That Thursday evening, Kaitlyn pulled her boots off at Rafe’s front door and looked around at the set dining room table and the fire in the fireplace. Jazzy Christmas music played in the background, and she could smell warm bread, which actually seemed to calm her stomach for once. It was a picture-perfect evening. And she was going to shatter it with her news.
“You went through too much…” she said.
“No trouble,” Rafe said quickly, before she could finish. “You know how I’m always trying out new recipes for the station.” Rafe set pot holders down on his dining room table and walked over to take her coat. He hung it up in the closet, frowning. “Hey, where’s your winter coat?” he asked.
“I’m plenty bundled, see?” She flapped her hands, which were covered by the arms of her long wool sweater.
“Aren’t your feet cold?” he asked as he looked down at her thin socks.
“Don’t worry about me, Mom,” she said emphatically. “I’m fine.”
He grinned. “Hey, I can’t help myself. It’s all those years of being mothered by three sisters. I’m a mother hen in disguise. Come on in.”
She stepped into the open space that included his living and dining areas, surveying the minimalist furniture, the open floor plan, and the brand-new couch in front of the fireplace. She’d helped him pick out that couch months ago. He’d agonized over beige versus brown for twenty minutes until she finally told him the darker color was probably more practical. She had no idea if that was really true, but Rafe also fretted over domestic decisions like a mother hen.
“What do you think?” he asked, watching her reaction carefully.
“You’ve knocked down some walls since the last time I was here,” she said. “And you bought the couch! It looks very…nice. Except for one thing.”
“What’s missing?” he asked, knitting his brows.
“Christmas decorations,” she said. “Are you going to get a tree?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he said.
“Rafe, it’s three weeks before Christmas. How much time do you need to think?”
He shrugged off her comment, and dimly, she wondered if he was avoiding getting a tree. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had one last year either.
“Look,” he said suddenly, holding her by the shoulders and interrupting her thoughts, “I’m glad we’re having dinner together. You know you can tell me anything, right?”
She frowned. “Right. Of course.” Did he suspect something? Maybe she just looked worried—he had a way of sensing her moods.
“Great. Have a seat. I’ll bring out the food.”
Rafe went into the kitchen and came out holding Santa oven mitts. Surely those had been a gift from Rachel, his stepmom, or his Italian grandmother they all called Nonna. She couldn’t imagine him being that domestic all on his own. He set down a steaming pot full of a very savory and robust-smelling…cheesy, meaty sauce.
Uh-oh. Her stomach twisted in protest. Not tonight, she warned it as if it were actually going to take heed.
“I made pappardelle from scratch. And Bolognese sauce. Remember when we had it that night in Little Italy and you kept saying how you wished you could have this at home?”
She did remember that night. The waiter had thought they were a couple and kept joking with them (which of course put Rafe right in his element) and bringing them different things to try, including a giant piece of tiramisu on the house that they’d split. They’d had such a fun time—and the Bolognese had been awesome. Now, though, all she could think was, Oh no. Meat.
The smell…made her stomach flop over like a beached seal and brought a wave of nausea that had her mouth producing saliva and frantically trying to swallow it down.
Focus on how pretty the table is. The candles flickering. Rafe’s solemn face showed that he was clearly looking for her reaction in response to all his efforts. He’d even made the pasta himself. Who did that?
No one had made her such a fabulous meal before. She’d dated Steve for a year and a half and the best he’d ever done was speed-dial takeout and laugh about not being able to boil an egg.
“It’s—wow. Amazing, Rafe.”
He laughed, and his eyes shone deep and dark in the candlelight. She missed the days when she felt that laughter resonate deep in her chest, when she felt so comfortable with him that she wouldn’t think twice about laughing along too.
“Look, Rafe, I—I have to talk to you about the night of the wedding.”
It was nearly impossible to tell when Rafe was flustered, but even in the candlelight, Kaitlyn could see a flush start at his neck and overcome his face.
He cleared his throat. “Look, there was definitely too much wine involved. We—we both agreed we got carried away.”
Just then he opened the lid to the sauce and a wall of meaty aroma hit her head-on. For a moment the room spun. Breathe deep, breathe deep, she chanted to herself, focusing every bit of concentration on keeping her stomach contents where they belonged.
Please God, let this pass. Not now.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You look a little…gray.”
“Rafe,” she said, inhaling deeply. “Rafe. I have to tell you something. I’m—”
Suddenly she was doubled over, her stomach trying to leap out of her body. And there it came. Right on his shoes. And his beautiful new rug.
* * *
Kaitlyn grabbed a napkin and raced to the bathroom, which was down the hall off the family room. Rafe found her caressing the toilet bowl. The EMT in him raced into action, placing a cool cloth on her neck, offering her water to rinse her mouth, even going so far as to bend down, prepared to scoop her up and take her to lie on his bed.
“Rafe—no,” she said, splaying out her hands so he didn’t get too near. But he seemed oblivious to the fact that she was a mess, rewetting the cloth, leaning her head back against the wall, making her take sips of water.
He sat across from her against the door, his long legs filling up the bathroom space.
“Come lie down,” he said insistently. He was great in a crisis. But what she was about to throw at him…well, she could only think that the barf was just the beginning.
She shook her head to clear it, unrolling some toilet paper to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“Let me get you something to drink,” he said. “Want some Coke? More water?”
“Rafe,” she said, her voice raspy and hoarse. The acid stung her throat, but that was nothing compared to the ache in her heart. She wanted to rewind, to go back to the lovely set table and all the homemade food and pretend…well. She pushed all that out of her mind. Actually, she wanted to go back to that wedding and start all over again. “I’m fine. Listen.” She grabbed his hands.
Now he was looking at her with eyes narrowed, concern written all over his face. “You sure you’re okay? Maybe you need to go to the ER or something? Maybe I should feel your abdomen.”
“I don’t have appendicitis. I don’t have a GI bug.” Oh God. Her heart was a bongo drum, resonating loudly between her ears, threatening to pulse out of her chest. For one last second, she scanned his face, wanting to remember what it was like before she said the words that would change everything between them forever.
“I think I know what you’re about to say,” he said, holding up his hands to halt her words, “and I just want you to know I’ll be there for you whether you’re with Steve or not.”
Puzzled, she stared at him. “You will be?”
He nodded and took her hand. “I’ll always be here for you, no matter what. Have you…told him?”
“Told who…what?”
“Have you told Steve you’re…expecting?”
Oh no. He thought…“Rafe,” she said grasping his hands and looking dead into his eyes. “I haven’t slept with Steve. I broke up with him a year and a half ago.”
“But he’s always in the coffee shop, bringing you flowers…” Rafe’s eyes suddenly widened. His expression shifted subtly—the creases between his brows deepened. Confusion clouded his eyes. “Steve’s not…Steve’s not the father?” he asked. “Then who…”
Kaitlyn closed her eyes. She wished that, like Dorothy, she could click her heels and spin around a few times and disappear. Going back to Kansas would be great right around now. Staying here for this fallout…not so much.
“Whose baby…is it?” He spoke slowly and deliberately, and he seemed to be staring intensely at the drawer pulls on the bathroom vanity. Which she recognized as the oil-rubbed bronze pulls she’d helped him pick out a few months ago. Why the image of them strolling through Ikea came to mind now she had no idea.
She rested her hand on his arm until he looked at her, all the emotions rampant on his face.
“It’s our baby, Rafe,” she said softly. “Yours and mine.”
* * *
The baby was his? “That’s…but you’re on the pill. I-I used a condom.” Confusion clouded his vision and made his voice sound an octave higher than usual. “How…?”
Kaitlyn looked ghostly white, her eyes big and round. He understood that his reaction was important, that she would remember whatever he did or said in the next few moments for a lifetime. Yet he felt like he was watching himself in a movie.
“That box of condoms Randy put in your suitcase,” she said. “Did you check the dates?”
The box of condoms. He lunged forward, opened the cabinet below the sink, and scavenged violently through his bathroom supplies. He tossed aside rolls of toilet paper, double boxes of toothpaste, a spray bottle of Pine-Sol, a giant bottle of shampoo. He was nothing if not prepared—but the condoms were not his doing. From the depths, he pulled out a box of thirty-six condoms, now minus one. The same box Randy had buried as a joke in his suitcase the night of the wedding. Gabby had seen it and thought he was preparing for a wild weekend, but he hadn’t been. He’d spent all his time with Kaitlyn, eating and dancing and having fun, and he’d never even cared to look at anyone else.
Women had been texting him too, also the result of his buddies’ prank. He hadn’t told Kaitlyn that though. He’d used the constant texts as an excuse to get the heck out of that cabin after they’d…well.
Rafe examined the box, rotating it in a dozen different directions to read the fine print.
He let out a long breath he didn’t realize he was holding as he held it out to her. A sense of knowing dread flooded through him, flowing ice-cold through his veins. “July 2017. These expired a year before the wedding.”
Images from that night came flooding back. The rain pouring down in sheets, clattering down on the tin roof of the cabin, the thick velvet darkness of the blackout dark and deep. Kaitlyn’s lips, so sweet and warm, the feel of her under his lips and his hands. The way she moved beneath him, so responsive to his every touch.
Kaitlyn clutched her stomach as she sat leaning against the wall, as if she were steeling herself for another attack of nausea. “I never missed a pill,” she said, pressing her lips into a thin line. “But after I picked up my prescription, I might’ve left it in my car for a day or two. Sara told me the heat might’ve made them less effective.”
He looked up suddenly. “Sara knows?”
She nodded. “I saw her in the office. I’m two and a half months along—well, twelve weeks technically because they count from the last period, not from when it happened.”
Rafe put his head in his hands. A strange involuntary sound emanated from him, a mixture of a moan and a sigh.
A baby. His baby. Not Steve’s. His and Kaitlyn’s.
She hadn’t taken her eyes off him. She was waiting for his reaction, seeming almost to hold her breath for it.
He didn’t want to hurt her, but she knew him too well. He couldn’t hide what he was feeling, which was shock and fear.
He desperately wanted to meet her honest blue gaze and smile like he nearly always did, every time she needed a laugh, every time she had a worry or concern. She could count on him to make her laugh. That was what he did. What he was good at.
But now…now he was out of jokes.
The other day he’d told her that he didn’t want kids. He’d meant it—he’d very carefully planned that that would never be in the cards for him. And yet here they were…A baby was coming, whether he was ready or not.
Kaitlyn must be nervous. Fearing his reaction. Maybe even a little afraid. He got that, he understood that. He always wanted to help her, to rally for her, but he just…couldn’t.
He’d always suspected he could never love again, and this was proof…because something was wrong with him, deep inside. He wasn’t reacting the way a normal person should. He wasn’t feeling anything, just remembering a long-ago morning—the morning of the accident. Seeing himself on that glorious, sunny summer day, everything perfect in his life. He was about to be married and he had a baby on the way, and that had been the icing on the cake.
And then everything went black.
Kaitlyn cleared her throat, and he realized he’d zoned out.
“I’m fully prepared to do this on my own,” she said, lifting her chin. “I know this is a shock, and I know you don’t want kids. But I’ve had time to think about it and I’m…I’m okay with it. I’m going to give this baby the best life possible. We—we’re good friends and—we can raise this baby with love. Or I can raise this baby alone with love. It’s your choice.”
Just like that, the ball was back in his court and again, he had no words. His heart could not love like that again. He just didn’t have it in him.
She was blinking fast, like she had something in her eyes, and he knew she wanted to cry. Before he could scramble to his feet to help her, she got up and ran out of the bathroom.
He ran after her as she flew into the kitchen, returning with a roll of paper towels and a bucket to clean up the mess.
He walked over and took the roll from her. “Let me get this,” he said.
“Rafe, you are not cleaning up my barf,” she said.
“And you are going to sit down and rest.”
She took the bucket back and got to work. “I’m fine.” When she was done she took her coat from the closet.
“Don’t go,” he said, concern etched all over his face.
“I think we both need some time to process this,” she said, putting on her coat. “I’m sorry I ruined the nice dinner.”
As her gaze swept over his face, he saw it all—the fine frown lines, the holding back of tears, but mostly—the disappointment.
“Bye,” she said quickly and headed out the door.
“I—I want to help,” he said, but she didn’t hear.
Rafe waited until he heard Kaitlyn’s tires squeak against the packed snow as her car rolled down his driveway. Her beat-up Toyota Corolla probably needed new tires for the winter, and he made a mental note to check the tread ASAP.
He grabbed the wine bottle from the table and sat down on his couch, taking a big gulp, then another.
The wine didn’t take away the realization that had finally sunk in, deep down to his bones.
He was going to be a father.