She’s so emotional lately. I have a really hard time not giving her shit about it but I don’t want to add to it. “Liar. You love it.”
She cries out loud, huffing her annoyance. “I really do. It’s that darn Danny Kaye! And Bing Crosby’s blue eyes. And Rosemary Clooney. And even that skinny one, Vera-Ellen. I mean, she needed to eat a couple cheeseburgers but I just love them all.”
I fold her into my arms. “You’re right. You are emotional. But your tears aren’t going to work on me.”
She’s silent for a moment before shoving away from me. “You suck.”
I smile at her. “Yet you still love me.”
“Verdict’s out on that one. Compromise and watch Home Alone with me?”
“Yeah. That works.”
She takes the remote and starts flipping through their streaming services before finding the one she’s looking for that is showing Home Alone and starts it up.
We keep eating the pizza and I go to the kitchen to pop some microwave popcorn while the McCallister family sans Kevin is running through the Chicago airport.
I’m about to rejoin her in the living room when the door to the garage opens and Dean comes in, kicking off the last of the snow on the bottom of his boots.
“Hey, man. Go okay?”
“It was a bitch. That ice sucks to cut through. Few people had gone in the ditch right outside of town and there was one lady who’d tail ended another gal.”
“They okay?”
“As far as I know, yeah. People are going slow, taking it easy. But I’ll have to leave again in about six hours to clean the streets again.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. You staying here tonight?”
“She wants me to, that okay with you?”
“I’d appreciate it, actually. That way she’s not here alone. Getting too close to the end and if I’m gone and she goes into labor, I’ll be a mess.”
“I’m here then. For however long you need me.”
“Good, man.”
“I wouldn’t watch White Christmas with her so she wasn’t thinking so earlier.”
He scrubs a hand over his bearded jaw, smiling. “Bet that pissed her off. She’s been begging me for a few weeks to watch it with her. I keep telling her to watch it alone but she swears it’s not the same. I can’t do it, though.”
“Same. It’s torture.”
“So what’s new with you?” he asks as I pull the bag out of the microwave and toss a second in. Since Dean’s home, I know he’ll polish off the last of the pizza but no doubt still be hungry. And let’s be honest. You could be stuffed to the gills and the smell of popcorn would lure you in for more. After pouring the first bag into a large bowl, I sprinkle it with a little bit of salt and set it on the counter, waiting for the next bag to finish popping.
“Might have gotten a beautiful lady pregnant,” I tell him at the perfect timing. He’d just chugged down a bunch of water.
Sputtering and coughing, he shoots me a glare and I laugh.
“Fuck you,” he says, wiping up the water. “Not even funny.”
“Oh, trust me, I know. It’s the truth, though.”
“What the fuck? You’re thirty-five. Don’t you know to wrap it up?”
I shrug. “It was a strange night and she said she was on the pill.”
“So she trapped you?”
“Fuck no. It’s not like that.” At least, I don’t think it is. Ashley’s not that way. I genuinely think the pregnancy, if there even is one, is an accident.
“You seem calm about this. How long have you known her? Can’t be that long since you proposed to that bitch Stacia. Wasn’t that like a month ago?”
I wince. “Yeah. It was the same night.”
Now it’s his turn to laugh. “Oh, fuck me. You had a drunk one-night stand that ended up with getting the girl pregnant? Only you. Holy shit.”
“Shut up! It’s not…”
“Like that? Oh yeah. It’s exactly like that. You’re such a dumbass.” He shakes his head and refills his glass, looking in the fridge for something to eat.
“Pizza’s in the living room.”
“Oh good. I’m starved.”
He’s always hungry. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re 6’5” and two-seventy.
The microwave dings again so I take care of the second bag of popcorn while he goes to the living room to say hello to his wife and find the pizza.
When I join them, he’s taken my seat next to her on the couch.
Josie looks content as she cozies up to Dean, his one arm over the back of the couch and around her shoulder.
It’s hard not to be a little jealous of the two of them. My first marriage didn’t last. We thought it was love but as it turns out, friendship, even if there was some attraction there, too, doesn’t lead to love the way we had expected. The chemistry was never really there, and if I’m being completely honest — and this is something I’ve been thinking about for the last month — the chemistry wasn’t there with Stacia either. I just never realized it until I spent time with Ashley and discovered what it was like to be with someone I truly wanted. I never knew what it felt like to have a desire for a woman so deep.
On the screen, Kevin is deciding that he’s strong and is going to defend his house and I’ve decided that if Ashley is pregnant with my child, I’ll do everything in my power to do what Dean has taught me to do. I’ll protect her and the baby, I’ll be there for her in any capacity she’ll allow. I’ll work my ass off to be the best father and partner for her to raise a child with. I know she won’t want me for more than that, her words as we stood by her car after Roy, the taxi driver, dropped us off at the bar that day have played on a loop in my head every single day since.
“It was fun.”
“It was fun. Maybe we should…”
“I’m going to stop you right there, Harry.” She’s back to calling me Harry again which can’t be good. That can only mean she’s trying to de-humanize the situation or something of the sort. “We can’t. I mean, the other night was fun.”
I raise an eyebrow at her.
“Okay, yesterday was fun, too.”
“So was this morning. And later this morning. And this afternoon.”
She blushes and I want nothing more than to reach over and run the pad of my thumb over the pink in her cheeks. But the soft smile she’s giving me tells me she’s about to deliver the don’t call me speech so I keep my hands to myself.
“Yeah. But…”
“But, you don’t want a repeat?”
“It’s not that, but it’s kind of that? You and I just got out of long-term fairly serious — or at least, we thought they were serious — relationships. For heaven’s sake, you proposed a couple days ago! To someone who definitely wasn’t me. Last night was not normal for me. The drinking, the sex with a stranger, all of it. And I need to wrap my head around that.”
“Did I pressure you?” The thought alone makes me sick, and it’s not from the alcohol. That’s out of my system now and I feel great. Or, I did, until this conversation, anyway.