna always does.

Protecting herself by pushing me away before I can leave.

But the only fucking problem is I’m not going anywhere.

“I don’t know what to think,” she says. “Nobody ever stays in my life. I don’t even know how to hope for that anymore.” She wipes her tear-stained face. “So, you don’t have to pretend to care. You don’t have to say the right things just to get through this awkward conversation. Though if we really want to talk about the elephant in the womb, then let’s do it. I fucked up. This was my mistake, and I will take full fucking responsibility for it. I don’t expect you to just step up and play dad. I don’t see how it would work anyway. We were never going to be more than a good time. Because at some point, you were always going to realise that I wasn’t worth the effort. So, I guess what I’m saying is you’re off the hook. I won’t come after you for child support or any help.”

“Seriously?” She thinks I wouldn’t pay for my child?

She laughs drily. “You should be celebrating. You’re not chained to me for the next eighteen years. You don’t have to be stuck with a neurotic mess who can’t even remember to schedule a fucking appointment without being reminded. You can liveyour life, find someone worthy of you. You’re not—” She chokes on her words, shaking her head. “You’re not stuck with me.”

She buries her face in her hands as she sobs so brokenly it caves my chest in.

I lift her chin, hating the way she tries to pull back from me.

“You done?” I don’t give her time to answer. “I am not leaving you to do this on your own.” I drop my hand to her stomach. We both suck in a breath as my palm spreads over the fabric covering where our child is growing. “This baby is mine too. And it fucking destroys me that all this time I thought we were building something together, you’ve had one foot out the door, expecting me to leave.”

“I don’t know how else to be, Dash. No one has ever made me feel like you do, and that terrifies me. Because if you do leave, I don’t know how to survive that.”

I bring our foreheads together, anchoring me into this moment. My hand spans over her belly, as if I can feel what’s growing inside her. Mine. “You think I’d leave the only real thing in my life?”

She sobs again, loud and ugly, painful. “I was so scared of losing you. The thought you might not be mine anymore… I can’t bear it.”

It’s the most real she’s ever been with me, the most she’s ever let me see that vulnerability. My fingers wrap around her nape, my thumb swiping under her ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I thought you’d be angry.”

I kiss her tears. “I am, but not at you. Never at you. I’m angry that I didn’t give you a safe place you thought you could land on. But Dayna, let me be straight here—you’re not doing this alone. I’m in this. I want this baby. I fucking want you.”

She looks at me like she’s trying to stitch those words into every broken place inside her.

“That’s great, because I don’t think I can afford to raise a baby alone, and I doubt I would have made much trying to sell my feet on the internet.”

I stare at her for a beat. Even scared out of her mind, she’s trying to make me laugh. Fuck, I love her.

But I hate that she’s been worrying about money and whether she could afford to raise our child.

“I’m sure there are people who are really into hairy toes.” My lips twitch when she blinks at me.

“I don’t have hairy toes.”

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