Kelly gave me a long look, nodded once, and stepped aside. “Sure, I have a minute or so.”
Dizzying relief made my body feel lighter. Step one of the plan was complete. She’d agreed to talk to me. So far so good.
“Floor’s yours,” Kelly mumbled, not quite meeting my eyes. She went to sit on her bed as I stood just inside her door, shutting it behind me. “Have a seat if you’d like.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and leaned against the door, not trusting myself to go any deeper into her room, not yet. Kelly was on a bed, looking like all the dreams I’d had about her since she’d left me.
Being near her and a bed at the same time wasn’t a good idea, not until I’d said what I came to say and, hopefully, got her to agree to give me a second, third—whatever—chance. I got straight to the point. Mincing my words would only waste more time.
“I’m not ready for things to end between us,” I admitted, my heart pounding as I said the words. “I was an idiot to let you walk out that day, but here I am. And I’m telling you the truth. I’m not ready to let you go just like that. Maybe it’s selfish, but I had to tell you.”
“You’re not selfish,” she mumbled, tucking her knees to her chest and looping her arms around them.
The way she was sitting made it look like she was trying to protect herself from something. It hit me with the force of a ton of bricks that it was me she was protecting herself from. “What happened, Kelly? Please tell me.”
“Caleb, it’s not...” She trailed off, gulped in a deep breath of air, and tried again. “It’s not anything that you’re thinking. It’s just for the best this way. You’ve only just gotten closure about Elizabeth. You’ve got a lot of stuff to work through from that.”
This was about Elizabeth? Kelly was the one who wanted me to talk to her, and thanks to that, I was finally ready to give relationships a chance again. I was confused as balls of thread that got all tangled in a washing machine. “Yeah, I have gotten closure from that now, but I’m not sure why that means we’ve gotta end.”
“It’s just for the best this way,” Kelly breathed, but I could see her fighting with herself. There was something she wasn’t telling me.
It was obviously something about Elizabeth or the talk I’d had with her. “I’ll admit that Elizabeth hurt me, and I’ll admit that I’m afraid of getting hurt like that again, but that doesn’t mean that I’m walking away from this. I’m done walking away. I’m done hiding. I don’t know why exactly you’re walking away, but I don’t think you should either.”
“It’s not that simple, Caleb,” Kelly said, her eyes growing moist and her hands clenched around her knees, but she couldn’t hide that they were shaking.
Everything about this talk was setting me on edge. There was something going on here that had Kelly pulling back from me, something that she was obviously afraid to tell me. My own hands started shaking a bit as I considered the possibilities.
“Why isn’t it that simple? We were happy together. We were good for each other. Weren’t we? Did I do something to scare you away? Is it my life in the band?” Surely, it couldn’t be that. Not again. Kelly met me in Destitute. She was in the industry. She’d known exactly who I was.
Kelly’s eyes flew open as she watched me react, her hands dropping from her knees as she reached for me. Then she dropped them when she saw I wasn’t moving. Pain was seeping through every pore, like that old wound had been slashed wide open.
But she didn’t deny it. Kelly didn’t jump up and run to me. She didn’t tell me that it wasn’t that. Fuck, it was. She couldn’t deal with it either. Buzzing started in my ears, and I turned to leave, feeling defeated for the first time ever.
I was a fucking fool to have believed things could end any differently. All I wanted was—
“Don’t leave, Caleb, please. Don’t leave.” She implored me, but I couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t look at her. I needed to get out of here. My fingers were itching for the comfort of my guitar. I needed to tear things up for a while. A long fucking while.
“It’s okay, I get it.” I bit out, reaching for the door. “Goodbye, Kelly.”
Before I could open it, I heard her take a deep breath, so deep I could hear it over the buzzing in my ears.
“I’m pregnant,” she blurted out then. My world went still. The buzzing ceased, and my hand fell to my side.
Air wouldn’t reach my lungs. My whole body going as still as the world around me had gone. For the first time in my life, I was completely and utterly stunned into silence. I tried to search for words. There were things that I should’ve been saying, questions I should’ve asked, but I couldn’t find the words.
I was still starting at the door, still inches away from it when Kelly started rambling. “I promise you I wasn’t lying. I really am on birth control. Or I was. I stopped taking it a couple of days ago. But until then, I took it religiously, every day. At the exact same time. I promise. This wasn’t a trick. I wasn’t trying to catch you or keep you. I didn’t lie to you.”
Her voice cracked with emotion, and when I finally managed to turn toward her, I saw that tears were streaming down her face, her shoulders were slumped, and her eyes were trained on the carpet in front of the bed. Chest expanding on another deep breath, she still didn’t look at me as she continued.
“I wanted to tell you. I’ve only known for a couple of days, but I was scared of how you would react if I told you that you were going to be a father. You looked so happy. I couldn’t take that away from you.”
Those last words broke through the shock. Kelly was pregnant with my child, and she thought I wouldn’t be happy? That she was taking something away from me?
My feet carried me to her without my brain having to send the signal to do it. I crossed the room in a couple of strides and pulled her into my arms. Her legs wrapped around my hips as she burrowed her face into my neck. Warm tears rolled onto my skin, and her chest heaved on a sob.
I sat down on the bed with her in my lap, stroking her hair and her back as I tried to find the words that were tumbling around in my skull, escaping as soon as I reached them. I tightened my hold on her and breathed her in.
“I’m going to be a father,” I muttered, to myself as much as to her. A balloon opened in my chest, my heart suddenly released from the vise it’d been in since I thought she wanted to leave me because of my lifestyle. It now felt like it wanted to soar.
“I can’t believe it. Kelly…” I trailed off, still trying to find the right words. “Thank you. I’m going to be a dad. You’re not taking away my happiness. You’re giving me more than you can possibly even imagine.”
Kelly stilled in my arms, pulling away from me to look into my eyes. Her face was beautiful, tear stained and incredulous, but she was the most stunning woman I’d ever seen. Her expression changed as she held my eyes with hers, looking at me like I was crazy.
“But you don’t want kids,” she whispered, confusion furrowing her brow.
My lips curled into a wide smile, my hands gripping her hips. “That was before. God, I can’t believe all that shit I said to you. You should’ve stopped me, told me.”