No Commitment (Capital Kingsmen #1) - Lisa Suzanne
CHAPTER 1
DANIELLE
TWO YEARS AGO
“Are you looking at the moon?” he asks me. It’s been almost six weeks since I last saw him, and I’m so done with this long-distance thing.
I glance out the window. “I am now.”
It’s the one constant in what’s been an unstable path for us so far. A different city nearly every other night for him while I remain stuck in place.
“Me too,” he says, and I sigh.
I like looking at the same moon in the same sky as him even though there’s a thousand miles between us tonight.
“I hate this distance,” I say softly, and I wish Tyler was sitting on the bed beside me so I could feel his hand slip onto my leg as he tells me he does, too. Instead, I watch him in the dim lighting of his bunk after he played a show in Boston with his band and they head to the next city on their packed schedule.
I don’t even know if he would slip a hand onto my leg, to be honest.
We haven’t been together in person enough times for me to know his relationship habits.
We’ve had this thing for the last two months, no commitment on either side even though neither of us is seeing anybody else, and it all goes back to the night he came back into my life again after being out of it for a decade.
We did it on my desk, and then we did it on his tour bus, and then we did it in my office chair...and one of those times, something made its way through even though we tried to be safe. I wasn’t on birth control. I had no need to be since I wasn’t having sex with anybody.
My guess is the time in my chair. He hammered away at me, and the angle felt so good for both of us, and when he pulled out, he said the condom had slipped partway off. He’d been pretty sure everything would be fine, but about a month later, after what felt like a stomach flu I couldn’t shake, I went to the doctor and learned the truth. It was about two weeks after I’d returned from a weekend in California with him...the last time I saw him in person.
I haven’t told him about the baby yet.
I want to tell him in person, but I didn’t think I’d have to wait until I was nearly two months along to let him know. This isn’t the kind of news you just blurt out over video chat. Is it?
Every time I’ve tried or we go down the conversational road of children in the future, I get the pretty strong impression he doesn’t even want kids. He hasn’t said that in so many words, but the expression on his face when I talk about my four-month-old niece, Gracie, tells me he’s not super into the idea of diapers and spit-up and children in general.
So I chicken out. Like I said, it’s not a video chat conversation. I’ll tell him when I see him, and then we’ll just deal with whatever his reaction might be.
And just to be clear, it’s definitely his. I haven’t been with anyone else since my ex over a year ago. We were able to meet up in person that one short weekend in California, but I didn’t even know I was pregnant yet at the time. And now it’s been six weeks since I’ve seen him and I’m almost nine weeks along.
“I do, too,” he says. He sighs. “And I have something else to tell you.”
Alarm bells ring. Whenever he sighs like that, it’s bad news. At least I know that little habit after two months of video chats.
“What is it?”
He twists his lips like that’ll soften the blow of his next words. “You know how our tour wraps after one more stop and we were really looking forward to my time off?”
“Yeah...” I say, drawing out the word. Looking forward doesn’t quite sum up the feelings we’ve both expressed over the end of this tour. I can’t freaking wait to see him again.
It’s literally all I’ve thought about for the last few weeks...because when I see him, I can finally tell him, and I can get the weight of this secret off my chest.
“Well, Tommy wants me to go on a reality show,” Tyler says.
My brows dip. The connection between this reality show and his time off isn’t quite clear to me yet. “What kind of reality show?”