I roll my jaw, resisting the urge to turn my head to the side to crack my neck. The action would be too telling. I’ve spent the last week with the guys out of the country, and not once have we brought up the conversation of Simone or what happened outside of the apartment before we left.
“I’m agitated.”
He chuckles, his fingers drumming on his thigh along to the beat playing on the radio. “Because I’m here?”
“Because I had to hear about the dismissal of the case from fucking Griffin.”
But, yeah partly because you’re here.
“Seriously, man. Do you like really care for her?”
He’s making me feel like we’re two teenage girls talking about our feelings while painting our damn toenails. I want to slam on the brakes just to jerk him around a little in his seat.
“I liked her before we knew about the baby.” For some reason, I feel the need to clarify that for him.
“You liked fucking her.”
I grip the steering wheel harder, the brake check idea seeming like a better idea by the second.
“We fuck. We work. We hang out at Jake’s,” I say, reminding him of what all us guys do. “We don’t do much else. Fucking her often was easy. She was willing and I didn’t have to put much effort into it.”
I feel like a dick for saying that truth out loud because now there’s a baby involved, but fuck if it isn’t a hundred percent accurate.
What I don’t feel like delving deeper into is that over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve gravitated to her, always checking with her about her own plans for after work or on her off days before making my own. If she was busy, I was normally at the clubhouse. If she wanted to get together, I was ecstatic. If we were coming back from a job, I texted her before the plane landed. Yeah, she was usually down to get together, but she was always the only one I reached out to.
These are all things I was able to hyper focus on during this last trip. Each new realization made it harder and harder to keep my mouth shut, made it harder not to get off that damn plane and run to her.
It’s also making it harder not to pull the truck over on the side of the road and tell my best friend to kick bricks.
“And if it’s my kid?” Jinx asks when I pull into the spot allocated for Simone’s apartment.
All I can do is stare up at her apartment. Every light facing this direction is still on despite the late hour. She worked again tonight, but it’s after three in the morning. She should be asleep, and if she is and all the lights are still on all that does is make me feel like a total asshole for not demanding she stay at the clubhouse. Simone loves the darkness. We spent most of our nights together feeling each other than actually seeing with our eyes. It was sensual and raw some nights. Other times it was rough and primal, the lack of light contributing to the ferociousness of our sex.
“We’ve been over this,” I answer with a sigh, my eyes glued to her bedroom window. “I’m not going to hurt her or your kid if that’s what the tests reveal. I’m not going to try to take your place as the father, but I’m not walking away from that woman if the situation turns out less than ideal for me.”
“You want the baby?” His voice is low, and if I’m not mistaken filled with a hint of awe.
“You don’t seem so opposed to the idea any longer yourself.”
“We don’t know what she wants out of all of this. We never sat her down and asked her.”
“Do you really think it’s fair to do that to her? I imagine she wouldn’t want to answer in fear of alienating one of us when the results could be different.”
“True,” he agrees.
“I don’t think she has a preference,” I confess. This is another thing I’ve struggled with since finding out.
I’ve spent a lot of time with Simone. Granted, we’ve mostly been naked and panting, but the times we’ve spent since finding out about the baby have never included part of this conversation. In the hospital, we asked her who the father was, but she never once hinted that she thought one way or the other. In