His Surprise Baby - His Secret Baby

I had the sudden need to be sick again. I wondered if the six convolute bars had been a mistake. It had just been a craving I hadn't really noticed until it was all over and I saw the corpses of the wrappers strewn on the passenger seat.

I flushed and tried to focus. To force myself back to reality, my imagination getting a bit away from me.

When it came right down to it, I really didn't know much of anything about what was going on with Logan. And it really didn't matter. No matter what I thought of him— I still really didn't know— he had a right to know he was going to be a father. It was up to him what he did after that.

Searching down my phone, I opened a new text and thought about what to say.

Something funny?

Something gentle?

Something blunt getting right to the point?

It would have been so much easier without out all the questions. All the uncertainty. I took a breath, trying to focus. The pain in my stomach didn't help. I got up from the couch and went to make some tea. It would be easier to think without stomach cramps.

As the kettle boiled, I searched the closet for the herbal tea, not sure what caffeine might do to me and in no real hurry to find out. Locating the last, lonely bag, I put it in the mug I'd gotten for graduation with Penguins wearing mortarboard hats. Logan thought it was funny and I though that was cute. It was a compromise, but it worked.

The kettle started to scream like a thing from the darkest pits of Hell and I half-filled the cup, dipping the bag like grandma had taught me. She really was the only one of my family I liked. Rather less traditional in some ways than my parents, breaking years of convention, saying it should be the opposite, she was more than happy for me to be my own person.

She still taught me what she thought of as "womanly skills," a lot of which turned out to me more useful than I liked to admit, to the extent that I wondered why they were only secrets taught to women, when it seemed men could benefit from knowing them too. But she had also barely batted an eye when she caught me with a romance novel, which were strictly verboten as "lurid" by the rules of my parent's house.

She had just smiled to herself and gone on her way and never told my parents. At least if the fact that I didn't get spanked was anything to go by. It was my mother who usually performed such punishment and I guess I should be grateful for that much, at least. My father was so strong that I might have been paralyzed if he had tried to spank me. Particularly when I was young. Like Paul Bunyan in a three-piece suit, my dad was.

I sipped lightly at my tea, not wanting to overdo it, and sat back down on the couch. I looked at the phone, trying to think of something, anything, to say. I wondered, just hypothetically, what I would do if Logan wanted to part of our baby's life.

Would he want to help me raise it; maybe even live together?

Would we be a happy little family?

I smiled at the idea, forgetting, just for a moment, about that damn limo and everything else going on and that had gone on between us.

Could I really let go of the bad feelings from the past?

I really didn't know; maybe Logan really had changed, and I hadn't noticed. I thought back to Kristen's party and his incredibly thoughtful gift. A reminder of their past that seemed to make her very happy.

And with me, he was gentle and sweet. I had never known him to settle down with any girl and here he was wanting to see me again all the time, which had surprised me.

He did seem to be making an effort. I’d give him that much. So what exactly was my problem?

Was I so scared of getting hurt again that I was pushing him away?

Was my hate for what he had done to me in the past shadowing my love for him?

Did I love him?

Yes.

Fuck!

As much as I hated what he had done back in high school, I still loved him. I swore after leaving my parents’ house that I would never let anyone treat me like that again, but he hadn't, really.

He seemed to be really into me. He could have just been playing with me, but I didn't think so. That really wasn't the sense I got. I had to try.

I picked up the phone and opened a text box. Taking a deep breath, I typed, "I need to talk to you," figuring that would get his attention.