Atticus’s hand paused on the door handle. He paused, visibly collecting himself. “Who told them?”
“Cillian.”
“That’s just great.”
“Mom is pretty devastated.”
Atticus sighed. “Son of a bitch.”
My eyes began to burn.
We left the apartment and didn’t say a word as we got into the elevator. Atticus pressed L for the lobby and the doors closed. Tears began to fall, so I looked away from him.
“Haze,” Atticus said, prodding me with his shoulder.
I tried to compose my voice by clearing it, then answered, “Yeah?”
He wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear, “What’s wrong?”
“We made a mistake and it’s costing you,” I spoke into his chest.
“Not any more than it’s costing you.” He brought me away from him so he could look into my eyes. “I make my own luck, Haze, and I have drive. If nothing else, now I have even more reason to find success.” He dragged his thumbs across the tops of my cheeks. “Your life. My life. This life. We’ll find a way.” He smiled at me. “I’m not saying it won’t be hard, but we’ll do it.”
When I let him into my studio in Deep Ellum, I watched as he took in all the art on my brick walls.
“Did you do all these?” he asked.
I looked around with him, trying to see them through his eyes. “Yeah, a collection from over the years. I can tell just by looking at them which were my earlier pieces and which weren’t. My technique has evolved over the years.”
“Always perfecting your craft, yeah?”
“Exactly.” I walked over to him and grabbed his canvas bag, taking his hand in mine.
I led him to my bed and tossed his bag on a little reading chair I had in the corner next to it. I crawled on top of my covers and he followed suit. We faced one another on our sides.
“What are we going to do, Atticus?”
“Let’s start with the basics before we get into the heavy stuff,” he suggested.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Do you have insurance?” he asked. “I can add you to mine if we need to.”
“I have pretty good insurance already.”
He nodded. “I’ll get you Cillian’s doctor’s number if you want?”
“That would be great, thank you.”
We lay there, quiet, neither sure what to say next.
“I have to talk to my parents. Do you want to come with me?” he asked.
“Would you like me to come with you?”
“Hazel, I only want to know what would make you more comfortable.”
“I think I’d like to be there. I mean, I think it’s important, don’t you?” I asked.
“I would prefer for you to be there only because I want my parents to know you.” He looked at me. “I want to know you,” he said.
My eyes burned. Immediately I felt insecure, and doubt seemed to creep in. I wondered if Atticus was as genuine as he seemed or if his generous words were a product of our situation and if it would dissipate with time and the seemingly inevitable growth of bitterness these situations always brought on.
“I want to know you as well,” I told him. “Atticus?”
“Yeah.”
“A-are you scared?” I asked.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t.”
“I’m terrified,” I admitted.
“That’s not abnormal.”
“I don’t think I’m ready to be a mom yet, Atticus.”
Atticus looked stunned. His face read something, but I didn’t know what it said. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts.
“It’s a heavy commitment, Haze.”
My eyes began to water. “It feels like a cruel joke.”
His brows furrowed. “What does?”
“To get pregnant the first time you have sex.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a small smile, as if he couldn’t believe it either. “I wish you had said something.”
“It didn’t seem relevant at the time. Nothing seemed relevant at the time,” I confessed in a whisper.
“It all happened so fast. I didn’t expect that,” he said.
“There’s something in our chemistry,” I spoke softly, “that is utterly explosive.”
His eyes hooded when I admitted to it. He brought a hand up to my face and slid his fingers gently around my neck; the pad of his thumb followed the line of my jaw. I closed my eyes at his touch and swallowed. When I did this, the skin of my throat pressed deeper into his palm and made my heart race.
“It’s my fault,” he told me. “I should have stopped us.”
“No, it’s not. It’s both our faults. Nothing good ever happens after midnight. We should have called it a night and seen each other the next day or something.”
“You wouldn’t have seen me, Hazel.”
My brows pinched together in earnest. “That’s wrong. We would have seen one another again.”
“If it weren’t for this baby, I wouldn’t have seen you again, Hazel.”
I shook my head against my pillow. “Yes, you would have, Atticus. Before I even found out, I was already starting to feel a little desperate to see you.”
“Why not just come see me before then?”
My face flamed. I was sure my cheeks were painted deep crimson. “Lots of reasons,” I hedged.
“Why, Hazel?”
“Because I was embarrassed, Atticus. You’re a virtual stranger. I’d just slept with you in the back of your car, failed to mention that I’d never even done anything before, and left the evidence of as much with you. You’re out of my league, dude, and it was all a little hard to wrap my head around. And, to be honest, in the cool light of morning, I felt like you might not be all that real, that who you were was exacerbated by a gorgeous night where the stars aligned just right and perfection was fated.
“But fate had bigger plans for us, it seemed,” I continued as he stared into my face. “The pull was tangible.” I looked down at my stomach. “And now, so is that night.”
Atticus’s hand slid down my neck, shoulder, hip, and rounded to settle on the flat of my stomach. His fingers softly bit into the skin there. We stared down at his hand, at the seemingly invisible product of our reckless night. He looked up at me.
“Are you going to tell your grandma soon?” he asked.
My heart started to race at the thought of telling my sweet elderly grandmother news she wouldn’t find pleasant at all. “I think I’ll wait a few weeks, make sure I’m further along.”
He nodded. “That makes sense.”
“What are we going to do, Atticus?” I asked him.
“First things first. I think we should get you checked out soon.”
“And when I do and it’s all confirmed?”
He knew what I was hinting at, and I could tell in his sad expression that he didn’t want to consider adoption. He didn’t answer. Instead, he breathed deeply, his shoulders rising and falling with his struggling and ever-changing expressions.
“I just want to discuss it, Atticus,” I told him, trying to reassure him.
“Of course, let’s talk about it, but I just want to preface that with one thing.”
“Say it then.”
“When Aidan and Ellie told us all they were having a baby, we all fell into a deep depression. It just felt like we were living in a perpetual cycle, and we had expected Aidan to be the first to break that cycle so we could follow suit. Naturally, when it happened, we were distraught. We all perceived their lives as cut short and, frankly, we never got used to the idea of Aidan bringing a baby home with him, not in the entire time Ellie carried Molly.
“But something happened, something profound, when he brought Molly home. There she was, this tiny, insignificant little thing, so fragile, so frightening, but she injected life into all of us and she promised us all a happiness we couldn’t have comprehended when we were struggling with the beginning idea of her
.
“That’s what a child is, Hazel. They’re daunting as ideas, but they guarantee happiness beyond measure when they’re manifested, looking up at you as if you are the sun and the moon and the stars. That’s the look I saw in Molly’s eyes and it changed me, changed my perception, changed my mind.”
I breathed in his words and let them settle in my chest and head. I knew what he was saying, could hear them, but I couldn’t process them. I was still too frightened. “What are you saying, Atticus?”
“I’m saying don’t discount it all so quickly, maybe? Let’s take some time getting used to the idea of your being pregnant before we start making huge decisions.”
“It’s too much, though, Atticus. We don’t know each other, and you’re suggesting we jump into a lifelong commitment with one another.”
“We’re both rational and seemingly good people, do you agree?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Then no matter what happens, we know we can act in the best interest of our baby, whether that be at parenting the baby together or deciding to give him or her to a family who deserves them.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew I wasn’t ready so I was sure adoption was what I wanted at that point. I knew I couldn’t be a mom. I didn’t know the first thing about it, and I was just starting out my career. I couldn’t jeopardize all I’d worked for. I just couldn’t.
More than anything, though, I couldn’t risk repeating my own mother’s history. I refused to let my baby’s childhood match mine in any small way.
“Fine, let’s just take it one step at a time. Let’s get to a doctor,” I appeased.
Atticus’s shoulders relaxed, which triggered something in me I couldn’t quite peg in the moment but later would recognize it as security, something I’d never really felt before on my own. My eyes began to droop closed. Atticus turned me on my side, fitting my back into his chest, and culled me into his body. Sleep overtook the both of us. Me more quickly than him.
I woke suddenly with violent nausea. Peeling Atticus’s hands from around me, I sprinted from the bed toward my bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before spilling bile since there was nothing in my stomach, which turned into dry-heaving. When I no longer felt ill, I stood and brushed my teeth, making my way back toward the bed but stopped short when I noticed Atticus was no longer there.
I looked around and caught him bent over in the fridge. He stood when he heard me pad into the room and turned my direction.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Sick,” I mumbled, folding myself onto one of my chic, therefore uncomfortable, metal grated bar stools at my kitchen island.
“I was going to make you some eggs. Does that sound good?” he asked.
“It sounds awful, to be honest, but necessary, so yes, please.”
“I can make you anything you have here. I can also go out really quick and get you something. Just name it, Hazel.”
I forced a smile. “Thank you, but eggs are fine. Nothing really sounds good, but I know I need to eat, so it might as well be something with protein.”
Atticus whipped up a really tasty omelet, which surprised me. “This is great,” I practically yelped.
He laughed. “Are you surprised or something?”
“Well, kinda, I mean, you don’t look like someone who can cook.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked. “Who do I look like?”
I felt my cheeks heat up. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me,” he urged. He gripped the edge of the countertop on the island, facing me, and leaned in.
“You look like someone who gets their eggs made for them. Always.”
“Do I?” he asked, the look in his eyes a little dangerous, a little teasing. It made my heart race.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You’d be right, Hazel. I don’t make eggs for anyone.”
“Except for me?”
He nodded once then turned toward my sink and cleaned up after himself. I watched his hands as he worked until he stopped and I looked up. He’d caught me.
“Are you watching me, Hazel?” he asked.
My whole body heated up to an impossible temperature. “Your hands,” I told him.
He reached over the island and threaded them through my hair, dragging them through to the tips. “Be right back,” he promised, and grabbed his duffel before heading to the bathroom. I heard the shower running and breathed a sigh of relief. He was too much to take in large doses like that. Any more time alone and I knew I’d find myself tumbling on top of my bed, complicating even further an already complicated situation.
When he was done, the door opened and he was showered and dressed, his hair wet. He smelled incredible, so I held my breath as I gathered my own stuff, locking myself in my bathroom if nothing but to catch my breath.
“He’s too much,” I whispered, turning the water on.
When I was done showering and got dressed, I opened the door to air out the room so I could dry my hair. Atticus was lying on my bed and sat up when he heard me. I smiled at him and got my blow-dryer from underneath the sink, plugging it in. He came into the room, bringing those hands and that scent with him. I felt my stomach flip on itself. He sat at the edge of the tub and faced me, smiling at me, which made my stomach flip once more. I turned on the blow-dryer and began to dry my hair. Atticus folded his arms as he studied me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at him.
“What?” I shouted over the din of the dryer.
“You’re very pretty, Hazel,” he complimented.
“Oh whatever! I don’t have any makeup on and my hair is a mess.”
He stood and took the dryer from my hands, turning it off. The instant quiet was deafening.
“I’m serious, Hazel,” he told me, taking me in his arms. “You are so beautiful.”
I lifted my chin to get a better look at him, which brought our mouths dangerously close to one another. He leaned over me and brushed the tip of his nose against mine. “You smell good,” he said with hooded eyes. “I wonder if you taste as good as you smell, though.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” I barely got out.
He pressed his lips against my lips; his tongue swept across mine. A small moan escaped his mouth and I felt the vibration of it down my throat. I dropped my brush and heard it click on the tile of the bathroom as I wrapped my arms around his neck. He splayed his hands across my backside and he lifted me, sliding his fingers down to cup the backs of my knees, and sat me on the bathroom counter. We kissed until our lips were raw and time became irrelevant.
When we broke apart, he looked as surprised as I felt. His chest panting, he brought his hands up and ran them through his damp hair. “Damn, Hazel, what is wrong with us?”
I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. “I don’t know. Honestly.”
“We’ve got to get out of here unless we want to make yet another mistake. We can’t complicate this any more.”
I took a deep breath. “Agreed.”
I hopped off the counter and finished my hair. He sat at the edge of the tub, looking ready to jump me again. I threw on my makeup and left the bathroom quickly. Atticus following me closely, and we left the apartment in a rush. The clear light of day sobered us a little; I felt as if I could breathe. The reality of what we were about to do brought me all the way back down.
Atticus opened his passenger side door for me and I hopped in. He rounded the front and got in, starting the car and heading toward Oak Cliff to his parents’ house. When we pulled up, it looked a lot different than I’d last seen it. There were still toys in the yard but they were organized against the front of the house, and the lawn looked freshly cut and edged. Atticus’s dad was outside hand-scraping the peeling paint, readying it to be painted, I assumed. His mom was in the front garden pulling weeds and yanking up its stone border. There were buckets of paint on the porch all stacked on top of each other. Cillian was pulling rickety shutter accents off the window siding and piling them
on the walkway.
Butterflies filled my stomach. Atticus looked at me and I at him.
“Here we go,” I said.
My hand went to my door handle but Atticus placed his hand on my arm. “Let me get that for you, Hazel.”
He got out, jogged to my side of the car, and opened my door for me. By this time, his parents, Cillian, as well as Brendan and Malachi, who I’d discovered were on the sides of the house, all came out front. They all looked hot, and their eyes squinted in the sun as we walked up together. Atticus took my hand, which bolstered me, and we came to a stop in front of the porch. We stayed quiet while Sarah and Casey, sullen faces and all, sat at the top of the porch stairs.
“Aidan said you already know,” Atticus began.
Cillian placed his hands on his hips. “I told them,” he admitted.
Atticus shook his head. “What the hell, dude? Did it not occur to you that I might want to be the one to break the news?”
Cillian lifted a shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter who told me,” Sarah said with tears in her eyes. “How could you do this, Atticus?”
I felt my chest tighten.
“Mom, it wasn’t planned.”
“It never is, Atticus, but here you are now because of it, a waste of intelligence and potential. It just makes me sick to my stomach that this is the path you have chosen for yourself.”
Oh shit, I thought, feeling the urge to flee along with an overpowering surge of nausea.
“Intelligence isn’t wasted, Mom. It can be misapplied, but it can’t ever be wasted.”
She looked beyond pissed he’d chosen that moment to contradict her. “What’s the difference, Atticus?”
“A misapplication still has room for potential. This won’t change anything.”
She laughed but it was caustic and made me want to crawl beneath their porch. “Just goes to show you can be as book smart as they come but still be as clueless as the day is long. Atticus, life can’t be taught in books, son. It has to be experienced, and I’ve endured it in droves. Trust me, the dreams you have now are long gone.”
“You’re being dramatic,” he said, looking exasperated.
“Well, you’re just going to have to get married,” Casey chimed in.