Page 97 of Wild Pitch
My dad had always been a solid presence in my life, but he’d always trusted me to handle myself. He remembered Luc from the wedding and was quick to say hello, but when he noticed my hand in Luc’s, his eyes widened, and he poked my mother.
“Huh, is there something you guys wanted to tell us?”
Luc looked at me, giving me the chance to answer.
“He’s the ‘Baby Daddy.’”
Luc choked, cringing, unsure of my parents’ reaction. My mother and father stared, schooling their faces to hide any reaction.
“I’m hoping to be a lot more than that.”
Oh fuck. My fucking heart. If it weren’t half broken already, it would be now. I ached for this man.
Dad said, “Well, hopefully, you didn’t do something stupid. Kylie isn’t known for her ability to forgive and forget, but it’s her best damn quality.”
“It is.” Luc agreed with my father, and that was the end of that torturous conversation. Dad never rubbed salt in a wound when he could sense someone was already down for the count.
“Good game, though I thought we were fucked in the second inning.”
Mom and I escaped into the kitchen to see if Kelsey needed help, but she shooed us away. She had hired a caterer, so there wasn’t much for us to do.
“Did you get a chance to talk to your sister?” Mom asked. I knew then that Kelsey had told her that she was also pregnant.
“Yes! I did. It will be great to do this with her.”
“Luc seems supportive and not at all what I expected when you first told us you were pregnant. Did I misunderstand?”
“No, but I did. We both made mistakes, but we are going to take things slow and figure out what’s best for us and the baby.”
“I know your dad and I always try to stay out of things, but I think you should see this.”
Mom scrolled through her phone and opened her photo application. On the surface, it looked like a photo of Sam and Crew, with Luc and me in the background. When she zoomed in, she’d accidentally captured Luc looking at me while I was talking to Kelsey.
Oh.
If there was ever an expression of love, it was captured in that photo.
“That man loves you, Kylie. I’ve seen that only a handful of times, photos of your father looking at me. The way Sam lights up when Kelsey is anywhere close to him. And here. This photo. Now I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but that’s not something you walk away from without a damn good reason.”
As I stared at the photo, I took the liberty of sending it to myself.
“Did you get your ultrasound rescheduled?”
“I did. Thanks for making the call for me.” With her position at the maternity hospital, my mother had gotten me in contactwith the person responsible for scheduling appointments, and they had pulled some strings. “I wanted Luc to have the chance to be there. What are the odds we’ll be able to find out the sex?”
“You will be eighteen weeks at that appointment, right?”
“Yes.”
“It should be easy to see by then. So you don’t want to be surprised?”
“No.”
The moment I found out I was pregnant, I knew I wouldn’t be able to wait until they were born to know the sex. I wanted every bit of information about this baby that I could get. If someone in the medical field could determine the information through a test, a screening, or by any means, I also wanted that access.
“That’s my girl. I knew you were more like me than you would admit.”
“You knew with all of us?”
