Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Oh my God. This is fucking real.
My entire sense of well-being and self-preservation rebels against the idea that I could potentially be a father in the very near future. I have an overwhelming need to fight against this. I try to make my tone as neutral as possible, but it still comes out defensively when I ask, “And you’re sure it’s mine?”
Stephanie glares at me. “I’m sure.”
But I can’t let it go. Maybe she hasn’t considered all the possibilities. “Maybe there was someone else you had been with in the week or two prior to me?”
This seemed reasonable to me, since Stephanie is a sexual woman with low inhibitions and no problems with one-night stands.
Stephanie’s hands come out of her pockets and she pushes up off her car. “I’m absolutely sure. I haven’t been with anyone before you in a while.”
I don’t know this woman well enough to know whether that’s true. I’ve also been subjected to a nasty relationship with a woman who was after nothing but my money, so I’m not going to lie and say that’s not crossing my mind as well. I’m still in self-protect mode when I say, “Then you won’t mind if we get a paternity test?”
The anger drains out of her face and she gives a resigned sigh. “That’s fine. I’ll find out from my doctor how we can do that.”
Stephanie turns away for me and opens her car door. I watch silently as she leans in and rummages through what appears to be her purse. She takes out a small spiral pad of paper, opens it, and scribbles something.
She then tears it off and pulls her body out of the car, holding her arm out to me. “Here’s my phone number. If you want to know anything about the pregnancy, give me a call. My email is on there as well. My first appointment with the obstetrician isn’t until next month, so I won’t have any information about how we test paternity until then. Get up with me and I’ll let you know what I find out.”
I take the paper reluctantly, which now puts the burden on me as to whether or not I acknowledge this new twist in my life.
“Yeah, okay,” I say lamely.
Stephanie nods curtly and gets into her car. I step to the side when she starts the engine and I watch as she pulls away, wondering how in the hell my life just got so damned complicated.
“Fuck,” I bark out to no one but myself when she’s out of sight. I pull my wallet out of my back pocket and stick her contact information inside. I walk back into Hoolihan’s, push my way through the crowd, and find Max.
Grabbing his arm just above the elbow, I lean in and mutter, “I need to talk to you in private.”
Because I know from very recent experience that the most private place around is the parking lot, I lead Max out to the area where Stephanie was just parked.
When I turn around, Max’s face is filled with worry. We’ve always been close, even though we’re two years apart. He knows that I wear my heart on my sleeve so he’s astute enough to know I’m upset. Hell, he can probably tell by my body language that I’m in deep shit.
This is confirmed when he asks in a slightly panicked voice, “What’s wrong?”
I tilt my head and scratch the back of my head for a moment, knowing that there’s no great way to lay this out. So I just do it as simply as possible. “You know that woman I was with the night of that charity gala at the natural sciences museum?”
Max nods. “Yeah.”
“Well,” I drawl, hesitate for a brief moment, then plunge straight ahead. “She’s…um…pregnant.”
“Whoa,” Max murmurs softly. “How did that happen?”
“Let’s just say the rubber couldn’t hold up to the type of sex we had,” I say sheepishly. “It fucking ripped down the side. She said she took the morning-after pill but it apparently didn’t do its job.”
“What are you going to do?” Max asks hesitantly.
This is what I love about my brother. He’s not the type who’s going to jump right into giving me unsolicited advice. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll get advice from him, but he wants to know where my head is so he can tailor it accordingly.
I shrug. “Not going to do anything until I find out if it’s mine.”
“Do you have any reason to doubt that it is?”
“Nothing other than the fact that she was as much into a one-night stand as I was. I figure maybe she was with someone else who could have gotten her pregnant.”
“And yet she came directly to you about this,” Max points out.
Yeah, I already considered that, and it didn’t bode well for me.
I don’t bother answering Max because that would validate what my gut instinct is telling me.