She sighed. As peculiar as it was, her voice didn’t sound angry. It had notes that more closely resembled curiosity. “Fine.” She stepped aside and made room for me to squeeze inside her apartment, taking the flowers from my hand.
Though the sight of the baby bump caught me by surprise, I had to admit that it wasn’t a disappointment. That was our child, whatever that meant right now. I hoped Casey understood that this was all as new for me as it was for her. I just hoped that Brett’s advice would serve me well.
Casey looked absolutely stunning. Even with a quarter of the makeup she had worn on most of our dates and wrinkled clothing she had obviously slept in, she was beautiful. Her delicate skin crinkled around her eyes in a way that said she hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, but her eyes were still as brown and bold as ever. “You look gorgeous, as usual,” I said, hoping to break the ice.
“Thanks,” Casey whispered. A faint blush appeared on her face. She walked across the apartment and sat on the couch, motioning for me to follow.
“Casey, there’s something I want you to know,” I said.
Her eyes met mine. “What’s that?”
“I want to raise this child together.” I had never heard my voice sound more confident, but I knew in my heart this was the move I was meant to make.
“You…what?”
“I know that our relationship started off a bit, well, unconventional,” I said. “But I really care about you, and I’ve started to care about this baby. I thought things were going really well, but you haven’t returned my calls in weeks. I guess I’d just like to know why.”
Casey opened her mouth to speak, but tears came falling down instead. What had I said to upset her? I thought I had been as polite as I could while still being matter-of-fact. Seeing Casey cry broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. I pulled her in and laid her head on my shoulder. She let out slow, desperate sobs, and all I could think was that, if I was the source of this hurt, it would be best for me to leave Casey and her baby alone.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I said, trying to hold back my own tears. “I should go. I’m sorry that I’ve upset you.” I slowly stood up from the couch and turned my head to face Casey, trying to memorize every detail of her. God, I hoped this wasn’t the last time I’d ever see her.
“Wait,” Casey said, grabbing my hand. “It’s not you.”
In the gentlest voice I could muster, I asked, “Then what is it?”.
I listened in awe as Casey’s walls came down and she went through her childhood in meticulous detail. For the first time since I’d met her, I felt like I was seeing the whole picture. It turned out that Casey’s upbringing was much rougher than I could have imagined. Her father had never been in the picture, and she lived a relatively normal life until her mother died in a car accident when she was ten years old. As if that weren’t enough to turn a young girl’s world upside down, Casey had no other immediate family, so she was sent from foster home to foster home until she turned eighteen.
Casey walked over to the end table and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. As I traced my fingers over each first and last name, she explained that these were the names of the fourteen families she’d lived with over the course of eight years. Fourteen. That meant she’d spent an average of only seven months with each family. What kind of life was that for a teenager? I was completely shocked, and also heartbroken that Casey had endured such a tough time.
“Once I was eighteen, I was on my own,” Casey explained. “Some of my friends in foster care got lucky and ended up being adopted by their foster parents. Others at least had consistent foster parents who they lived with for years. I wasn’t so lucky.”
I didn’t know the proper response, so I simply said what I was thinking. “That’s awful, Case. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Most people don’t,” Casey said. “I don’t really like to talk about it. It brings back a lot of hurt, plus a lot of people see it as an excuse or sob story.”
“Sob story? For what?”
Casey nodded as though she’d answered this question a dozen times before. “All different things. Foster kids have a reputation.” She paused, choking on the words that followed. “My childhood was ruined the second I was called to the principal’s office to be told my mother was in the hospital. I don’t think any good foster parent could have changed that.”
“Were there any?” I asked. “I mean, good foster parents.”
“Some were better than others,” Casey said. “The Foresters threw me a birthday party when I turned twelve, and the father of the Baez family gave me a few driving lessons. In the long run, though, no one wanted a teenager for the long-term. I was an old mutt in a pet store full of puppies.”
I wished so badly that I could take Casey’s pain away. So much made sense now—why Casey wanted a family, why she was hesitant to get involved in a relationship, why she hadn’t been able to finish school. For a split second, I was upset that she hadn’t told me sooner, but I realized how much courage it must have taken for her to open up at all.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said. I knew how lame it sounded, but it was the truth. “I wish there were something I could do to make it better.”
Casey looked down at her stomach and smiled. “You already are. You’re giving me the greatest gift I could ask for… a family.”
I frowned and looked down at the floor, knowing that the family she meant was likely just her and the baby, not the three of us. “I’m glad.”
“I’m sorry,” Casey said. “I guess this is why I, uh, haven’t been returning your calls. It’s just hard for me to let people in.”
“It’s alright,” I said.
Casey shook her head. “No, it’s not. And I’m sorry. I really had a great time camping with you and I sort of just freaked out.”
“Case, if this is what you want, you and me, we can work through this together,” I started, not exactly sure where I was going to end up. “I’m not only here for the good times. I’m here for the good and the bad.”
“Did you… did you mean what you said earlier?” Casey asked.
“About what?”
“You know… about us raising the baby together.”
“Of course,” I said, meeting her gaze. “Look, I know things started off on a weird note for us. Ok, beyond a weird note. But why should that have any bearing on our future?”
Casey hesitated before responding. “I suppose.” She cracked a smile. “I can’t believe such a hottie wants to raise a kid with me. Damn.”
The mood had changed, and it was absolutely exhilarating to know Casey felt the same way about me that I felt about her. The dark cloud above our relationship had been lifted, and we shifted gears in the conversation to fill each other in on the past few weeks of our lives. Casey told me stories of the craziest patients that had come into the clinic, while I showed her an ‘80s rock band parody I found online that I’d been dying for her to see.
Casey’s infectious giggle gave me the courage to push a step further. “I do have one more question.”
“Don’t press your luck, Mr. Preston,” Casey said with a laugh. “What is it?”
“With the holidays coming up, I was wondering if you wanted to come to Tampa with me to have Christmas with my family,” I said. Casey was quite the mystery, so I didn’t know what to expect in her response.
“A real Christmas?” Casey asked, seemingly confused and excited. “I’d love to!”
I’d come to Casey’s apartment not knowing if this was going to be the end of our relationship or the start of something more serious. It meant everything to know that it was the latter. We didn’t talk too much about the baby—after all, we’d still only been dating for a few months—but it was nice to know that it was no longer a topic to avoid. If someone had told me a few months earlier that this was the situation I’d be in, I would’ve told them to stop joking… or given them a drug test. Now, Casey was all I could think about. The idea of bringing her
to meet my family brought a smile to my face.
Casey curled up against me on the couch, and, for a moment, the rest of the world didn’t seem to matter. “Casey,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to donate sperm anymore,” I said with a laugh. “I think I’ve already done pretty well.”
Chapter 17
Casey
The naked trees reflected in the rearview mirror as I peered out the window, laughing at one of Alexander’s ridiculous jokes. How had the first two hours of our journey to Tampa already passed? It felt as though we had just stopped at the gas station to fill the gas tank, and, here we were, with just under four hours to go. Besides Liana, I had never been able to tolerate long car rides with anyone—until Alexander.
From the moment he’d shown up at my door with breakfast and coffee three hours earlier, I knew this ride was going to be special.
“Well?” Alexander said, pulling my mind back into our conversation.
“Sorry… what was that?”
Instead of getting upset that I hadn’t been paying attention, Alexander laughed it off. Damn was he different from the assholes I’d dated in the past. “I asked if you were nervous about meeting my family.”
“A little,” I said. I gulped, knowing that I should be honest. “Ok, more than a little. I don’t know what you’ve told them about me—or if you’ve told them about me. What about the baby? What are we? Do we have a label?” I knew I was rambling but I couldn’t help it. These were the thoughts that had been bubbling under in my mind for the month since Alexander had asked me to go.
“I don’t want you to stress, babe,” Alexander said. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and placed it gently on my knee. “It’s bad for the baby.”
I turned my face away from him to hide my obvious blushing. I had butterflies in my stomach, both because he was comfortable enough with me to use a pet name, and because he was talking like a true father. “I can’t help it.”
“As far as what we are, I’d say we’re in a pretty solid relationship at this point. Boyfriend and girlfriend, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I smiled.
“I told my parents I’m bringing someone special with me,” Alexander said. “I left it at that. When it comes to the baby, I’m fine with whatever you’re comfortable with. We can tell them you’re pregnant, or maybe you can wear something less form-fitting and cover it up if you want to take one step at a time.”
I let out a breath to symbolize the weight that had been lifted from my shoulders. I was incredibly grateful to have such an understanding guy by my side. “That sounds good,” I agreed. Alexander burst out laughing for reasons I couldn’t understand. “What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking… you probably want to leave out the part about our relationship starting as a sperm donation.”
I couldn’t help but laugh along. I had to admit, it was refreshing, given that Alexander could have just as easily been cowering in shame about the start of our relationship.
A sudden pain in my stomach had me keeling over in my seat. “Ow!” I shrieked. Before I knew what was happening, Alexander swerved onto the shoulder and put the car in park.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, concern in his eyes.
“I…umm…” It suddenly occurred to me what the pain was. “The baby just kicked!” The awkwardness of the silence that filled the car was palpable. Was Alexander already rethinking things? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Alexander’s stoic expression formed into a thin smile. “The baby’s kicking? That’s great! That is a good thing, right?”
“I’m not really sure, to be honest,” I said.
“I bet that means he’s going to be strong,” Alexander said.
I rolled my eyes. “Or she.”
“Yeah, that too.” Alexander put his turn signal on and headed back onto the road. This was really happening. He was serious about me and this baby. Years of neglect and emotional abuse had led me to expect the worst, and I wished more than anything that I could fully let myself and my worries go. Alexander wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t know how I knew that. I just did.
“Want to play a game?” I asked.
Alexander shrugged. “What sort of game are we talking about?”
“When I was with Liana last month, she told me there was this quiz that all couples just have to take,” I explained. “Apparently, it’ll help us learn more about each other. I know it sounds corny, but we have a few more hours to go, so I thought maybe—”
“Lay ‘em on me!”
I scrolled through my phone to find the email Liana had sent me with the link. I hadn’t ever planned on going through this stupid quiz, but I didn’t wanted to start an argument with a woman in labor. “Ah. Here it is!” I looked through the link and realized that it was more of a questionnaire than a quiz.
“So how does it work?” Alexander said.
“Well, I’ll read a question from the list, and we’ll both give our answers to it.” I felt like a senior in high school explaining the rules to a silly game to friends at a sleepover. Lucky for me, Alexander seemed to find the prospect of this game quite charming. He always had a way of reassuring me without saying a word. “Just let me know if there’s anything too personal that you don’t want to answer.”
Alexander chuckled. “More personal than having a baby together?”
“I’ll give you that,” I said with a smile.
The questions started off simple, asking about favorite foods, colors, and singers. The only interesting—and new—tidbit I really learned was that, besides loving Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, Alexander had a soft spot for Elton John. We both loved lasagna, and Alexander preferred oatmeal raisin cookies over white chocolate macadamia. I decided to let that one slide. I could try to convert him later.
“What are your worst habits?” I said, reading from the screen.
“Hmm…” Alexander said. “That’s a good one. Let me think. You wanna take this one first?”
I flipped my hair back over my shoulders. “Sure. Probably my worst habits are overthinking things and procrastinating. I’m pretty last-minute about things. Ok, very last-minute.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing one of my worst habits is being annoyingly punctual,” Alexander said with a laugh. “Also, I’m a big-time pen clicker. All through meetings, click, click, click.”
“Nooooo! You’re one of those people?!”
Alexander flashed his teeth at me. “I’m sorry to say I am.”
Another issue I would have to let slide, at least for the time being. I supposed that, if Alexander’s worst qualities were his cookie preferences and writing instrument habits, we were in good shape.
“What was your first love like?” I asked. Alexander swooped his hair back, something I had picked up to be a nervous habit of his. I could tell this was something he didn’t want to discuss, and the last thing I wanted was to make him uncomfortable, especially since we were trapped in this car together for another few hours. “Never mind. We can skip this one. What’s your—”
“Her name was Allison,” Alexander said, his gaze focused on the road in front of him. “We dated for two years while we were in college and had honestly planned on spending our lives together.”
I wasn’t sure if I felt sorry for him that this had seemingly impacted him so much, or jealous that he’d had such a deep love before me. “What happened?” I asked.
“I had this big plan for Valentine’s Day, which was also our second anniversary,” Alexander explained. “Since we were juniors in college, we didn’t have a whole lot of money and we lived in dorms. I’d spent days making little love notes to hang all over the walls of her dorm room. You know, things I loved about her, quotes from love songs… that kind of thing.”
“That’s really sweet, Alexander.” I rested my hand on Alexander’s shoulder as a gesture of understanding. His voice was growing increasingly quiet, but he almost seemed relie
ved to be opening up. I knew all too well what he must be feeling.
Alexander let out a loud sigh. “I thought so, too. Her roommate had given me a key to their room, so I just had to wait for the perfect moment. While we were hanging out the night before, she told me she had a meeting with one of her professors at noon, so I decided that was when I’d go.” He paused, and I nodded at him to continue. “Well, when I got to the room, Allison was there.”
“Uh oh,” I said.
“Under another guy,” Alexander said.
Gulp. That was a punch in the gut. I could feel Alexander’s sadness just listening to him talk about it. Of course, it had worked out well for me that he had broken up with Allison, but that was years ago. The thought of Alexander hurt made me sick to my stomach. Allison was definitely the one who’d lost out. Alexander was everything a girl could dream of. “I’m sorry.” I knew that sounded lame, so I searched desperately for words to make him feel better. “If it’s any consolation, she missed out on an incredible guy.”
“Thanks,” Alexander said, the frown slowly fading from his face. “I found out she’d been cheating on me for months with some guy from her lit class. Broke my heart. Bet you’d be shocked to know that big macho CEO over here couldn’t leave his bed for three days because he was so devastated.”
“Wow.” He was wrong about that, but now wasn’t the time to tell him. I was shocked the first time I saw the emotional, sentimental side of Alexander, but now it was just another facet of him that I loved.
“It was a long time ago, but it still hurts to think about it. It took me a long time to trust again,” Alexander said.
“I get it,” I said. “Just know that you can always trust me.”
Alexander squeezed my hand in his. “I know. Damn lucky, too, because I’ve fallen pretty hard for you.”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “Good to know.”
“Tallahassee,” Alexander said, reading a green sign on the side of the road. “Your neck of the woods.”
“Want to see where I grew up?” I asked, following a newfound confidence inside of me. Alexander jerked the wheel to the right and took the next exit.
Royal Engagement Page 114
