Page 52 of Finding Fate

Isabel nodded. She was getting good at nodding today. She could not have been better or worse than she was at that moment.

She looked up to see Tucker still standing there, his eyes wide and his hands resting nervously at his sides as though he didn’t have any idea what to do with them.

“Tuck?” she whispered tentatively. She was worried that he might be going into shock…again, from what Annie had told her.

“I need to get out of here…we need to get out of here,” he said, rushing out of the bathroom and grabbing hold of her wrist to pull her alongside him.

“And go where?” she asked, surprised at his sudden reaction.

“Anywhere…”

* * *

They sat in silence as Tucker drove. He was still waiting for his thoughts to calm down enough so that he could talk to her. He could tell she wasn’t freaking out as much as he was, and he had no clue why. It was driving him crazy on top of everything else.

Could this really be happening? That damn stick sure said it was. What in the hell were they going to do about this? How were they going to tell their parents? Everything was going to change, and it was making him sick. What was he, what were they, supposed to do with a baby?

Fate, God’s plan, they were both the same in his book, had brought him and his friends together, had given him Izzy. It was the only explanation for four lifelong best friends to pair off, meant for each other. Things like that didn’t just happen by chance. He was sure of it. What he wasn’t sure of was how would this baby affect all that?

He hadn’t even told Izzy what he had felt that night that they were first together. “What a stupid thing not to tell her,” he thought as he left Bentonville’s city limits, not sure where he was going, just driving. He hadn’t wanted to scare her away back then and wasn’t sure what she’d think even now, but he suddenly needed to let her know how he felt about them.

Maybe she would think that he was crazy. Maybe she would think he was just saying it because they now knew she was pregnant. “Or maybe she feels the same way…” that hopeful part of him added.

“Izzy?”

“Oh, thank goodness. I was beginning to think you were never going to talk.”

He grinned, tempted to chuckle. “No, I plan to talk. Hell, we really need to talk, but first, I have something I need to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“That first night we were together was…amazing. The way we connected…it wasn’t just physical. It felt so much deeper. I’ve been thinking about it, and I wanted you to know that this is it for me. You, me, us. You were meant for me.

“I’d kind of like to think that’s why neither of us had much success with relationships before. I never wanted one girl because I didn’t have the right one, and you didn’t really date because you knew they weren’t right for you.”

Izzy looked down into her lap and placed a hand over her stomach. “Even now that you know there’s a baby? You still feel that way? It hasn’t scared you away?”

He shook his head, thrown that she could have worried about that for even a second. “Of course it hasn’t scared me away. Nothing could scare me away from you. Like I said, you’re it for me. Something like that doesn’t just change because something unexpected happens. But I will say that I have no clue how I feel about this baby. It doesn’t even seem real.”

He watched the girl he loved swipe at the tears now forming in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she laugh-sobbed. “I’m just so relieved. And I’ve thought about that, too. That we were never with anybody, at least not emotionally in your case, because we were waiting for each other. But Tucker…I want to keep the baby.”

His foot hit the brake, and he came to an abrupt stop on the side of the road, needing a moment to process. She already sounded so sure.

“Izzy, I agree that abortion is out…” He paused to find the right words. He had known that option wouldn’t have even been on the table. It was Izzy he was talking about, and, to be honest, he didn’t think he could do that to his own child, no matter how unreal it seemed. “There are other options, though, like adoption,” he suggested.

She placed a hand against her stomach, looking up at him as she explained. “Tucker, I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t give this baby up. There’s no way. I already love it too much. The second I knew it was really there, I was hooked. I’m scared to death, yes, but for me, there’s no other choice.”

He looked into those gorgeous, green eyes and saw that she meant it. She loved this baby, even if he still could hardly believe that it was even there. But when he thought about it, the baby was a part of her…a part of them. The answer was simple, then. He wouldn’t…couldn’t make her give up this baby.

They were going to be parents.

He nodded, firm in his decision. “Okay, let’s keep it.”

And with that, she was in his arms.

---