“Nate…” Cherry looks away and bites her lip.
I know the answer, and all my muscles tighten at once.
“I…I thought we were…”
“I know,” I reply though gritted teeth.
“It’s not that I wanted to,” she says. “I never would have considered it, not even if you didn’t want anything to do with the baby, but when I thought we were…we were siblings…well, I couldn’t really go through with it. I’m…I’m not sure I could have done it anyway.”
“It’s all right.” I bring her close to my chest. “But…we’re okay now, right? You aren’t…you aren’t still considering…” I can’t even say the word.
“No,” Cherry says definitively.
“Good.” I relax a little.
“Are you…are you okay with this?”
“With you having my baby?” I turn a little and take her face in my hands so I can look her in the eyes. “I’m fucking ecstatic about it, Cherry. I couldn’t be happier with the whole idea. I love kids, and the idea of you having mine has just taken the most insane couple of days ever and given it the ending we both deserve.”
“Really?”
“Really. I couldn’t be happier.” I kiss her softly before pulling her head back to my shoulder. She sniffs a few times, but the crying has mostly stopped.
“So…
do you feel like a yo-yo?” I ask. “I know that’s how I’m feeling.”
“Yes,” Cherry chuckles. “Honestly, I don’t know what to feel. I think I might still be in shock, and that started the day I found out about the baby.”
“When was that?”
“Just last week.” Cherry licks her lips and looks at me pensively. “It’s why I contacted you when I did. I knew I had to tell you, but then I wanted to do it at the right moment, and then…well, you know.”
“Am I forgiven for my original, horribly timed proposal, then?”
“Yes, you are.” She continues to look me in the eyes. “So, we aren’t siblings, but you aren’t an Orso.”
“Yeah.” I tell her everything Kate had told me. “Basically, swapping us was the final part of the treaty between our families.”
“That’s fucked up, Nate.”
“Right?” I shake my head. “I know you always wanted that big family thing, but both of ours are as fucked up as they could be.”
“But your family—er, well, I mean Nora and Antony and everyone—they’re good people. I really care about them.”
“They care about you, too, especially Nora.”
“She cares about you as well,” Cherry says. “I don’t think your blood relationship to her matters when it comes to that.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. I know she’ll always make sure you are okay, and that’s important.”
“How are you taking all of this business about being a Ramsay? I mean, I didn’t have a family growing up, and now I know I wasn’t even related to the woman who raised me, but this seems like a bigger blow. You grew up with the Orso family. I gained what you lost.”
“Aside from the shock of the idea, I’m actually kind of relieved.”
“Because of us?”
“Yes, but there’s more to it than that. I’ve felt like I have had to be the head of the family all this time, and I didn’t want it. I never felt like I was ready for that, and I didn’t know what to do. I think that’s why I did things the way I thought Pops would have done them, and not the way I wanted.”