Page 36 of The Beast's Baby
“Tell me,” she encouraged, a teasing note in her voice. “What were you going to say?”
“I’m not saying it,” he repeated, and a smile split her face that was irresistible. “That all those pieces are meant to be put back together because we’re… better… together.”
He closed his eyes, shaking his head, but when he opened them, her smile remained. It made him breathe a little easier. She wasn’t stepping away from him. That was as good as an agreement to their lives being smashed apart to fit better together, wasn’t it?
“Let’s get some sleep,” she parroted his earlier comment.
He had no protest to offer and followed her into the bedroom where they both got undressed again. He glanced over at her as she changed into a fresh set of pajamas, his eyes roving over her body without wanting anything more than to have her close again. Skin against skin, arms around her. To have her rest her head on his chest and find solace in the fact that they were in this together, rather than apart.
He left his boxer briefs on, climbing into bed, lying flat on his back after they’d pulled the covers up and feeling suddenly, strangely self-aware.
He hadn’t shared a bed with a woman in years.
“I might snore,” he warned.
“I might kick,” she replied.
Their eyes met, small smiles shared.
Were they actually going to do the parent thing? It seemed enormously unfathomable, or unfathomably enormous, the idea of becoming a dad. He didn’t really know the first thing about it. But he did know that he wanted the kid. And right now, that knowledge was really all that mattered.
However, he wasn’t the one who had to grow a baby in his stomach for however long it took a wolf baby to grow. “Should we listen to her tomorrow?” he asked. “About the baby stuff, I mean?”
Isobel was quiet for such a long time that he began to doubt he was going to get an answer. “I’m still processing that,” she finally said. “All of that.”
“Me too,” he admitted.
“Do you even want a kid?” she asked. “I mean, did you ever think about it?”
“I did,” he said, turning over on his side when he heard her shift position, their eyes meeting. “I have,” he added. “But it was more when I was in my early twenties, you know. Kind of a worry back then that I’d accidentally get someone pregnant.”
“Right,” she said. “So, you’ve never longed to be a dad?”
“I can’t say that I have,” he admitted. “I’ve been too focused on my career to long for parenthood. I haven’t really thought about it before. You?”
“No,” she said. “I figured it might happen someday. With the right person. But… How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight,” he replied. “You?”
“Twenty,” she said.
He nodded slowly. “Young,” he said.
“Well, you aren’t as old,” she snickered. “Right? Are we crazy for thinking about going through with it?”
“Would you want to have an abortion?” he asked.
She grew very still at that; he could tell she was seriously considering it. Then she shook her head. He smiled then, even though he shouldn’t feel relieved. He didn’t feel he had any real stakes in this game. Or in this reality. He only had them if she wanted him to. She could shut him out and he would have no say. He wouldn’t even try to have a say, not after all the choices he’d made that had put her in this position to begin with.
“I don’t think abortion is wrong,” she said. “But I don’t think I want one. No, I know I don’t want one. But… I’m scared.”
He nodded, sliding a hand over to take hers, squeezing it.
“We’ll listen to what this Eva woman has to say tomorrow,” he said. “And then we’ll figure it out from there.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Hey,” he stopped her. “Yes, I do. I’m right here.”
