Bronte was fast asleep in the other room on a bed of cushions with a hoodie over her, so I was free to pace and rub my temples.
“Carrie,” Remy mumbled, staring at the bottle of beer on the kitchen table in front of him that he hadn’t touched.
“Carrie,” I repeated. “Was it serious?”
“As serious as it can get when it’s only going to last a short time.”
Fuck me, he was infuriating. Leaning down on my fists on the tabletop, I glared at him. “Don’t be difficult. Did you love her?”
His eyes flickered, and he looked almost guilty. “No. I liked Carrie, but I didn’t love her.”
“Right. And from that fling, she got pregnant.”
“That’s what the lawyer told me.”
“Okay, so do you know you’re the kid’s dad for sure?”
Tipping his head back and groaning, he rubbed his hands down his face. “I’m Tobias’s dad. There are no doubts in my mind.”
Yeah, even though he was tiny, he was almost a carbon copy of his dad. “Did you know she was pregnant?”
His head came up quickly as he glared at me. “Of course I didn’t fucking know. Carrie never told me, Marcus. Never even text me to say ‘hi’ or ‘what’s up.’ She left a letter for me. Can you believe that?”
He got up suddenly, and both of us tensed as his chair screeched across the tiled floor, waiting for one of the sleeping kids in the room next door to wake up.
When nothing happened, Remy continued. “The letter says she was scared to reach out and tell me because of all the shit chicks do when it comes to fake pregnancies, but that she’d intended to tell me about Tobias at some point—some point,” he hissed, throwing his arms in the air. “And I can’t even ask her now when that point would have been because she’s not here anymore.”
None of it was making fucking sense to me, and I knew he felt as lost about it all as I did. “How did Carrie know she was going to die? Women give birth every day, and even with complications, the statistics of survival are high.”
Leaning his head against the wall, I watched him catch his breath. From the back, all I could see was his chest heaving, and for the first time, it felt like my best friend was actually breaking apart.
He was always the calm one, the neutral one, the one who didn’t let his emotions get the better of him, so seeing him like this hit hard, especially when I couldn’t do one damn thing to help him.
“Her parents were there at the lawyer’s office, man. They said Carrie told them a week before she had Tobias that she felt like something was coming and handed them the letter. She also told her family that if anything happened to her, they were to contact me and give him to me.”
“Don’t they want him?” I was confused. If something happened to one of us, my parents would want to raise our kid and make sure it was okay.
“Yeah. We’re keeping in contact, and I’ve agreed they can see Tobias whenever they want. I’m not an asshole, Marcus. I’m not keeping him away from his grandparents and them away from the only living thing left of Carrie.”
Joining him where he was, I put my hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t saying that. I was just shocked they wouldn’t want to keep him like I know our parents would.”
“I’m his dad, and he’s my kid.” Remy’s eyes were clenched shut, and his jaw muscle was pulsing. “She had a fucking clot they didn’t know about.” The words were whispered and so full of pain my heart hurt.
“They did a cesarean, and she had him in her arms for twenty-four hours before it happened. He only got one day of his mom, man. How the fuck is a kid meant to get through that once they can understand the enormity of that situation?”
“I don’t know, Remy,” I replied quietly. “But I do know he’s got a great dad—even if he doesn’t have a clue right now what the fuck to do—who’ll help him through all of the hurdles life’s going to throw at him in the future.”
With his head still against the wall, he rolled it so he was looking at me. “I don’t know what to do. I bought every size and brand of diapers I could find, every wipe, every damn thing I could find at the store. He’s got bags full of clothes that Carrie got for him, and her parents are going to drop everything else off in a couple of weeks, but I don’t know what to do with any of it.”
Ordinarily, something like that would be amusing—i.e., walking into a store and buying one of everything because you didn’t know what the right thing was—but putting it into this situation and others like it, it wasn’t funny at all.