Page 14 of There Are No Words

“That’s neither here nor there. You’re pregnant, end of story.”

“So what exactly are we supposed to do? Play house? Pretend like we’re not just roommates?” I couldn’t have this man start confusing me, confusing our situation.

“Shit, Allegra. Could you stop asking me questions?” Then he turned the tables on me. “I mean, what do you want? I doubt when you came to my pub that night you wanted to get pregnant.”

Exhaling deeply, I looked him in the eyes. “True, but I’m going to be their home for the next nine months, so I better get on board, right? Because then the real commitment starts. I’mgoing to be a mom. What I want will matter less and less.” I shrugged casually because, the truth was, the mourning process had already happened for me—my life was going to change, period. “I might as well get used to it.”

He walked over to me. “Wrong. What you want is the most important thing. At least, to me it is.”

I cleared my throat and stood. I needed space, air. I needed to walk around. This was getting weird for me. “Thank you. So I guess we’ll just figure this out as we’re going.”

“No other way to do it. Now what’s next?” he asked, following me as I walked from the living room.

“I have my first prenatal appointment scheduled—”

“I’ll be there.”

I turned around and eyed him seriously. “You don’t even know when it is.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m telling you, Allegra, I want to be part of all of it. I’m not missing out on a second of this.”

“Okayyy. I guess it’ll be nice to have a pregnancy buddy.” A pregnancy buddy? I didn’t know why I’d just said that. Brady wasn’t a pregnancy buddy. He was Mr. Sperm Shooter Extraordinaire and the baby daddy. Never mind, I knew why I’d said that—I needed to keep the lines clear.

But if Brady’s odd expression was any indication, he didn’t get why I’d said it but also didn’t seem inclined to ask. “So what do you need from me? Name it and it’s yours.”

I needed to lighten the mood, shift things so we were back on normal ground, ground I understood. “Oooh! If you could carry the baby instead, that would be great,” I joked.

Chuckling, he returned, “Sorry, Allegra. I can’t accommodate you on that one. Anything else?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Can I tell my brother?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” he said, looking unsure, as if he didn’t believe it’d be so easy. “I just thought you’d want to wait because you’re superstitious.”

It was interesting because people had typically made me out to be weird for believing the things I did. Never Brady, though. There wasn’t even a hint of judgment in his voice. Probably because he was just stating facts, not because he actually cared. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. “It’s okay. My sisters already know. They found my pregnancy test at Maria’s.”

He angled his head, as if trying to get a read on me. “You’re not nervous that they know? I heard there’s something about not telling people until so many weeks.”

My eyebrows formed a V. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Around,” he countered. And persisted in asking, “Well?”

“No, I’m not nervous. My psychic confirmed the baby will be healthy.” Oh, why did I go and say that? I wanted to slap myself upside my head. Now he’d know I had a psychic. Moredifferent Allegra. Maybe he’d move past that if I continued talking. So I did—“I’m not worried, Brady. My doctor isn’t even worried, which is why they wouldn’t see me yet. It’s all good. It’s sweet that you’re concerned, but there’s no need to be. You don’t have to worry about me.”

And why would he? I was a one-night stand and now just the mother of his child. Besides that, we were nothing to one another. It wasn’t like he had feelings for me. Not romantic ones, anyway.

Exhaling, he ran a hand through his brown hair. “Okay.”

Chapter Six

Brady

I couldn’t bea father. I wasn’t prepared to be a dad. Allegra had asked me, and she had every right to. Worse, she was one hundred percent right.

I was going to need to read a manual, preferably one titledBeing the World’s Greatest Dad 101. And if that didn’t exist, then someone should really tap into that because it was genius and would be helpful for the schmucks like me out there who needed all the help they could get.

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