All Mine

by Piper Lennox

  “I was wondering that too, actually.” Blake launches a grenade into an abandoned building before turning to me. “We haven’t really talked about it.”

  Of course not, I think. You shut me out, every time I bring it up.

  Well. At least he’s talking now. I take a breath and focus my energy on the zipper of the couch cushion, flicking it between my fingers.

  “It is weird. But…not necessarily in a bad way. I mean, the baby part is fine. I like babies.”

  “But it isn’t yours,” Josh points out. Like I need that reminder.

  “No.” I run my tongue along my molars, tasting the cake still there from dessert. “But it’s Blake’s, and I love him, so I’ll care about his child, too.”

  “Just that easy,” Josh says distractedly. Even so, the sarcasm comes through loud and clear.

  “Not easy,” I correct. “But…necessary.”

  “So you’re really okay with it?” Blake asks.

  I look at him. He keeps his tunnel vision on the game. “Yeah. I mean, I think so. It’s just hard, knowing Caitlin-Anne will have to be in our lives forever. Nobody wants their boyfriend’s ex in the picture.”

  “Trust me, I don’t want her there, either.”

  “But she will be.” When his eyes flicker to me, I let my focus wander to my toes. Sometimes, it’s hard to look him in the eyes—like they’re so intense, they can see every thought in my head. “So we should get used to it. Figure out a system, or something.”

  “There’s no system.” Blake scoffs through the side of his mouth and goes back to the game. “Caitlin-Anne and I will share custody and split holidays, and we’ll only have to see each other during drop-offs and pick-ups.”

  I pull my feet out of his lap. “Do you really think it’ll be that simple?”

  “Yes.”

  So much for discussing things. Josh exchanges a look with me, then joins in on the undead carnage.

  That evening, after a merciless game of Trivial Pursuit on the porch with my parents, I walk Blake to the car.

  “You’re not coming to my place tonight?”

  “Sorry. I’ve got a really early shift.” I hold his hands and swing them between us. “Thanks, for putting up with them tonight.”

  “I don’t consider it ‘putting up with them,’ Mellie. Your family feels like my family.”

  Pretty soon, you will have a family, I think. It’s hard to picture how Caitlin-Anne will fit into things, after the baby arrives—but it’s hard to picture how I will, too.

  When I was a kid, I’d overhear my Mom tell pregnant women at church that you just couldn’t predict a child’s impact until they arrived. I knew she meant the good parts, laughter and cute clothes and the fun that kids bring, but now I’m realizing it’s true for the other parts, too.

  Babies link people forever. They change dynamics. For the parents, especially, they make them look at themselves through a lens they never have before. No matter how much they resist it.

  It’s no secret Blake is scared of being a dad. Petrified. I know he must feel pressure to be better than his own father, but, at the same time, doomed to be identical.

  So maybe that’s how I fit into this picture: helping him see the person he can become, when the time finally arrives.

  I just hope he lets me.

  Part Three

  Twenty-Two

  Eighteen

  Blake

  “I was thinking about Blake Andrew.”

  The sonogram room at Caitlin-Anne’s doctor’s office has one chair. Since her stuck-up mom Jeannie always comes with us to these things (even though I’m the one footing the bill, I apparently get no say in that), she gets the chair. I stand. I don’t like the woman even a little, but she is still a woman, and I guess I’m a gentleman.

  I look at Caitlin-Anne. “Blake Andrew Fairfield?”

  “No, silly—he’ll have your last name. He’d be a junior.”

  Jeannie presses her hand to her chest like her daughter’s just found the cure for cancer. “Well, I think that’s a fabulous name!”

  “Look, Cait, I’m fine with the last name and all that, but...don’t name him after me, please.” I run my hand through my hair, wishing I’d brought a sweater. The office feels freezing to me, even though both of them seem fine.

  Caitlin-Anne rubs her belly, which is huge now. She’s due in three weeks. While she’s still pissed I didn’t propose to her and buy her a McMansion on the coast, she was mildly placated when her dear old daddy built her a suite on the side of their house, complete with a nursery. And her friends threw her a Paris-themed baby shower last week, so she’s got everything she needs. It’s just a matter of time.

  I, meanwhile, still haven’t gotten used to the fact that she’s really pregnant with my kid.

  “What man doesn’t want his son named after himself?” Jeannie clucks. “Timmy is a junior, you know.”

  “That’s fine for your husband,” I tell her, “but I’m just not into the idea, okay?” I look at Caitlin-Anne and try to wedge her mother out of the conversation. “What about Declan, or—what was that name you pitched last time?”

  “Brogan?”

  Oh, God. “Right, right—Brogan. I mean, Brogan Andrew isn’t...bad.”

  Caitlin-Anne looks at her stomach, stretched taut and shiny under the fluorescent lights. “I also like Bourne.”

  I try not to make a face, but can’t help it. “Like...The Bourne Identity?”

  They look at me like I’m crazy. “Bourne Fairfield is Timothy’s great-grandfather,” Jeannie explains, so much snobbery in her voice I want to slap her. I don’t—again, I’m a gentleman—but the temptation’s pretty strong. “He started our family’s railroad business from scratch, then renovated that train station downtown.”

  “And he bought the Acre,” Caitlin-Anne adds. The Acre Hotel, a gilded monstrosity known for its high teas and rich history of pretending it was never actually a brothel, is the Fairfields’ pride and joy. They manage to work the fact they own it into every conversation when they first meet someone.

  “Oh, uh...well, that’s a good name, too,” I offer. Honestly, she could say she wants to name the kid Bilbo Baggins and I’d go along with it, just to get her off this Junior kick. I’m not sure why it bothers me. It just does.

  “You have time,” Jeannie says, waving her hand. I don’t know if she’s telling Caitlin-Anne she has time to decide, or to force me to change my mind.

  “Ms. Fairfield?” The ultrasound technician pokes her head into the room. “Hi, how are you?”

  “Good.” Caitlin-Anne adjusts herself on the table, getting comfortable. She shivers from the gel, then smiles when the wand presses into her skin and finds a heartbeat. “There he is!”

  “Yep,” the tech laughs. “He’s got a good, strong heartbeat, just like last time. And here’s his head. Oh, there’s a hand!”

  It’s kind of sweet, watching Caitlin-Anne watch the screen. She seems genuinely excited about motherhood. Even if it’s not happening the way she planned, with a giant ring on her finger.

  Of course, the way she and her friends talk about the baby, you’d think she was getting a new puppy or purse, some accessory to flash around. The real test will be when the kid’s older. I think she’ll be a good mom, but can’t totally see it. Then again, who am I to judge? I can’t see myself being a dad at all.

  “Blake, look!” She points to the screen. The baby’s hiding his face.

  “Playing peek-a-boo,” the tech jokes, and everyone laughs. I have to force mine a little. Why doesn’t this feel amazing to me? Why doesn’t it feel real?

  Jeannie says, “You know, he sort of looks like a Bourne. It suits him. Very classic.”

  The tech makes a polite face, way better at hiding her true reaction than I was.

  Outside, we hold the ultrasound photos up to the light and make guesses about who he’ll look like most. I lie and say he looks like Cait, but really, he looks like a generic baby. Anyone’s baby.


  As soon as I get back to my place, I faceplant on the couch and let the life drain out of my muscles. All things baby exhaust me. I’m not sure how I’ll ever cut it as a dad. Maybe that’s why mine was so hands-off, after Mom died.

  The fact I can even sort of understand disgusts me.

  Mel lets herself in with her key that evening, waking me with a thump. She’s been moving in piece-by-piece the last month. I’m ecstatic, but it is hard to watch her mess invade my little world of order.

  “Hey,” she says, thanking me as I take a box from her. “How was the ultrasound?”

  “Good. Baby’s healthy, all that.”

  “Yeah? Did they estimate his weight? Aw, did you see if he has any hair?”

  My mind’s a depressing blank. I know the tech said all those things and more, pointed them out, and labeled them on the sonogram photos, but I can’t even pretend I remember.

  Instead of fumbling for an answer, I pass Mel the sheet of duplicates the tech printed for me. She smiles her way through each one, studying the baby like it’s her own.

  “You’re amazing,” I whisper, lifting her hair off her neck, kissing her perfumed skin. “Through this whole thing, you haven’t once seemed jealous, or mad, or…anything.”

  “This is your son, Blake. It’s incredible.” She turns her head and kisses me back. “It’s not ideal, obviously—I still wish Cait didn’t have to be in your life—but a baby’s always a blessing.”

  “You sound like your mom.” I laugh as she elbows me away.

  Deep down, I can tell she’s not totally okay with everything. How could she be? This isn’t how things are supposed to happen. She should be the one having my baby, and not when we’re both barely twenty-two. But, as she frequently reminds me, it is what it is. All we can do now is wait, and try to figure things out along the way.

  We start dinner together, the way we do most nights: she makes the salad while I make the entrée, both of us bumping past each other and vying over utensils, joking the whole time.

  “Too much dressing?” she asks, like she always asks, and shoves a leaf of lettuce in my mouth.

  “Little more.” She grabs the bottle and shakes another teaspoon into the bowl.

  While we eat, I tell her about the name fiasco at the doctor. “I mean, Brogan and Bourne are definitely not the names I’d pick, but that’s her right, I guess.”

  “It’s your right, too.” Mel cocks her head, setting down her fork with a bite of ravioli still on it. “You get just as much say in what he’s named as Caitlin-Anne does.”

  “Hey, as long as it’s not Blake, Jr., I’m fine.”

  Her nod is slow, patient, but I don’t fall for it. I’ve got one hell of a question coming my way.

  “Can I ask, why don’t you like the junior idea?”

  I shrug and stuff my mouth with more food to stall. “It’s kind of egotistical, isn’t it? Naming a kid after yourself?”

  “I don’t think it’s egotistical unless you’re doing it to be egotistical,” she says simply. “To me, it’s like...passing something down. A legacy.”

  “Well, the kid will have plenty of Fairfield legacy passed down to him.” I don’t mean to sound as sarcastic as I do.

  “And what about yours?”

  “She says she wants to use my last name.” I grab my wine glass and drink half, barely tasting it. “We’ll see. I have a feeling Cait’s dad won’t let that slide.”

  She’s watching my wine glass, not me. “Still,” she says, “it’s not like Blake is a bad name. Or Andrew.”

  “Can we talk about something else, please?”

  “How would you feel,” she asks, ignoring me, “if it was Blake James Foster, or Blake Lucas Foster, or something? Your first and last name, but not a junior?”

  I consider this. “Okay, I guess.”

  “And what if it was James Andrew Foster, or even Blake Andrew Fairfield?”

  “No,” I say. “Don’t like it.”

  Mel smirks. It’s her “well, there you go” face, so I brace myself for the fact she’s apparently won a battle I didn’t even know I was fighting. “Sounds like you just don’t like Andrew as the middle.” Her voice softens; she glances up at me from underneath her bangs. “And I think I know why.”

  Mel

  “Oh, yeah?” he asks. “Why’s that?”

  “Because it’s your dad’s middle name, too.” I watch his face for any change, a giveaway of some kind. A subtle twitch at the corner of his eye confirms it.

  “Maybe.” He finishes his wine and pours another glass, close to the rim, then tops mine off without asking, even though I’ve hardly taken a sip. “Is that a bad thing?”

  I want to say yes, but know that’s a guaranteed way to make Blake shut down. As hard as it is sometimes to make him talk about the baby, it’s almost impossible to get him talking about Patrick. These six months together have been, all things considered, pretty perfect—which is kind of the problem. Shouldn’t he be grieving his dad? Or at least open to talking about him?

  “Not...bad,” I say, finally. My hesitation was enough to make him moody; he sets his fork down and clears his throat, jaw set. “I just think it’s worth exploring.”

  “Exploring.”

  “Yeah, you know, analyzing your feelings and—”

  “There’s nothing to analyze. My dad wasn’t a good dad. He doesn’t deserve to have any part of his name anywhere in my name.”

  I wait for him to catch his mistake. “You mean, your son’s name.”

  “Either.”

  Great, I think, there go the walls. Right on schedule.

  “Forget it.” I grab my wine and follow suit: half the glass, gone in a single sip.

  Nineteen

  Blake

  After going to bed with barely a goodnight, I roll over and look at her. She’s in panties and one of my shirts, nothing else, the way she usually sleeps. Her mouth is open, tiny snores floating out, the way I remember from our secret sleepovers as teenagers. Now and then, her brow furrows while she dreams.

  I should have been nicer at dinner. A little more open, maybe. She’s just trying to help.

  “Hey,” I whisper. She doesn’t stir.

  That is, until I slip my hand under the covers and find the warmth between her legs, rubbing her through her panties in a gentle circle.

  “Mm,” she mumbles, kicking me in her sleep. I change my tactic and unbutton the shirt halfway, until I can get my mouth on her skin.

  This wakes her, but not completely. “Later,” she protests, and rolls away from me in a flailing mess of limbs, dragging half the blanket with her. I grab a fistful of the comforter and yank it back towards me, rolling her onto her back. She sighs and mutters something.

  I smirk. She’s got no idea what she’s in for.

  Mel

  In my dream, Blake is stuck on a rock in the middle of a river, rapids churning on every side. I try everything to get to him: hopping rocks, knocking over trees as makeshift bridges, even swinging on vines. It’s not that none of them work, but that he refuses to let them.

  He greases the rocks. He kicks the trees into the water. When I sail overhead, the vine feeling so real, rough and green in my hands, he won’t even look up.

  “Just take it,” I scream. The rapids are deafening, but I can tell he hears me. Even if he pretends he can’t.

  The one thing I know, in that strange intuition of dreams, is that braving the water and swimming out will convince him. He would let me save him, if I dare to put myself in the same place, the same danger—but ironically, it’s also the one plan that wouldn’t work. I’d be swept right over the falls, pulled under.

  Suddenly, the dream shifts. Instead of a riverbank, I’m standing in the forest with the river roaring in the distance. Blake kisses me, running his hand between my legs. We’re safe. We’re together.

  I undress right there, in the dappled light with flowers and life all around.

  The feelings grow stronger and the dream begins to
break, fragments floating out of place, like a tape skipping.

  When I open my eyes, Blake has his head in my shirt and his hand down my panties, working me into a frenzy. I reach up and scratch his scalp the way he likes.

  “I was having a nightmare,” I whisper, swallowing the dryness of sleep from my throat. “You were stuck in the middle of this—this river, and I kept trying to save you, only...you wouldn’t let me.”

  “Just a dream, Mellie,” he says, amused, like I’m afraid of the monsters under the bed.

  When his fingers slip inside me, I can feel how wet I already am. I wanted him so intensely, even in my sleep.

  “Let me feel you come on my hand,” he says. I realize, as my senses awaken, that I smell liquor on his breath. Something oaky and sweet, a hint of apples.

  “Are you drunk?”

  His back tenses. If I could see his face, I’m sure it would be angry. “So what if I am?”

  “I just.... I didn’t see you drinking after the wine.”

  His fingers halt inside me, the pleasure flatlining. “I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I got up, had a few drinks, and now I’m just trying to have some fun and make you feel good. All right?”

  Before I can answer, he slips a third finger inside and pumps them against my G-spot wildly, like a machine. I come so hard and so suddenly, I don’t even notice my head hitting the slats of the headboard.

  Blake

  “Maybe when you’re sober. This just...doesn’t seem like it’s getting us anywhere.”

  I watch Mel attempt, yet again, to work my erection back up. I won’t admit it, but the brandy’s getting to me.

  “You don’t like a challenge?”

  “This isn’t a challenge,” she counters. “This is impossible.” She laughs, but my pride won’t let me. I ease out from under her and head for the living room.