Call Me Crazy (Bellamy Creek #3) - Melanie Harlow Page 0,72
that stuff—apparently you have to time it exactly right, and even then the chances aren’t great.”
“I don’t know much about it either,” Cole admitted. “Trisha got pregnant almost right away.”
“Yeah, I guess some people just get lucky.” It made me sad that Bianca wasn’t one of them. “Unless I’m doing it wrong.”
Cole laughed and lifted his beer. “It’s not that. I remember it took my brother’s wife a while too. Almost a year.”
“A year? Shit.” I shook my head. “She only gave me three months, and I’m down one already.”
“Can’t you give yourselves more time?”
I frowned and took a long pull on my beer. “I don’t think that’s an option.”
“Why not?”
“We agreed from the start that this was temporary. We said three months, unless she got pregnant.”
“You also said you wouldn’t have sex,” Cole pointed out. “If that part of your plan can change, why not the timeline?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just feel like that’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Like what if it still won’t work, and month after month, we’re just stuck with each other, no end in sight, and she starts to hate me for letting her down and I start to regret putting myself in this position, where I’m failing a wife I didn’t even want in the first place, and all we do is fight and get on each other’s nerves, and then she leaves, because we ruined everything, and we hate each other forever . . .” I set my beer down and rubbed my face with both hands. “Fuck. Just . . . fuck. No.”
“When you put it that way,” Cole said, “it’s tough to argue with you.” He paused. “But what if it went the other way?”
“You mean, what if she gets pregnant?”
“Sure, let’s say she does. You’d still let her leave?”
Suddenly an anvil was on my chest. “I’d have to, if she wanted to go. It’s what I agreed to. And why would I want to be with someone who didn’t want to be with me?”
“But what if—”
“Okay, stop.” I picked up my beer and held up the other hand, palm toward him. “You’re making this complicated when it isn’t. There’s no sense in asking what if questions. If she doesn’t get pregnant, we shake hands and get a divorce in two months. If she does, we shake hands and get a divorce in a year. That was the deal. It’s the only way we don’t end up hating each other.”
The back door to their kitchen opened, and Mariah came in, Cheyenne right behind her, carrying a couple grocery bags.
“Hi, Daddy,” Mariah said, taking off her shoes before rushing over to give him a hug. “Guess what? We’re making pancakes for dinner!”
Cole laughed and hugged her back. “My favorite.”
“Hi, Uncle Enzo.” Mariah smiled at me.
“Hey, squirt.” I returned the smile, noting that she looked even more grown up than she had the last time I’d seen her. Kids changed so fast. “You’re getting so tall. Pretty soon I won’t even be able to call you squirt.”
She grinned even wider. “Good!”
“Hey, Enzo,” Cheyenne said, setting the grocery bags on the counter before giving Cole a quick kiss. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“Much as I love pancakes, I can’t, but thanks for asking. I’m bringing home dinner tonight.”
“Such a good husband,” she said, winking at me. “Who’d have guessed?”
I finished off my beer. “Alright, I’m out of here, before the abuse gets any worse. Bye, guys.”
On the drive home, I thought again about how quickly Mariah was growing up—it seemed like only yesterday I’d gone over to the hospital to see her for the first time, and to both console and congratulate Cole, who’d lost his wife but welcomed a child in the span of only twenty-four hours.
He’d raised Mariah as a single dad for nine years, and he’d done such a good job. She was healthy and happy, outgoing and talkative, smart as a whip and sweet as cotton candy. Would I be as good a dad as Cole was? What would it be like to watch a child grow up right in front of me? Listen to him laugh for the first time, watch her take her first steps, feel a tiny hand in mine, hear a little voice calling me Daddy?
Suddenly I was choked up.
I’d always imagined doing rough-and-tumble things with my kids, but now I was picturing softer, sweeter things too—feeding a baby a bottle, putting a Band-Aid on a cut, reading a bedtime story.