Page 9 of There Are No Words

“Dom! Dom!” I called. “Wait up!”

He had his window down, so I knew he heard me as he was about to back out of the driveway.

He smiled and angled his head. “What’s up?”

“Can I get in?” I asked. I’d thought I wanted to be alone, but it turned out I didn’t. I just didn’t want to be in Maria’s house any longer, answering a million and one questions.

He unlocked the doors and reached across the seat to push the door open for me. “Of course.”

I slid in without a word and sat back, my head coming to rest on the black leather seat with red piping. He didn’t make a move, though, didn’t dare shift the car into reverse. Just sat there with me, the car in park, waiting. Until finally, I asked, “Where were you going?”

He shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. Where do you need me to go?”

That wasn’t exactly helpful, but it also didn’t matter. I had no destination in mind myself. I just needed to get away. “Okay,let’s go nowhere. Let’s just get out of here.” I clicked my buckle into place and put my purse on the floor.

He slipped his aviators on and smiled as he started the car. “You got it.”

It was amazing to me how Dom always understood. He always knew just the right things to say and do. It must’ve been all the years he’d spent around my family. “I always wanted a big brother like you,” I confessed.

He smiled. “Not all family is blood, Allie,” he reminded me and brought his finger to hover over the button for the radio. “Music?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks. Windows down, though?” I inquired, and he opened my window and the back two windows without question. I needed the noise. The sounds of the spinning tires, the wind, anything I could fixate on that would distract me, that would cloud my thoughts. I put my hair up in a ponytail and rested my head back again, closing my eyes as he maneuvered around the community roads.

Dom drove in relative silence for a while, at some point getting on the Long Island Expressway without me having to ask. We still had no destination in mind, not as far as I knew, but it was exactly what I needed—a long, straight run.

The drive was doing me good. As good as it could anyway.

Not far from Queens where the highway would end, and we’d have to exit and decide what we were doing, I finally looked at him. “I don’t know what to do.” It had been all I could think about and I still had no answers. All I knew was that I was definitely in shock.

Me, pregnant. With a baby. It was hard to imagine.

Dom’s gaze never left the road, but he closed the back windows and answered me in a loud voice, saying, “I think you know what to do. You need to see a doctor and get confirmation. Those tests are not always accurate.”

“So you’re saying you think there’s a chance I might not be pregnant?” I all but shouted, grabbing hold of that tiny sliver of hope with everything I had in me. But, at the same time, a part of my heart broke at the prospect. What was wrong with me?

He laughed. “I’m saying that you need to be sure. You also need to talk to Brady. Should we turn around, or do you want to stay in the city?” he asked, pointing to the exit.

“Ugh,” I groaned. “Let’s turn around.” I ran a hand through my hair and looked out the window, as though I’d find my answers out there. Was I really pregnant? What would Brady think? How would he take the news? What would this mean for us? For me?

I closed my window because the noise was now giving me a headache. Dom followed suit and turned the air conditioning on. Meanwhile, I was busy chewing on the inside of my cheek until I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

“Hey,” Dom tried to console me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to face him completely. He brought his hand back to the wheel as he exited to only turn around and get back on the expressway to take us home. “It’s going to be okay.”

I frantically wiped my cheeks, though it was no use because my eyes were like a leaky faucet, and the tears wouldn’t stop coming. I looked up and blinked rapidly, sucking in the rest of them. It was no use crying. “You’re right. Whatever is, is, and technically, I brought this on myself, right? Silly me thought having a one-night stand with Brady would be a good idea.”

“Good idea?”

I sighed. “Yeah, to cure me of my ridiculous attraction to the man.” It didn’t cure me, by the way. If anything, it made it worse because I unwrapped the present and knew what was inside but could never play with it again. Talk about a tease.

“The fact that you’re roommates probably doesn’t help things.”

“Exactly! And now what am I supposed to do? Do I sayBrady, funny story, I’m pregnant and the baby is yours. Only it’s not funny, and I’m hyperventilating just thinking about it?”

“Maybe not those exact words.”

“Oooh, I have an idea! I read somewhere once that a woman left the pregnancy test in the man’s jacket pocket with a note saying he would be a dad. That could work, right? That way I don’t actually have to say anything. We can bypass the whole awkward our-one-night-stand-made-a-baby-and-now-we’re-bound-for-life talk.”

“Probably best if you don’t do that,” Dom said, laughing, the deep sound reverberating in the car. “Just tell him. It’s not going to be as bad as you think. I don’t know Brady all that well, but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He seems like he’d want to do the right thing by you and this baby.Ifyou’re pregnant.”

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