Page 50 of In this Moment

“So why then?” She asked. “Why did it take solong?”

“Because I was scared.”

Evie’s first response was to assume it was a cop-out answer, but the look on Tony’s face was genuine so she asked, “Scared ofwhat?”

He chuckled again, and ran his hands through his hair. For the first time since coming back into her life, Evie was reminded of the young man he used to be. The one she’d been completely smittenwith.

“Don’t tell me you were scared of a little boy?” she teased, surprising herself with the ease of it. “Diapers aren’t all that bad, you know, and that stage only lasted a few years. So if you were going to be scared of that, I could understand a little.”

He smiled at her joke for a moment before it faded again. “I wasn’t scared of diapers, although…I can imagine they’d be pretty scary.”

“They canbe.”

“Seriously,” he said. “I was scared of screwing up. I mean, a child, Evie. A little boy. That’s alot.”

“Iknow.”

“To be responsible for an entire life,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I mean, what if I screwed up? What if I didn’t know how to hold him? And then when he was older, if I left him in a car somewhere? You hear of that type of thing happening, you know?” She nodded, but he wasn’t paying attention. “It was too much. I was just a kid myself. I couldn’t be responsible for an entire life. I was completely terrified that I’d ruin everything. And you seemed to have it all under control.”

“I had to.” Because you weren’t there, she wanted to say, but didn’t. “Don’t you think I was scared, too?” she added. “All of those things you just said? I felt them too. Only I was on my own. It really was only me. But I did it. And you would havetoo.”

He dropped his head and nodded slowly before he looked up again. “I missed alot.”

“Youdid.”

“I missed his first steps, his first word, his first Little League game, his first—”

“Stop.” She slipped her hand over his in an effort to comfort him. As crazy as it was, it also felt kind of natural. After all, he was the father of her child. “You can’t changethat.”

Tony looked up, his eyes wide with wonder. She watched as he looked down to their hands and back up to her face. Something had changed in his eyes. They were softer somehow, more—she yanked her hand away as she realized what the shift in Tonywas.

“No,” he said. “Don’t do that. I really think we needto—”

“We don’t need to be doing anything.” Evie shook her head hard. He was crazy if he thought that her gesture was anything more than just that. A gesture. That wasit.

“Evie, please.” He turned in his seat and took her hand in his, holding it tight. “Hear me out.” She shook her head, but he squeezed her hand again. “Please?”

She got the distinct impression that he wasn’t going to leave her alone unless she agreed to listen to him so finally she nodded. “Okay.”

Tony didn’t waste any time. “I don’t want to miss anything else,” he said quickly. “I’ve missed too much and I feel terrible about it but like you said, I can’t change that. But I can change the future. I can change what things look like for Jonah going forward. He needs a father and a mother.”

“He has a mother,” she said. “The father thing is kind of new, but he seems to likeit.”

“Well, what if he had us together? What if we were a family again?”

She snorted a little. “We were never a family.”

“Okay. What if we could be a family? Together.”

The reality of what he was saying hit her. “You mean, you and me?” She used her free hand to gesture wildly between them. “Together? Like a couple?”

“Yes.”

“You’re married!” Out of all of the objections that came to mind, that was the most obvious one, although she could back it up with a dozen more reasons why it was the stupidest ideaever.

“I know.” His voice grew quiet. “And that’s hard obviously.”

“Obviously.”

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