Page 89 of Before You Go

When I’m done, I leave the office and make my way down the hall to the elevators, where I find Dayton with his cell to his ear. Since he came right from work today, he’s still in a dress shirt, but now the sleeves are rolled up, his tie is gone along with his suit jacket that he had on when he left the house this morning. Hearing my sandals on the tile floor, his eyes lift to mine, and his face gets soft as he holds out his hand to me while he continues talking.

“Yeah, Mary, thanks again for letting me know.” Pulling me towards him, when I place my hand in his, he touches his lips to my forehead. “Alright, I won’t be back in the office today. We just got out of Franny’s doctor’s appointment and are going to celebrate that we’re having a boy and share the news with our families.” He laughs. “Thanks, and I’ll let her know you said that.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“So?” I ask when he hangs up.

“We can move forward.”

“That’s great news, congratulations.”

“Thanks, baby.” He leans down pressing a kiss to my lips before reaching over to press the button for the elevator. “Mary also said congrats.”

“Tell her I said thanks when you talk to her again.”

“I will.” He smiles, his shoulders relaxed. The tension he’s been carrying around his eyes for the last couple weeks seems less present. I’ve been worried about him, not because of his case, but because the district attorney’s office has been under media scrutiny and suffering from internal turmoil since the truth about Jamie and Billy came out, including the news that she is pregnant with his child. Billy attempted to kill the story, but without Dayton to use as a scapegoat, that didn’t happen, and now people are demanding that Billy step down from his role as district attorney. I can’t even pretend that I feel sorry for him, the only people in that situation who have my empathy are his wife or soon-to-be ex-wife since Shelly has filed for divorce, Jamie, and her unborn child.

“Has Billy said anything about stepping down?” I ask as we step off the elevator hand in hand.

“Not to me or anyone else in the office. I think that with Jamie no longer around to make things awkward or to remind people of what he did, he thinks that everyone will eventually forget, and it will all blow over.”

“Jerk.”

“Yeah.” I hear the smile in his voice.

“Hopefully, Jamie is going to be okay.”

“I think she’ll land on her feet. She mentioned moving back home to her parents in Florida so that they can help her with the baby. And I told her that I’d be a reference for whatever jobs she applied to.”

“That will be good, even though I hate that it lets Billy off the hook. If she’s not here he doesn’t exactly have to be responsible.”

“I think that it’s wiser that he doesn’t have any real involvement with the baby. The guy is a selfish prick.”

“I guess you’re right,” I mutter my agreement as we step out of the building together.

“Should we pick up a cake and take it to your parents?”

“A cake?” I laugh.

“We can get one of the grocery stores to write it’s a boy on one and surprise them with it.”

“Mom isn’t going to let Dad eat cake.”

“She might make an exception for this occasion.”

“Alright, but I’m going to tell her that this was your idea if she freaks about having high fructose corn syrup in the house.”

“I’ll take the blame.” He laughs as we walk down the sidewalk.

Since we drove separately, he follows me to my car, and we make a plan to meet back at our building where I can drop off my car and grab PJ before we go to the grocery store to pick up a cake.

On the way home I group call my girls and ask them if we can meet for dinner the next evening. I want to be able to share the news that I’m having a boy with them in person and not over the phone. Since Georgia is out of town for the next few days, we make plans to meet on Friday then they each try to guess what news I have to share. None of them are correct, but they all do guess that I’m going to tell them that I’m engaged. The idea of marrying Dayton doesn’t seem as scary as it did just a few weeks ago, but I still don’t think that we are ready to take that step which is probably ridiculous since we are basically living together and I’m having his baby.

As I’m pulling up to park in front of our building, I recognize Matthew’s car and inwardly groan. I haven’t seen him since I visited his office weeks ago, and we haven’t spoken since then either. And not just because I’m avoiding him, he hasn’t called or text once either.

I hang up with the girls after telling them that we’ll see each other soon then park as Dayton double parks next to me. As I’m getting out of the car, Matthew comes from the side of the building where my apartment door is.

“Hey, I just knocked,” he says walking towards me as I slam my door, and he freezes mid step with his eyes glued to my stomach. “You’re pregnant,” he whispers as I hear a door slam.

“Ugh, yeah,” I assumed my mom would have shared the news with his mom and that she would have shared it with him but apparently that hasn’t happened.

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