A Baby Affair (Parent Portal 2)

When they rode for twenty minutes in silence, he told himself that was a good thing. The way it should be. Going according to plan. The vagaries of his day started to fade, and he noticed that the sky was a perfect blue with the sun setting over the trees in what would be a fantastic picture for someone into the art of photography.

He was into his work. His home and Talley. His parents. Friends from college. Bike riding, a good game of tennis. Racquetball. Sun and sand and time at the ocean. An occasional, lazy day binge watching television.

And Amelia Grace. He’d ridden up beside her a few times. In front of her twice. And behind her for the majority of the ride. She’d yielded to cars and pedestrians in the moderately busy neighborhood, swerving to miss a ball that bounced from a couple of boys in a yard to the street in front of them.

He’d reprimanded himself for trying to get another glimpse of the small bump he’d seen two days before during their little shack retreat.

And wondered if she’d felt the baby kick yet. Once she felt that intimate proof of life, she’d either relax and let herself believe her dreams were coming true. Or she’d panic more, fearing that she was going to get that close to happiness and then lose again. Either way, he wanted to be aware when it was happening.

As they turned to head back, signaling the last half of the ride—really the last quarter, as their turning point was closer to their cars than the distance they’d traveled from them—he pedaled up next to her.

“You mad at me?” he asked. Those moments while they’d waited out the dark clouds on Sunday might have changed things for her, too. Not that they’d talk about that. But if he’d somehow revealed more of what he’d been feeling than he’d thought, or intended, it was up to him to reassure her that nothing was changing between them. His feelings...they were his. He’d deal with them on his own. Separate and apart from her and their agreement.

“Of course not.” She glanced at him, frowning. “Why you would think that? What could I have to be angry with you about? Unless...” She slowed her bike. “Did you do something I don’t know about that’s going to piss me off?”

Like fall in love with her? Even just temporarily? God, let it be temporary.

“You’ve just been off today. Something’s bothering you.” He didn’t ask. He wasn’t giving her the chance to deny her mood. To make her feel as though she had to lie to him.

“I’m just...pondering,” she said. She’d kept the slower pace and he adjusted his speed to match hers, riding closer to her so that they could talk.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

She glanced at him, a strand of long auburn hair, having escaped from her helmet, touching her cheek and shoulder and dangling down her arm. She never wore jewelry when they rode, but he’d noticed a while back that she had pierced ears. Had thought of buying her a pair of garnet earrings once when he’d seen them displayed at the mall, figuring they’d bring out the highlights in her hair.

That had been before he’d known he was in trouble. Before he’d realized he was falling for her. But he should have known. When he’d seen the earrings, he’d been at the mall with Kim, one of the two women he’d had semiserious relationships with since Tricia’s death. They’d run into each other one afternoon at the grocery store—which was where they’d first met. Thinking that now he was finding his peace of mind regarding his donated sperm, he might be more able to get on with finding a woman to settle down with, he had asked her out. They’d gone out the past few Friday nights.

But not the next one. Not now that he knew that he was harboring temporary feelings for the woman carrying his child.

Amelia hadn’t answered him about whether she had something on her mind. Apparently she didn’t want to talk about it. Whatever it was.

Not him. That’s all that should concern him, all that was within his circle of control. Unless something was bothering her that he could help with. Something other than not understanding her fear of finding out the sex of her child. Something new.

Had she found out the sex of the baby since they had last spoken? He glanced toward the T-shirt bagging out over her thighs as she pedaled. Was it a girl? A boy? Would he have a son in the world who’d learn to throw a baseball without him? A little girl who didn’t have a daddy to take her to a father-daughter dance? If they even did those anymore.

“There’s this New York designer...” Amelia’s words broke into his thoughts so abruptly it took him a second to get up to speed with her. Apparently she did “want to talk about it.”

“He asked Angie to come work for him. She would be designing exclusively rather than part-time, the way things are now, where she has to spend so much time helping to run the business.”

His gut sank. This wasn’t little. Amelia’s family was everything to her. Angie was all set up to be a prominent security source for Amelia’s child. He was surprised she was even riding at all. And so calmly.

“Does she want to go?”

“No. And she told him so. She told me she loves being the boss, and I know that she does,” she said, glancing at him. “She’s always been a little bossy.”

“And you aren’t?” The teasing words came out of him naturally, as though they were friends.

She grinned, as he’d meant her to do, and said, “Of course I am. Which is why we share that position at Feel Good.” She sobered then; he saw her expression flatten out, as if she was not even aware of what houses they were passing. In that moment, she was everything to him.

“She doesn’t want to go, and yet you’re still bothered. Does that mean you think she should?”

“I don’t know what I think, and that’s why I’m bothered.”

He was beginning to see a pattern. Amelia didn’t get upset about problems or having to fix them. She got upset when she didn’t know how to fix them.

He could relate to that. One hundred percent.

“I think the position would be fun for her. And it’s certainly a