As well as the need for the question.
“Why are you asking me this?” I squeezed her shoulder, and she sat up.
Eyes red rimmed, nose flushed and sniffling. She brushed fingers beneath it. “That’s not wh
at I asked you.”
I’d heard what she’d asked me. That shit radiated me down to my toes, but not because I didn’t want kids.
Why is she asking me this?
My tongue drew across my lips before my answer, my hand folding over her arm. “Yes. Eventually, yes.”
This was the wrong answer.
Her body locked, and she eased out of my hands, standing from the bed.
I followed her across the room with my gaze before joining. “Do you not want kids?”
If she didn’t, that was okay. Having children wasn’t some grandiose dream of mine. I figured it’d just be part of the plan eventually.
Mom would fucking kill me for even considering the possibility of something else, of course. She was a mother and always wanted her baby to have babies. Naturally.
Bri said nothing, and I hugged my arms around her. “What’s going on? Kids aren’t your thing?”
Her lips pinched tight. Like she was doing everything she could not to cry, and I made her look at me.
“I don’t want kids.” That first tear blinked down, and it was like someone took a dagger to my insides. Her crying in the shower had been different.
Or had it been?
I framed her face. “Okay—”
“It’s not okay, Ramses.” She backed out of my hands. “That’s not okay, so quit pacifying me. Quit being so goddamn good all the time.”
My brow twitched, eyes wide.
She pressed palms to her face before folding her arms. “If you want kids, you should be able to have them. That’s not in the cards for me, and I don’t want you to get your hopes up about something that’ll never be there. Not with me.”
Not with her.
Not in the cards for me…
I wasn’t an idiot. I could read between the lines.
Shit.
In an attempt to put her back to me, she braced my bed frame. But when I snagged hands around her waist, she drew back to me.
She hit my chest, so warm, soft. She had all these hard edges. Played them up to hell.
But she forgot how delicate she was, how fragile.
I breathed her in, folding her arms in until we were locked. Until she couldn’t get out.
Until she couldn’t run.
“I don’t want to have kids with you, Ramses,” she said, a tortured ache in her voice. It twisted my gut, what she’d said only making the sick sensation worse.