Page 52 of The Run Home
“I feel bad for keeping it a secret so long. I should have told him sooner so he’d have time to process, you know?”
Lydia snorted so loudly and obnoxiously, I wondered how she didn’t choke. “Please! No matter when you told him, he wouldn’t have handled it well. What’s his problem? How does a man reach the age of forty and not understand that it takes two to make a baby? This is as much his fault as yours. There’s no need to give you the silent treatment.”
I wrapped my arm around Lydia and rested my head on her shoulder. “I love you, you know that?”
She rested her head on mine, voice more gentle now. “I do know that. And I also know this baby is going to love Aunt Lydia.”
“Damn right,” I assured her.
“Ultrasound on Monday?”
Excitement replaced the guilt and confusion about what to do with Boon. “Yep. Should be able to see if it’s a girl or boy.” I lifted my head, staring at Lydia, watching her reaction closely. “I think I’m going to tell him that I plan to raise the baby myself. I don’t need him to be involved.”
Lydia’s eyes went feral, but she took a cleansing breath before responding. “At least take some of his money in the form of child support. You’re a teacher, for crap’s sake. He’s a retired professional baseball player.”
I was already shaking my head. “No, I don’t?—”
Lydia grabbed my hands. “Shae. The money isn’t for you. Think of the baby. He or she deserves a standard of living that you’d be hard-pressed to provide.”
My shoulders slumped. She had a point. Sure, I inherited my parents’ house and made a living wage but a baby was a wholeother ballgame. I’d need daycare, cribs, strollers, food, doctor visits. The list was endless.
And yet, if Boon hated me, I didn’t want him to be part of our lives. I’d raise this child myself to avoid any conflict.
“I just don’t want to take advantage of him.”
Lydia shook her head. “You’re a kinder woman than me, Shae Fletcher. I’d take that asshole to the cleaners.”
Weight lifting was tense. The students could feel the ice between Boon and me. They all did the program I’d outlined on the whiteboard without complaint. Kinsley kept looking between her dad and then me, her eyes holding a level of concern she shouldn’t be feeling. She should be carefree and having fun at seventeen, not worrying that I was in a fight with her dad. I could tell she didn’t know about the baby yet. God, I felt terrible that we’d have to tell her soon and she’d lose respect for me. In this day and age, having a baby out of wedlock shouldn’t be a thing of shame. It was a leftover part of the patriarchy I didn’t want to participate in, yet I felt it creeping in just the same.
The kids filed out the door to their practices the second weight lifting was over. As I straightened up some of the water bottles and weight benches, I expected Boon to leave too. Instead, he leaned his back against the far wall, folded his arms across his chest, and stared at me.
“Didn’t your mama tell you it was rude to stare?” I snapped, done with having his eyes following me everywhere I went.
He shoved off the wall and stalked over to me, a panther with catlike moves and restrained power. He was gloriously handsome. Fit beyond normal men. I’d seen him naked more times than I could count and I still got breathless when I saw him. It was very unfair when I could feel my jeans waistband digging into my expanding belly, even with the hair tie in place.
My phone pinged and I distracted myself with looking at the screen. I let out a small grunt of frustration. It was that stupid hookup app. I swiped away the notifications but not before Boon was standing right in front of me, his gaze burning a hole through my phone.
“Are you still seeing men through that app?” he growled, his first words to me in forty-eight hours.
I rolled my eyes, feeling spicy. “When would I have had the time, Boon? You’ve been in my bed every night but the last two.”
His jaw decided it was granite, tightening harder than I’d ever seen it. My comeback made him speechless.
“That’s what you wanted to say to me? After the bomb I dropped two days ago? Really?”
Boon dropped his arms, his face instantly transforming into one that looked more contrite. Or maybe I’d simply knocked the wind out of his sails by bringing up the baby that was literally between us now.
“No. I actually wanted to ask?—”
I interrupted, suddenly not wanting to hear him spell out how much he hated me and wanted nothing to do with me. “I’ll raise the baby on my own.”
“—if you’d marry me,” he finished at the same time.
I blinked, mouth dropping open in horror. Surely I’d heard him wrong. “What?” My voice was barely a hiss.
Boon stepped closer, pressing so close I tried to take a step back and realized the wall was behind me. His hand came up to rest on the wall next to my face, his eyes so hot they felt like a sunburn on my skin. “Marry me, Shae. Let’s get married and raise this baby together.”
My lungs weren’t working. My knees wanted to give out and suddenly the morning sickness was back with a vengeance. I slapped a hand to my mouth and Boon straightened like lightning struck his spine. He dashed across the room and was back with a trash can before I could even blink. He steered me to a bench and made me sit, trash can held beneath my chin.
