is smiling and his arms are open wide. I have never seen him look as beautiful or as happy. “Come to Papa,” he says.
There is so much hope there, so much kindness, and so much—dare I say—love, I can’t deal. I feel like my head and my heart are both going to explode right here in the pub’s bathroom. I take one step toward him and then I crumple, crying all the way down.
He moves lightning quick, gathering me in his arms and pulling me up against his chest. He holds me tightly while I sob in his arms.
“Shhh, shhh, it’s going to be okay.” He rubs and pats my back frantically, then his hand moves to my head where he does the same thing, turning my hair into a rat’s nest of knots. “I’ll take care of everything. You won’t have to do anything but put your feet up and eat chocolate all day.”
“This is not a joke,” I cry out. “This is my life. My life is over.”
Lucky forces me away from him so he can look me in the eye. “This is not just your life. This is my life too.” He squeezes my shoulders hard. “This is our life.”
My sobs lessen enough for me to speak. “Our lives.”
He shakes his head at me. “No. Our life. Singular. This is you and me together as a team. This is not you alone or me alone with the two of us working on parallel paths. We’re now merged into one, like it or not.”
I glare at him, wiggling out of his grip. “Not.”
He gets a cocky expression and shrugs. “Tough. You danced with the devil and now you’re going to pay the price.”
His words feel like a knife burying itself in my heart. Without thinking, I reach up and slap him hard across the face.
He doesn’t move except to rest his hand on the cheek that’s flaming red. His voice is very calm. “I have no idea why you just did that, but I’m going to let it go because you’re pregnant. It’s probably the hormones.”
Angry tears drip from my eyes. “Don’t you ever bring Charlie up to me again.”
His expression goes from angry to confused. “Charlie? Who said anything about Charlie?”
“You did,” I say bitterly, feeling betrayed. “That ‘dance with the devil’ bullshit.”
He’s still confused for a couple seconds and then his eyes widen. “That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t talking about Charlie; I was talking about my dick.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. My gaze drops to his waist and the bulge beneath. “You call your dick the devil?”
His expression goes sheepish. “It was supposed to sound poetic. Dance with the devil. Sleep with me. Get it?”
In all the years I’ve been around him, I have never known Lucky to be so goofy. I start laughing and can’t stop.
He sighs loudly. “It’s really not that funny.”
“Oh, yes it is,” I gasp, and then fly into another fit of hysteria. I barely get my next words out. “Oh my god! Hilarious! I can’t believe you call your dick the devil!”
“Shush!” he urges, trying not to smile. “I never called my dick the devil!”
The door opens all of a sudden and two girls come tumbling in. They stop short when they see us standing there. Lucky’s last words are still ringing around the space.
I pause, gaining momentary control over my hysteria, but when I notice they’re both staring at Lucky’s crotch, I start laughing all over again.
“Excuse us. Sorry.” Lucky grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me out of the bathroom. “We didn’t mean to intrude on your private space.”
I’m still laughing until his next words are offered to the two women as the door slowly swings shut. “She was really constipated so I had to come in and coach her through it.”
Before I can react, he runs across the bar away from me. Instead of chasing after him, though, I walk over to the bar and sit down in my old spot. Throwing the stupid bag of pregnancy tests up on the bartop next to me, I breathe out a long sigh. I went into the bathroom as one person with one life, and exited as someone entirely different with a completely unknown and unforeseen life ahead of me. It’s almost like the moment right after I killed Charlie: life changed in an instant, into something I never imagined for myself. Unbelievable. Well done, God. You kicked my ass again. I nod with respect.