Page 135 of Indigo Sky

Oh my God, stop.

I sucked in a deep breath and glanced at her in time to watch a tear stream down her cheek. Wait, why was she crying? Was she not happy? We had talked about kids on a few occasions. Not in an immediate sense, but as something we wanted someday, and, yeah, sometimes, things happened when you didn't quite plan for it, but shouldn't you still behappy? Yet there Kate was, crying in the passenger seat, her tears flowing quicker and quicker with every dashed line we drove past.

"Hey, hey," I said softly, reaching out to tuck a strand of her pink hair behind her ear. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

She sniffled, dragging both her hands over her cheeks. "I-I told your mom you wouldn't—"

I reared my head back. "My mom? My mom knows?"

She nodded erratically. "I didn't … I didn't know who else t-to talk to …"

It startled me that she wouldn't have gone to Wendy or Crystal. They were her best friends. They were both also mothers who had been pregnant at one point or another. But then I realized that maybe what Kate had wanted wasn't a friend, but a mother—something she no longer had. Not until my mom had come into her life.

And then I wasn't startled.

I was enlightened. Awake. So fucking alive that I hardly knew what to do with this new resounding beat in my chest.

Holy fuck, I was going to be a dad. However the hell it had happened, my kid was going to come into this world, and the only love of my life was going to be his or her mother and …

"Holy shit, we have to get married," I stated, breathless.

The road came back into focus—thank Christ—but the frantic pounding in my chest made me unsure if I should be heading home or to the closest emergency room.

"W-what?" Kate asked, turning to me, confused and bewildered.

"We need to get married," I said, nodding to myself. "We need more space, we—oh God, we need to move! We need a bigger place. Baby shit takes up a lot of room, right? Where are we gonna put all of it?"

"Actually, um … I talked to your mom about that too," Kate said, her voice quiet and unsure, like she was about to drop another bomb on me.

"What?" I shot another glance in her direction, the streetlamps casting shadows across her face and glinting off the streaks of drying tears.

"I don't know when I'll be able to work again," she said, barely audible over the music so I turned it off entirely.

There was nothing left to focus on now but the road and her. The woman carrying my child.

Holy fuck.

"I know we will need more space. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And I don't know how we'll afford it on your salary alone. I-I mean, not that you don't do enough, but—"

"I'll start bouncing again," I declared. "I'll find a way to make more money."

"I know you would," she said, reaching out to lay a hand on my shoulder. "But I also want you to be there. If you're always working, I …wewould miss you, and I want our baby to grow up knowing that he … or she … has both of us, not … one of us while the other works themself to death just to put a roof over our heads."

I cocked my head, considering this as we neared the apartment. "There's nothing wrong with that life, Kate. Some people have no choice, and if I have no choice and that's what I have to do, then—"

"Or we could move back in with your parents," she interjected softly.

It was almost comical, the thought of ending up back in my childhood bedroom … again, like I was meant to be a ping-pong ball, bouncing between the house I'd grown up in and this small apartment on Main Street above the Chinese place.

"Are you serious?" I snorted an unamused laugh.

"Your parents and I talked—"

"My dad knows too?!"

Kate sighed, but didn't elaborate as she continued, "There are four bedrooms and a bathroom on the upper floor of your parents’ house."

I grunted with a nod, unable to believe this conversation was happening at nearly midnight on a Wednesday. Fuck, life had the ability to change so quickly. I knew this better than a lot of people, yet it never ceased to fuck me up.

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