“Nothing I have to…” She jerked her face out of my hands. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“Because I didn’t want to stress you out any more than you already are.” I stepped back when she narrowed her eyes at me. “The money isn’t an issue.”
“And you getting fired isn’t?”
“They’re not going to fire me.” I kept my voice level.
“You should have told me.” She sighed. Hard. “You have got to let me in, Nixon. If you would’ve opened up about this, I wouldn’t have put you in this position.”
“Let you in? You live with me, Liberty. How much further in would you like me to let you? You’ve met Nathan and Harper. You’ve talked to my parents on the phone. I’ve brought you to every team event and never ever hidden you from the press. You woke up this morning in my bed—is that not close enough for you?” For fuck’s sake, I hadn’t let a woman this close to me in years, if ever.
“That is not what I mean.”
“I’m pretty new at all this moved-the-woman-I-was-lucky-enough-to-conceive-a-child-with-into-my-house stuff, but something tells me that we can’t exactly know everything there is to know about each other already.”
“I barely know anything about you,” she countered. “Every time I try to get close, you throw up a wall about ten feet tall and a billion miles thick.”
“You just asked about my contract negotiations, and I told you.” I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my slacks. “What am I missing here?”
“What happened to your brother?”
“I’m sorry?” Everything within me, including my heart, stopped, then began the well-practiced process of freezing over. My mouth went first, clamping shut.
“You don’t have to answer me. Not right here and not right now.” There was a plea in her eyes. For what? The answer? Understanding? “But do you see the way you’re standing? Do you hear the bite in your voice? That wall is already up.” Her hand smoothed over the swell of her belly. “I don’t know how to navigate all of this if you keep me in the dark about who I’m doing this with.”
I sucked in a breath and concentrated on unlocking my muscles. “Okay. Maybe I’m not the most forthright person. I don’t like picking off scabs just to watch them bleed. You want to know what happened to Nick? Google it. The press has made a pretty good living off my family’s tragedy. We’re ratings gold.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I want you to tell me. I want you to let me in.”
“Right. Like you let me in that the internship you’d wanted to take wasn’t even in town? Talk about the shock of my fucking month when you told me how upset you were that you had to take the local one. The only reason I didn’t fly off the handle was because I was genuinely concerned that you were upset, and at least that told me you weren’t leaving in two months.”
“I never hid that from you.” She shook her head, drawing back like I’d wounded her.
“You didn’t exactly lay out the details, either. Do you honestly think I would have been so calm if I’d thought you were moving—pregnant with my child before he or she was even born? Is that really what you think of me?” I backed up and leaned against the edge of the small workstation, putting as much distance between us as I could in the small room.
Her mouth opened and shut a couple of times before she found her words. “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. I assumed you understood, and you weren’t upset, so I didn’t pursue any line of thought where you would be. I didn’t know you, Nixon.”
“And according to what you just said, you apparently still don’t know me, so let me make this clear. I don’t know what’s going on between us, but we need to figure it out. If not because of the obvious attraction we share, then definitely for the good of our child.” I swallowed the tension in my throat as she drew her lower lip between her teeth.
“I know. It’s just a really heavy subject that comes with a lot of choices I’m not ready to make.” She folded her hands in her lap. “You’d think for someone who is trained to read people and diagnose mental health issues, I’d know my own mind a little better, right?” She flashed a quick, fake smile.
“We really suck at communication, don’t we?” Except when we were in bed. Skin-on-skin, we communicated effortlessly. I’d never been so at-ease around a woman, and so torn up at the same time.
“We’re going to have to change that,” she admitted. “Look, if you need to make your flight—”
Two knocks sounded on the door, and the doctor entered with her nurse. I gave her a nod as she made her apologies and took my spot at Liberty’s side as the doc got her ready for another ultrasound.
First, she checked the baby’s heartbeat with the doppler, and my own settled peacefully as I heard the steady whoosh-whoosh fill the room. I laced my fingers with Liberty’s and lifted the back of her hand for a kiss.
Then the pictures started. The doc took measurements as our baby filled the screen in blotches of black and white. Just when I thought I’d guess a body part right, I’d be wrong. I thought a leg was an arm, and a head was an abdomen.
“Do you want to know the sex?” the doc asked as a small smile spread across her face.
Liberty and I locked eyes. Did we?
“I do,” I admitted. How else was I going to prepare for everything we’d need?
“I do, too,” she agreed, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
We both turned to the doc, and Liberty’s grip on my hand tightened.
“It’s a girl,” the doc announced, clicking away on the ultrasound machine.
A girl. I sputtered a laugh of pure happiness. We were going to have a little girl. God, what if she was just as reckless as I had been…as I still was? What if she—
“A girl!” Liberty beamed at me.
Every worry vanished with her smile, and I kissed her soundly, uncaring that the doc was still taking pictures. It was firm, but chaste, and conveyed all the joy in my heart that I couldn’t find words for.
“I hope she has your eyes.” I ran my fingers down Liberty’s cheek.
“I hope she has your smile,” she answered, giving me one of her own. Then she gasped.
“What?” Panic rose up. Had the doc hurt her?
“You have thirty-five minutes to make your flight. Go!” She pushed at me.
Fuck. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“Oh, stop. I’ll call Heather. She works across the street. Now seriously, go. Our daughter needs her daddy to keep his job.” She yanked on my tie, pulling me into a quick kiss before shoving me away again. “Get out of here!”
I kissed her again, quick, hard, and with a scandalous slide of my tongue before grinning at her. “I’ll call you from the road.”
“Be careful!” she called out.
“Always am,” I answered.
Once I shut the door, I cut the calm act and broke into a sprint. I had a plane to catch. And as for everything else that had gone down in there? It was time we stop sweeping everything under the rug and deal with the very real things coming our way.