Who's Your Daddy? (33 page)

Isaac chuckled softly. “So if we were to get married, then we could combine Nolan and Morris, and get Norris.”

Don’s grin broadened. “So we could—”

I glared at him. “First one to suggest naming this baby Chuck gets a roundhouse kick to the head.”

Isaac’s shoulders dropped. “Aw, come on.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You would take all the fun out of it,” he said with a playful pout.

“Women,” Don muttered into his water bottle.

I looked at Isaac and, with a slight tilt of my head and quirk of my eyebrows, asked a silent favor. Isaac dutifully elbowed him, timing it just right so Don choked on his drink.

Don turned away and coughed, shooting me a glare over his shoulder as he tried to clear his throat.

Isaac laughed. Then he turned a little more serious and reached for my hand. “We can figure out names as we go, but why don’t you come on upstairs? We have a little surprise for you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What? Do I get to fuck one of you with a strap-on tonight?”

Don’s ears perked up. He coughed once more, then said, “Would you want to?”

“Don.” Isaac eyed him. “Focus, man.”

“Right. Right.” Don gestured toward the stairs. As he started up, with Isaac and me following, he glanced over his shoulder. “But could we talk you into that strap-on?”

I shrugged. “Oh, I’m open-minded.”

“Duly noted,” Don said.

They led me down the hall, and I thought they’d turn left into their bedroom like they always did, but Don went right. He put his hand on the doorknob of his office and stopped.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?” I eyed him warily. “So help me, if you’re going to sit me at your computer and show me some video like the one you sent me a few months ago…”

Don laughed. “No, it’s nothing like that. Come on, just do it.”

“Don, what are—”

“Trust us.” Isaac put his arms around my waist from behind and kissed my cheek. “Just close your eyes.”

I shot Don one more suspicious look, then closed my eyes. The doorknob clicked, and the hinges gave a quiet squeak. Isaac guided me forward. After a few steps, he stopped me.

“Okay,” he said. “Open your eyes.”

I opened my eyes, and my heart skipped as I looked around the room, disbelieving this was the same place where Don and I had played video games and looked up ridiculous videos online.

The walls were painted a pale yellow, and everything—from the crib to the wallpaper border to the teddy bear resting on Isaac’s mom’s rocking chair—was perfect. Exactly how I’d imagined the room I’d wanted for the baby, even though I’d had no clue how I’d be able to make it real. If I had my own place, I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it. As it was, there were no extra rooms in Rose’s apartment.

But…here it was.

“I hope this is the right color,” Don said. “I couldn’t remember the exact shade, and—”

“It’s perfect,” I whispered. “You guys, this is…amazing.” I looked at Don. “What about your office?”

He shrugged. “We both cleared out our offices. Everything’s downstairs now.”

I cocked my head. “Both of you? Why both?”

Isaac smiled and nodded toward the room that had been his office down the hall. “We figured you could use the other room.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Well, when the baby’s here,” Don said. “If you wanted to stay too.”

“Or it can be yours.” Isaac swallowed. “All the time.”

“Are you…” I moistened my lips. “Are you suggesting I move in?”

They both nodded. My heart fluttered, but then my chest tightened.

“Guys, you don’t have to do this,” I said. “I don’t want to depend on you.”

Isaac put his hands on my shoulders and gently drew me back to him. “We’re not suggesting that you depend on us, Carmen.”

“We’re asking you to
join
us,” Don said.

“Join you?”

“It’s a bit off the beaten path by societal standards,” Isaac said. “But what’s wrong with us being a family?”

“All of us,” Don said. “Together.”

The tightness in my chest turned to a mix of sudden anger and the threat of tears. I pulled away from Isaac. “So, what? Is this the part where you two magically fall in love with me because there’s a baby on the way?” I gritted my teeth, not sure if I was holding back fury or tears. “And then once the novelty wears off and the sleepless nights get old, you’ll think twice?”

“No,” Don said. “Not even close.”

Isaac reached for me. “Carmen, we want you to—”

“Listen.” I put up a hand and took a step back, inching away from them and toward the door. “I…I appreciate what you guys are doing. I do. Really. But…” I dropped my gaze.

Isaac touched my shoulder, and that gentle contact made the tears nearly impossible to hold back, especially as he whispered, “What’s wrong?”

I forced the tears back. Then I made myself look Isaac in the eye. “I need a little time. Space. Whatever. I just…” My throat ached, and my eyes stung. “I need to go.”

“Wait.” Don’s eyes were wide with concern. “Did we do something wrong?”

“No, it’s not…” I looked around the room. God, it was perfect. And they were so sweet to put it all together, and put aside a room for me as well, and I…I didn’t even know what it was that threw me off. Why it upset me so much. Forcing my emotions to stay beneath the surface, I said, “I just need to go.”

I turned and hurried out of the room, and thankfully, neither of them followed me. I could imagine them staring at each other, dumbstruck, in the room they’d so carefully made for my baby. For
our
baby. They were probably completely baffled by my reaction, and truth be told, so was I.

But I needed to get out of there. I needed to…I didn’t know. Clear my head? Think?

I barely made it out of their driveway before the tears came. Holding the wheel in one hand, I covered my mouth with the other. Who the hell I was trying to hide from, I didn’t know, but I did it anyway.

After a few blocks, the road was starting to blur, so I pulled over and put the car in park. While the engine idled, I let my emotions come crashing down on me. Some of it might have been hormones, but not all. Not even close.

Join them? As a family? Fuck, they couldn’t know how much I wanted that. But they also couldn’t possibly know I wanted to be more than just the mother of their baby. I wanted
them
. I loved them, and the room down the hall—a place for me to sleep while they held each other in the next room—just drove the point home that they already had each other. We could have sex, and we could be friends, and we could raise this baby together, but I would always be the third.

I would always be in the room down the hall.

I also didn’t want to depend on them and their goodwill. Or their obligation, I thought bitterly. I needed to stand on my own two feet, but where had I been all these years? Always in someone else’s place. From my husband’s house to my sister’s apartment…to their house? I desperately wanted walls, a door and a key of my own. Some place with my name and no one else’s. Paid for with my money. A place that would still be standing and the door still open even if everyone I thought I could depend on suddenly bailed on me and left me high and dry.

But how? With that thick stack of bills from my attorney and the moderate income I made from my books, I was lucky I could pay half my sister’s rent. Pay for my own place and feed, clothe, diaper, entertain and educate a baby?

I wiped my eyes, but the tears wouldn’t stop, and the hormones had nothing to do with it now. Could I have possibly made more of a mess of my life? Maybe I should have taken my mother’s advice, ditched the writing career and gotten a “real” job with a steady paycheck. Except I still had one more book on my current contract, and writing had been the only thing that kept me sane for the last few years of my marriage, and it kept me more or less sane now. How I would finish this book, I had no idea. Between being exhausted, stressed and sick, plus the hormone-induced mental fog my sister had warned me about, my productivity was abysmal.

I sniffed and leaned back against the headrest. I wiped my eyes and refused to look at my reflection in the rearview. This wasn’t me. I didn’t just crumble.

How was I supposed to explain how I felt to them?

I was not a damsel in distress looking for another man—or pair of men—to depend on. I’d been looking forward to standing on my own two feet for a while. Living my own life for a while.

I loved both of them, and I was anything but ungrateful for how supportive and loving they’d been from the beginning, but I resented the situation. I resented the fact that we weren’t just buddies who could go grab a couple of beers or catch a movie anymore. We were inextricably part of each other’s lives now. And the fact that they felt compelled to put a room aside for me just poured salt in the wound for a million reasons. Because I didn’t want to depend on them. Because I didn’t want to live with them like I was a damned roommate while they were in love in the next room. Because even if all my worldly possessions were in that room and my baby slept in the other, I’d always be the intruder. The outsider.

I put my hand over my belly, which was still fairly flat to the untrained eye. To anyone else, I probably looked like I needed to skip dessert every night for a few weeks. To me, it was impossible not to notice the gentle swell and its not-so-gentle implications.

I couldn’t decide if I felt smothered by the baby and the two fathers, or more alone than ever.

Lying in bed that night, I couldn’t sleep in spite of being completely exhausted. Between my emotions and the fact that my pregnancy liked to suck every bit of energy out of me, I should have been asleep hours ago. Instead, as the clock counted off hour after restless hour, I stared up at the ceiling.

The guilt gnawed at me. I didn’t want the guys to think I was ungrateful for how supportive and sweet they’d been since day one, but I didn’t know how to explain how I felt to them. The sex could have made our friendship awkward and uncomfortable, but falling in love with both of them? That was crossing lines we just couldn’t cross.

Shit. This was never simple, but it wasn’t supposed to be this complicated. What should—

A faint flutter just below my navel brought my thoughts to a screeching halt.

I put my hand over my stomach, and held perfectly still. There it was again.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt it—I’d rationalized away the truth every time for the last week and a half—but I couldn’t ignore it now. Or at least, I couldn’t convince myself it was anything other than my baby moving.

Rubbing my eyes with my other hand, I muttered a string of profanity that would have made Don proud. I needed to get it together. In a few months, I’d be a mother, and I owed my baby better than being an emotional basket case who couldn’t just face the world, say what was on my mind, stand on my own two feet and generally stop being a spineless idiot.

I put both my hands over that subtle flutter of movement. Starting tomorrow, it was time to set a few people straight and be honest with the two who deserved it most. Even if the end result was awkward and uncomfortable, they needed to know.

By the time sunrise rolled around, I’d managed a few hours of sleep, but as exhausted as I was, I was still determined to face those who needed to be faced. I hadn’t yet called Don or Isaac, though. There was someone else I needed to speak to before I lost my nerve.

And so, around eleven, I drummed my fingers behind an untouched water glass in a café downtown. My heart beat faster with every passing minute, and when the café door opened at exactly eleven fifteen, I folded my hands to keep them from shaking.

“Good morning,” my mother said, grinning broadly as she took her seat across from me.

“Morning.” My mouth had gone dry, so I grabbed the ice water I’d been ignoring for the last half hour.

“How are things?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Good, good.”

“Any luck finding a job?” She pursed her lips. “Though I suppose you might be more interested in temporary work right now.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Actually, I’m doing just fine with the writing. I’m due another installment on my advance for the next book at the end of the month, and there’s still one more book in the series.”

She scowled but let it go. “And how is everything
else
going?” Her emphasis left no room for interpretation about exactly what she was referring to.

“Fine.” I dropped my gaze and stared into my drink. “Everything’s going fine.”

“Well. That’s good to hear.” Her tone suggested it was anything but.

Carmen, get it together. You didn’t come here to let her walk all over you.

I folded my hands on the table and made myself look her in the eye. “We need to talk about this, Mom.”

She sniffed. “I don’t think there’s much to discuss. What’s done is done.” Her eyes darted downward toward my stomach, like she could see it through the table, and her lip curled into a disgusted snarl. “Obviously.”