Page 131 of Diego

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

I meet her eyes.

“Do you want this baby?” I ask.

Her eyes heat immediately. “Yes.”

There is no hesitation.

Something in my chest eases. Not completely, but enough that I can breathe a little easier.

“All right.”

Her brows pull together. “All right?”

“Yes.”

She stares at me as if I have just lost my mind, and maybe I have.

I almost laugh, but there is nothing funny about her face.

I step closer again. “Blair, I do not know what I am supposed to say in the first five minutes after finding out I am going to be a father.”

Her eyes flicker at the word father.

The word hits me too.

I keep going before I can get distracted by it.

“But I am here. I’m listening. And I am not going anywhere.”

Her face registers relief.

There's still a lot of fear and anxiety, and it doesn't disappear, but it eases back a little bit. I realize just how much she's been carrying the last few days. How terrifying this must have been for her.

“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” she says quietly.

“I already decided something.”

“What?”

“That you are not doing this alone.”

She exhales and looks down.

I take another step, close enough now that I could touch her, but I don’t.

After a moment, she looks back up. “I don’t know what this means for us.”

“Neither do I.”

That answer seems to surprise her. “I thought you had an answer for everything.”

“I usually do.”

A faint, shaky smile touches her mouth.

I missed that.