I shrug. “I don’t know. Naomi and Maddie scare off a lot of girls.”
“Oh, I see,” she says, laughing as she pushes my hand playfully from her thigh. “All those girls you were dating before me, right?”
“I wasn’t dating anyone,” I say. “I went on one or two dates with a few different people. That’s it. It wasn’t like this.”
“Like this?” she asks in a softer voice.
“Serious,” I say without hesitation.
She nods slowly. “Yeah. It is, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I confirm. “So, can I put my hand back on your leg? I like to be touching you as much as possible at all times.”
She grins, but it fades as she pulls up in front of her apartment building. By the time she shuts off the truck and turns to face me, she looks worried.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Reconsidering having me over to spend the night?”
“No, but…” She sighs. “There is something that’s been on my mind.”
“Okay, shoot.” I take her hand, the worry in my chest fading when she holds tight.
“My mom had me when she was twenty-eight,” she says. “I wasn’t planned and… Well, I know she loves me, but there were times when I could tell she felt burdened by having a kid she wasn’t prepared for, with a man who didn’t stick around long enough to see me out of diapers.”
I nod, though I’m still not really sure where this is going.
“I’m just saying I’m not ready to be a mom, not even close,” she says, a mixture of shyness and anxiety mixing in her big brown eyes. “Not that anything is going to happen tonight, but I think it’s going to happen soon. And when it does, I want us to be careful because the thought of being responsible for raising a kid right now is really scary. I would be so afraid I’d screw it up. I need more time to raise myself first.”
“Yeah. Totally. I get it.” I squeeze her hand. “Though honestly, that probably means you’re more ready to be a mom than most people. I think it’s supposed to be scary. You know? People who aren’t scared by that kind of responsibility are idiots.”
She shakes her head. “No, seriously, Mick. I’m not even thinking about wanting kids right now. Not even a little bit.”
“Right, yeah,” I say, with a laugh. “Got it. Loud and clear. Me, either. We’re absolutely on the same page.”
“But what if…” She trails off as she stares through the truck’s cloudy rear window. “I mean, what if there’s an accident? I know condoms don’t always work, and the women in my family are insanely fertile. And there’s no way I could be a firefighter and a single mom. Even if I could convince my mom to help out while I’m at work, which I’m not sure I could.” She sighs. “Or would even want to since she’s a hot mess and I know from experience she isn’t really—”
“Hey there, hold on a second,” I say, frowning as I cut in. “Who says you’d be a single mom? If there were an unexpected baby—which I really think we can take precautions to avoid, by the way—I’d be as responsible as you are. I’d be there to do my share, whether you and I were together or not.”
She glances back at me, a doubtful expression wrinkling her forehead. “Really? Would you? I mean, have you thought about what it would be like to have a kid? How much your life would have to change?”
I shrug. “No, I haven’t,” I say, hurrying on when her lips part again. “But I know right from wrong, and I would do the right thing. When I have kids, I’m going to love them and help take care of them. No matter what. And I have some pretty strong feelings for you,” I say, my heart beating faster as that spark of something so-much-more than lust leaps between us again. “I would never hurt you, Faith, or leave you alone to deal with something we’re both equally responsible for.”
Her lips quirk. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I care about you. A lot.”
“I care about you, too.” She rests her hand on my chest, making me want to pull her into my lap and kiss her until she knows I’m not going anywhere. Even if things get complicated. “And I want to be with you so much it’s killing me,” she continues, “but there’s this voice in my head that keeps saying it isn’t smart to jump in too fast. That there can be real consequences, and I’m not ready for them.”
I cover her hand with mine. “Then we don’t jump in too fast. We wait until you’re totally ready.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. “I mean, even if I got swept up in the moment and said I wanted to, you wouldn’t?”
I wince. “Um, well…that might be hard, I won’t lie. But if that’s what we decide is best, I’ll stand by it. Though I might have to get up in the middle of whatever’s happening and leave to make good on that kind of promise.”
“No, forget it. I know it’s not a fair thing to ask,” she says with a shy laugh. “I just… You do things to my self-control. Things no other guy has ever done before. I trust you. And I trust myself when my clothes are on. But when they’re off…”
“I hear you,” I say, and I do. I’m not sure I one-hundred-percent trust myself when her clothes are off, either. If we’re naked and she asks me for more, I might buckle under temptation. “Maybe we should keep our clothes on for a while? In the interest of keeping promises.”
She cocks her head. “And in the meantime, I call my doctor and figure out the birth control thing? Just so we have a second line of defense?”
I nod. “Sounds good.”
“You’re not disappointed?” she asks, her forehead wrinkling again. “Or think I’m being neurotic and weird and overly cautious?”
“No, I’m not disappointed,” I say. “And no on all that other stuff, too. It’s hot that you take serious stuff seriously.”
She huffs. “You think everything’s hot.”
“No, I think everything about you is hot. There’s a big difference.”
“We’ll see about that.” She grins. “You’ve never seen me eat Big Ike’s pizza. I make a horrible mess. But Big Ike’s is the best and after experiencing the Animal Style meat and veggie combo, I can’t go back to lesser pizzas.”
“Fuck that sounds good.” My stomach growls in agreement and we both laugh.
And just like that, we’ve worked through another issue without drama or stress, proving Faith is Bridget’s complete opposite and the kind of person I should have been with all along.
We head into her apartment and kick off our shoes.
Faith coaxes Captain Snugglepants out from under a lounge chair and coos her apologies to him, while I order pizza and set out plates and napkins.
We spend the rest of the night eating too much, vegging out watching mindless T.V. with the cat purring between us, and holding each other in Faith’s too-small-for-two-grown-people, full-sized bed, talking about the past and the future and things we’ve never told anyone else.
As I drift off, Faith already heavy with sleep against me, with her head on my chest, I’m so happy. And happy to wait as long as she wants.