“Couple of hours?” I suggested. Caleb agreed, again not quite as enthusiastically as I might’ve hoped, but we agreed on a time and hung up.
When the time came for me to go to his suite, I was a puddle of sweat and nerves. I knocked softly on his door and was surprised when he opened it looking like he’d gone a few rounds with the devil himself.
Whatever was bothering him though, he pushed it back when he saw me and wrapped me up in a warm hug. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said simply, following him into the room. I declined his offer of a drink and took a seat on one of his couches, making myself at home as he’d invited me to do. “What’s up with you? You don’t look so good.”
“Thanks,” he scoffed, a rare, shy smile curling up the corners of his lips. “I feel okay, though it’s no thanks to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I took your advice. I called Elizabeth.” I froze as he said it. It’d been my idea, and I’d wanted him to follow through, but I also thought I’d know when he saw her.
I couldn’t let him see that I was suddenly plagued by uncertainty and worry about whether seeing her had made him realize that he was, in fact, still in love with her. “How’d that go?”
Caleb smiled and raked a hand through his hair. His shoulders seemed lighter. Whatever else had happened, it had to have to been worth it to see him looking so much more carefree.
“It went well. I’m glad I did it. It made me feel much better about the whole thing.” The truth was in his eyes when he spoke the words, and it was a beautiful sight to see. Caleb was finally free of Elizabeth and all the messed up, lingering emotions that’d been festering for so long.
I wished that I didn’t have to drop a fresh bomb on him, that he could’ve had just one day of peace. But the truth had to come out, and I knew that despite my personal feelings on the timing, sooner was always better than later.
The words wouldn’t come to me as I stood there watching him, the way he moved so much freer now. Should I just blurt it out? How the hell did I tell him?
Just as I was about to launch into the conversation, things took a turn for the worse. The much, much worse.
“Seeing her and speaking to her about what happened back then, it made me think a lot. It made me realize some things about the life I’d chosen when I chose Destitute over her.”
“It did?” My voice was small now as I waited for him to finish his thought process. A part of me already knew what was coming though. By instinct or powers of deduction, I didn’t know. I just did.
“Yeah. For example, she made me realize that I’d make a terrible damn father right now. Kids were always part of her plan, you know? She was never shy about it, and I accepted it. I always thought that we’d somehow have been able to make it work. Now I know that could never have happened. I’m never around. At the very least until Destitute stops touring one day, I wouldn’t have been able to have any kids.”
“You wouldn’t?” I squeaked, wondering how the hell it’d happened that we were having this conversation after his baby was already in the room with us. Tiny and unbeknownst to him, but it was still there.
“No, it would’ve been crazy. And it also made me realize that I don’t want any kids for a long, long time. Liz made it all seem so damn real, and there was no way I would’ve been able to handle it right now.” Caleb paused, chuckling. “Besides, I think I just need to learn how to be with a woman first before I could even begin to think about a kid.”
Something shattered inside me when Caleb blew out a relieved breath, looking like he firmly believed he’d dodged a bullet. Glass shattered inside me, and it was all I could do not to cave in on myself. My knees went numb, and my stomach rolled, though this time I was sure it wasn’t from morning sickness.
Thinking about it, I realized that it wasn’t glass that had shattered. It was my heart. I’d been holding out hope, albeit only a faint glimmer, that Caleb was going to sweep me up into his arms and tell me that everything was going to be okay.
Clearly, that wasn’t to be the case. As those last shreds of hope flew from my body and evaporated like mist under the morning sun, the answer of what I had to do came to me with as much clarity. I wasn’t going to force Caleb into this parenthood thing with me.
He was living his dream, and maybe now he’d finally be able to enjoy it. I wasn’t going to be the one who took that away from him. I’d fought to give his dream back to him. That was why I encouraged him to see her in the first place.
I’d be damned if I was now responsible for the next event that would keep him from living every moment to the fullest. I realized that he bore half the responsibility for having conceived this baby, and eventually, I would tell him. Maybe when that one day hit when he was ready to have children.
I had a lot to figure out, and undoubtedly, there would be a lot more lies before the truth came out, but I just couldn’t grab this one happy moment and replace it with yet another life-altering event. I just couldn’t. The man had been through enough. He deserved to enjoy the fruits of his labor for once.
I cleared my throat to rid myself of the lump that had lodged there and turned away from him for a second to regain my composure.
“That’s great, Caleb. Seriously. I’m happy that seeing her put things into perspective for you. On that note, I wanted to talk to you about something.” I tucked my shaking hands into my pockets before he noticed them.
Caleb’s dark eyes met mine and bored into them. “Yeah, I figured as much when you called. What’s up?”
“We’re still friends, right?”
“Sure,” he answered easily, looking a little puzzled. “Why?”
“Good. It’s good that we are.” I took a deep breath and tried to calm the full-body shaking that was trying to take over. “Because while we are, I think that it’s for the best if we just end things now.”
“What?” Caleb’s brow crinkled, and confusion clouded his eyes. He took two steps back, surprised. “Why? We’re just having fun, aren’t we? That shouldn’t ruin our friendship. Why wouldn’t we continue just enjoying ourselves?”
Because I stopped enjoying myself? I wanted to scream at him, but I kept a lid on it. It wasn’t true anyway. Every moment spent with Caleb was fun. It’d just turned into so much more than that for me. And our little jelly bean growing inside me? It was evidence of how much more.
“I don’t want things with us to end on a bad note. We’re on a high note right now. Better to end here, isn’t it?”
His eyes widened in surprise, his shoulders hunching down. “Is that really what you want?”
“It is,” I said firmly. If there was so much as a hint of uncertainty in my voice, I would land in his bed in no time.
Caleb dragged a hand through his hair, pinching his neck as he stared at me, nodding absently. “Okay. Okay then. If that’s what you want. Let’s end it on a high note, shall we? Pal?”
Chapter 25
Caleb
My head wasn’t in practice that day. Memories of my conversations with Kelly and Elizabeth earlier in the week kept swimming around my head, but luckily, I could pretty much play the set list in my sleep by this point, so I got through practice without anyone picking up on my mood or my lack of concentration.