“We’ll be here,” I said.
As we left, Colt’s broad, muscular form was bent over Nell, kissing her, brushing her hair away and tugging the blankets around her. He turned to glance at me, his blue eyes piercing mine. I smiled at him, trying to let him know I supported them. I didn’t totally understand how they’d gotten together, how it had happened, but it didn’t matter. I’d heard the love in her voice when she spoke of him, and I’d seen it in the way they looked at each other, in the way he kissed her.
We were halfway home when a thought struck me. “How’d you get here? I have your truck.”
“Now she wonders.” Jason laughed. “Bob drove me. I told him it was a family emergency.”
“Thanks for coming.”
He glanced at me as he shifted lanes around a slow-moving semi. “It’s Nell. Of course I’d come.” Silence for a moment, and then he broached the subject. “Are you going to tell me what’s been eating at you for the last two months?”
I felt my heart start to hammer out of my chest. I tried to calm myself with forced deep breathing, but I only succeeded in making myself hyperventilate. I felt Jason’s hand on my back as I leaned forward to put my head between my knees, my head bumping against the glove box.
“Breathe, baby. It’s okay. Breathe. Deep breaths, okay? Slow down.” His voice washed over me, soothing murmurs.
I sat up and shook my hair out of my face, focused on breathing and scripting out what I was about to say. When I was under some kind of control, I turned to Jason. “Maybe you should pull over.”
Jason lifted an eyebrow in question but did as I said, swerving across two lanes of traffic to the exit ramp. He pulled into a McDonalds parking lot, put the truck in park, and then turned to me. “What the hell is going on, Beck?”
I took several deep breaths, forced my eyes to his. “I…I’m…I’m pregnant.”
He blinked at me several times, his expression not altering for the space of several seconds. “You’re pregnant?”
I nodded. “Yes. I took four tests.”
“How long have you known?” His voice was carefully calm, precisely modulated.
“I’ve only known for sure since yesterday.”
“But you suspected before that?”
I nodded. “When we had sex, that first time after so long without it? I realized just before I fell asleep that I’d…I’d forgotten to take my birth control since…since Ben’s death. I just…forgot.” I couldn’t look at him. I stared at the dashboard, the specks of shadow cast by the sun through the windshield. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Why are you apologizing?” He touched my chin, tried to turn my eyes to his, but I pulled away. I didn’t want to cry, but I was going to. He seemed mad, and I was so afraid. “Hey…look at me, please.”
I wanted to throw open the truck door and run, but instead I focused my tear-blurred gaze on his too-green eyes. “I’m scared, Jason. I’m so scared.” My voice shook, shuddered, cracked. “You seem mad. I don’t want you to…to leave me. I know we didn’t t-talk about th-this. We—we’re not r-r-ready f-for this. I know we-we-we aren’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I—I was scared.”
I heard the click-zip of his seatbelt unlatching and sliding away, felt his hand drift up my arm to my cheek. He pulled me toward him, and I lunged into his arms. “Baby,” he whispered, his voice a fierce but tender rasp in my ear. “Becca, baby, I’m not mad. I’m not. I’m surprised, yeah. I had no idea. You’ve been acting…odd lately. Getting sick and stuff. I was worried you were gonna tell me you had cancer or something. Don’t apologize.”
“And then…I found out about n-n-Nell, and I got even more afraid. What if…what if that happens to me?”
“It won’t.”
“I couldn’t…I couldn’t handle losing anyone else, Jason. I feel like I’m barely hanging on as it is.”
“This is us, okay?” Jason tilted my chin up and kissed me softly. “I love you. This is a surprise, yes, but I’m not mad. I’m not sure what all exactly I’m feeling, but mad isn’t any part of it.”
Scant centimeters separated our lips. I felt so vulnerable, so needy. “Promise? I just…I was so scared you’d be upset that I let this happen.”
He nuzzled my cheek with his. “No, baby. No. You were so messed up after everything happened with Ben. It’s not your fault. It’s not…this isn’t a ‘fault’ thing. It happened, and that’s how it is. We’ll deal with it one day at a time together, okay?”
“I just…you should know now that I’m keeping it. No matter what.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
He stank of sweat and cut grass and gasoline, and his lips smeared sweat on mine when he kissed me, grease on my skin from his hands, but I wouldn’t have pulled away from him for anything. I clung to him with every fiber of my being, needing his reassurance.
We were having a baby.
SEVENTEEN: Breaking the News; Competing Voices
Jason
Two months later
I sat on the edge of the couch, my palms sweating. Becca sat next to me, her fingers tangled in mine, squeezing hard, telling me she was just as nervous as I was. This, telling her parents she was pregnant…it was terrifying.
By contrast, the NFL Scout Combine earlier in the year had been a cakewalk. My performance at the Combine plus my record made me an easy shoe-in for a first-round pick. I’d been talking to agents for a while and had one lined up, paperwork in order and terms set. Now I just had to wait for the draft next year in April, but it was looking like the New Orleans Saints were the most likely team.
I shook my head to clear it of football thoughts. Enzio and Leena de Rosa sat on the love seat opposite us, Enzio’s arm around his wife’s shoulders, his thick fingers tapping an idle rhythm on the cushion.
“Mom…Father,” Becca started. She glanced at me, then her father. “Dad, I mean. I…Jason and I have something to tell you.”
Enzio and Leena glanced at each other, exchanging some kind of silent communication. Their eyes contained the shadows of long-term sadness. In the months since Ben’s suicide, they’d changed. They’d invited Becca and me over for dinner on numerous occasions, and seemed to be genuinely taking an interest in us, and in me. Becca had seen this change in them and had consequently been making an effort to repair the strain on her relationship with them. She’d even gone so far as to start calling her father “Dad” instead of “Father” as she had for so long.