The lines that separates the road to love and the magic of lust can be dangerously thin.
I take comfort in knowing we’re on the same page.
Trey takes the spot beside me. Bedhead frames my face, I obviously haven’t so much as brushed my teeth, and yet he drinks me in like I’m the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. His eyes flash. I wonder if he’s replaying last night, too.
“I’ve got a meeting this morning,” he says. “But I’ll be back shortly before noon. We can spend the afternoon together. Anywhere you want to go.”
“Sounds good.” I tamp down my excitement and ignore the erratic beating in my chest when a curious urge to kiss him goodbye washes over me.
No, no, no, I tell myself. Don’t do it.
It won’t end well.
Thirty-Five
Sophie
Past
We’re slouched on the hotel couch. Side by side. Nolan’s head is in his hands. My elbows are on my knees. There are no fresh flowers on the coffee table. No champagne on ice. No dimmed lamps.
Tonight’s not about that.
All afternoon I conjured the dozens of different ways this could go. Maybe he’d propose? Maybe he’d embrace this unexpected gift and make the best of it? We could get a house in the suburbs with a yard. I even pictured what the baby would look like, trying my best to guess the gender, but neither one felt quite right. I thought women were supposed to just know when they’re pregnant, like a gut feeling, but so far I feel nothing but confusion and a laundry list of conflicting emotions.
My hopes fly out the window as I study him.
Nothing about the way he looks suggests he’s about to spin this into a fairytale ending.
“I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon, about the right thing to do,” he says. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Being a mom would take all of that away from you, every last opportunity.”
“So what are you saying? I don’t want to get rid of it …”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all, Soph.” He places a hand on mine. “I can get you into Princeton this fall. My father’s on the board of trustees. He knows people in admissions. All I have to do is make a call and you’re in.”
He’s insane.
“I can’t afford Princeton.”
“I’d pay for it all. Every last cent.”
“And what about the baby?”
He pushes a breath between tight lips before dragging his hand through his hair. “I’ve never wanted to be a father, Soph …”
“So I’m on my own?” My voice breaks and my voice is so tight in my throat that it burns.
He pinches the bridge of his perfect nose. “That’s not what I’m suggesting.”
“So you’re saying we should give it up for adoption?” My palm cups my flat stomach. It’s crazy how something so tiny has the power to change so much.
“Out of all the options, I think that’s what’s best. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” I pick at my nails. “The idea of just … handing my baby over to some stranger …”
The thought alone blurs my vision with a waterfall of tears.
Damned hormones.
“What if I knew someone?” he asks. “A woman. A friend of mine from college. She’s been trying to have a baby for years. She’d give anything to be a mother.”
A hot flash of jealousy jets through me even though he says she’s just a friend. Obviously he has female friends. And he’s dated other women before. But he’s never talked about them around me.
“It’d be better than giving it to some stranger …” he says. “I just … I think this baby would be better off … without us for parents.”
“How could you say that?”
“I’d be a terrible father. I work too much. I play too hard. I’m always traveling … I’m only in Chicago on the weekends, and not for much longer,” his voice trails. We hadn’t talked about an end date. All this time our nights together felt infinite. Or maybe I was in denial, needing to believe something like this was a forever kind of thing. “And you’re so young. You should go to college, get a career established, make something of yourself before you dedicate the rest of your life to another human being.”
I think of my parents, and how my father up and decided he didn’t want to be a dad anymore. Just like that. Mom sent him to the store for diapers and he never came back. I can’t imagine raising a child for years with Nolan, only to have him walk out of our lives.
It’d destroy me.
“How old is she?” I ask. “This woman you know.”
“My age.”
“What does she do for a living?”
“She’s a pediatrician.” He smiles. The room is dim but I could swear his eyes light, like he’s certain about his choice and his mind is settled. “Never met anyone who loves kids more than she does.”