Page 80 of Duke
Why then does my chest hurt when I think aboutnothaving this baby?
I move my hand to my breastbone, pressing my fingers into the phantom soreness there. What the fuck is that about?
Now is not the time to be dumb. Or sentimental. Orsoft. Not when my dreams for my career and my life are finally coming true.
“But you know I’ll be there for y’all, right? You and the baby? If you wanna have it?” Duke looks at me again, all earnestness. “Smart move or not, I’ll be the best damn daddy I can be. You sure as hell won’t be raising this kid on your own, Blue. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I have a kid in this world who didn’t feel loved the way I felt loved by my parents.”
My heart spasms. Probably why I feel short of breath. Just—
Thisman. He’s a good one.
A really, really good one. And I keep running into this feeling that I’m doing something stupid by keeping him at arm’s length.
But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? He’s smart and he’s kind and he’s handsome as all get out, and because of that,he makes me stupid. That’s how I got myself into this mess in the first place. In the heat of the moment, I suggested we have unprotected sex, which I never do, and then this happened.
What other stupid shit will I do because those fucking blue eyes of his make me weak in the knees?
I never knew Duke’s mom and dad. He’s talked about them in a peripheral sort of way. But like I said last night, I can tell they were good parents. Happy parents.
Would Duke be the same kind of parent?
Could he teach me how to be too?
What if, deep down, that’s a piece of the puzzle of what I’ve been looking for? To be the kind of supportive parent I always wanted—needed—but haven’t really had?
I shove the thought aside. I’m too young to be thinking about that kind of thing. Of course I want to be a good mother. A happy mother.
But that comes later,afterI build my empire and I’m able to stand on my own two feet the way my own mother was never able to. I can only imagine what she and my dad would say if I decided to have a baby with a guy I barely know—someone they’ve never heard about, much less met.
“You’re going to be a great dad,” I reply carefully. “I think we all know that. But I also know you want to travel. Take more time to figure yourself out. You’re not ready to settle down yet.”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “Ideally not, no. No, I’m not.”
“Neither am I. I don’t see how I’d be able to work the way I do and raise a kid. Especially with Mollie havingherbaby.”
“Right. Yeah, that’d be tough.”
Silence.
Terrible, awful silence fills the truck. We didn’t make a decision, but…
Did we just make a decision?
I’m filled with a sense of forlornness. It’s the only word I can think of that describes the sinking feeling in my stomach.
Which makes no sense. I don’t want a baby right now. I definitely don’t want Duke to have to be tied to me for the rest of his life. I know how important his freedom is to him. That’s why he volunteered to come to Aspen in the first place, isn’t it? Because he wants to experience the world. Do what he wants, when he wants.
He’s a good guy, though.
Thoughtful.
I tell him to take the next right. He puts his blinker on.
“So.” He slowly makes the turn.
I shift on the bench, tucking my hair behind my ears. “So.”
“What are you up to the rest of the day?”
