and it took all Matt had to contain his quickly growing anger. The things Adam was saying made no sense to Matt and the confusion was pissing him off. “I have been thinking about it. I know there’s a lot to do.” It didn’t help that Adam wouldn’t look at him. Each new thing Adam said only made it worse. Matt was barely holding on to his calm by his fingernails. “I’ll start with a job until the baby’s born. I’ll have to stay with Mom and Dad for a while, but—”
“Why you?” Matt’s voice was quiet, and he knew it would tell Adam more about his current state of mind than he wanted to, but the alternative wasn’t possible in a public restaurant. Not that he wanted to shout at Adam; he didn’t. But he couldn’t wrap his head around all the “I” and “I’ll” in Adam’s words.
Adam blinked and finally looked at Matt again. “What?”
“Why you? Why only you?” Matt asked, still fighting to stay calm.
“Uh… because it’s my fault?”
Matt scowled, some portion of his anger breaking through. “How the fuck is it your fault?”
“Because it’s my body?” Adam’s “duh” expression was not helping things.
Matt closed his eyes and worked to calm himself. “I’m just going to pretend you didn’t even say that. Look, I’m working too. I can get more hours at the bookstore and help put money away. I have some saved already.” He shook his head. “It probably is best if we stay in one of our parents’ houses for now. There’s a lot of stuff to buy for a baby. After that, though, I’m sure we could find a place for just us and the baby.”
“You don’t have to do this, Matt. It’s not your—”
“Not my what?” Matt asked, and the tone of his voice must have gotten his emotions through to Adam, who blinked at him in silence for several moments. Matt didn’t push, just let him speak when he was ready. Matt wasn’t sure how he’d react as it was, and he needed every second he could get to try to keep calm.
“Problem,” Adam finally said.
“Not my problem? Of course it is!” The scowl came back, though this time Matt didn’t even try to keep it off his face.
“It doesn’t have to be. I can do this, Matt. I can take care of the baby on my own.”
“But you don’t have to!” Matt closed his eyes again and took slow, deep breaths. The anger—and, if he was honest, fear—was getting to him. “Does this mean you won’t let me help with my own child? Are you going to keep him from me too?”
“What?”
Matt opened his eyes, but the anger, hurt, fear, everything, just took over. “You want to do this on your own? I can’t even understand this. I’m….” He blew out a breath, then got out of the booth. “I would have hoped you’d know better, that you’d know me better, to know I’d want this. I don’t want you doing this on your own, and it’s pissing me off that you’d try to make a decision like this by yourself.” He shook his head. “When you get your head out of your ass and remember that I love you, that I want our child, you know where I’ll be.”
Without waiting for a reply, Matt turned on his heel and left.
“Did you guys have a fight?” Parker asked.
Matt sighed. He couldn’t exactly call it a fight. It was more like he’d yelled at Adam, then left without giving Adam a chance to respond. He’d just been so angry over what Adam was doing, he couldn’t even bring himself to listen to Adam’s arguments.
Since then—some four days now—Adam hadn’t so much as texted, and Matt didn’t try to bridge the distance between them. He was letting pride get the better of him, but he had no idea how to fight this with Adam. At this point all he could do was leave Adam alone to work it out and talk to Matt when he was ready.
As such, they hadn’t so much as spoken to each other. In class, they sat on opposite ends of the row—usually Adam with Ethan and Parker next to Matt, with Evan in the middle looking confused as hell. Adam was also either driving his mom’s car or being dropped off, because he wasn’t on the same bus. They didn’t even eat lunch together. Yet again, Ethan sitting with Adam. Evan seemed torn between sitting with his brother