Page 65 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
Soft. Scared.Unmistakable.
“I’m pregnant.”
Everything seemed to stop.
The rain, the cold, the ache in my chest — for a split, splintering second as the sky filled with a flash of light and her face illuminated, broken and raw, I didn’t feel any of the bad things that had weighed me down for months. Years, maybe.
Just her words.
I’m pregnant.
The ground folded under me. My heart stopped beating.
I’m pregnant.
I opened my mouth, finding words, trying to make something happen, but it just kept pinging around in my mind and making me lose sense.
I’m pregnant.
She stood there, blinking fast, her lower lip trembling violently, her arms wrapping back around herself like she could shield herself from a potential fallout.
I’m pregnant.
“It’s yours,” she added, her voice cracking. “If that wasn’t obvious.”
The fucking world shattered beneath me.
Chapter 20
Sienna
The rain was cold. At least, colder than I expected. It had been hot earlier, muggy in that way that’s suffocating until the storm breaks, but now the wind sliced through my hoodie without a hint of warmth to it and the soaked fabric clung to my skin uncomfortably. I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers, could barely feel the way my heart was hammering against my ribs.
Matt just stared at me.
He didn’t blink, didn’t move, didn’tbreathe.
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, my voice cracking as I tried to fill the chasm forming between us with something,anything, before the silence could swallow me whole. “T-this isn’t some kind of trap,” I said, the words coming out so quickly I had to focus not to stumble over them. “I’m not asking you—Christ, I know what you said. I remember. You didn’t want anything. I’m not trying to—fuck.”
I took a shuddering breath, my jaw simultaneously too loose and too tight. But still, he said nothing.
“I’m not expecting anything from you,” I croaked, my mouth going dry. I couldn’t figure out what that fucking stare meant — whether he was shocked or horrified or seconds from gettingback into his car or throwing himself off the Bank of America Plaza. All I could do was spiral. All I could do wasbegthat he didn’t think I was trying to trick him or cage him into ridiculously high child support for the next eighteen years. “You don’t have to do anything. I…I just—I had to tell you. It wouldn’t have been fair if I didn’t, and I didn’t know how, and then youcalled?—”
A choked sob worked its way out of my throat, cutting me off, and I tried to catch my breath.
“I don’t know how this happened. I took every fucking pill.” My voice cracked. “But I’m keeping it. The baby. And I’m not asking for anything, Matt, I swear toGod, I just needed you to know?—”
“Come here.”
His voice cut through the rain, cut through the thunder, cut througheverything, soft but sharp, commanding. I froze, my breathing too heavy, my eyes burning.
Matt took a step forward and wrapped his hand around my elbow, warm and firm, and guided me backward as another flash of lightning cut through the sky. Back, back, back, his eyes locked on me, until the wind chill ceased and the constant thumping of thick raindrops on my head disappeared, both of us under the small amount of cover the recessed, closed garage door gave us.
The cold still bit through everything.
I leaned back against the metal door, my arms crossed tight across my chest, soaked to the bone, willing him to say something more, something human, something that gave me any hint of what he was feeling.
He took a deep breath in through his nostrils and ran a hand through his hair, smoothing back the soaked strands to unstick them from his face. His gaze broke from me, and then he was moving, stepping in and out of the rain, his soaked shirt clingingto his chest, pacing a slow and tight line in front of me like he had to move, or he’d implode.
