I gave Kallie a hard look over my shoulder as she let out a dry laugh. I lifted a questioning eyebrow at her as she stepped around me and reached for the door. “My first appointment with her, when I showed up with my mom, she told me that plenty of young women my age had babies without a partner in the picture. She told me that being a single mother was challenging but completely rewarding. I think she has a pep talk in reserve no matter what the situation might be.”
I followed her down the hallway silently and paused when she stopped at the checkout desk to schedule her next appointment and to collect the grainy black-and-white image of our baby. When she handed me my own copy all I could do was stare at it numbly. That was my baby. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.
Outside, I was ready to tell Kallie good-bye so I could find the closest bar and shoot back some whiskey and hide from my problems like the mature, rational adult I was. Unfortunately, Kallie had other plans. She put a hand on my arm as I started toward the Eldorado and pulled me to a stop.
“Wheeler …” Her voice was strained and the look on her face was one that would have made my heart bleed before. “I hate that things are so tense between us, that other people can tell you don’t want to be around me.” She blinked and I realized there were big fat tears in her eyes. “You have always been my favorite person in the whole world and it hurts that you’ve completely shut me out of your life.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I was doing the best that I could but the words wouldn’t come. I was hardly trying and we both knew it.
“Listen, Kallie, you have a lot of people at your back to help you with all of this. Your mom and dad, Dixie, and even Roni, if you come clean about what she means to you.” I pointed at the center of my chest where that lone wolf lived. “I’m navigating this on my own. I’m trying to figure out my new place in your life and in our baby’s life with no help at all, so you need to let me work this out whatever way is easiest for me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. I’m right here, Wheeler. If anyone knows how hard this is, how complicated it is, that would be me.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me. “I get that this isn’t the ideal situation for either of us but I wasn’t alone when this baby was made.”
I shook her hand off and moved toward my car. “I loved you then, Kallie.” I saw the way my words cut into her. “I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about you now.”
She sniffed a little and stepped away from me. “I love you, I always will. It’s a different kind of love than we had before, but that doesn’t make it any less important.” A single tear slipped out of her eye before she could blink it away and it made me clench my fists at my sides. I’d spent so much of my life trying to be the guy that never hurt her and here I was making her cry. “I always knew I was going to have a family with you, Wheeler. I always dreamed about the babies we would have and how they would have your hair and those amazing dimples. This isn’t the way either of us wanted it to happen but I refuse to be sorry that it’s happening. Some things were meant to be. You and I might not be one of them, but you and I being a family sure seems to be. That family might not look the way you wanted it to, but it’s going to be our family regardless.”
I stared at her, letting her words sink in. She’d always been the spoiled one, the pampered one, in our relationship. I never expected her to be anything else but that. However, when circumstances changed, when she was suddenly responsible for another life, she had finally stopped being so self-indulgent and coddled. She was growing up and behaving far more maturely and reasonably than I was.
Sighing, I stepped up the curb and wrapped my arms around her in a hug that was awkward and stiff. I used to hug her and feel like I was home; now there was so much distance between us that it felt like I had my arms around a stranger. She tucked her head under my chin and wound her arms around my waist. It should feel familiar but it didn’t. It felt foreign and strange.
“Give me some time, Kallie. I swear I’ll get it together and be the guy you need me to be.”
She gave me another squeeze and stepped back. Her cheeks were wet and her face was flushed but she was no longer looking at me like I had let her down. “You’ve always been the guy I needed you to be, Wheeler. I know you will be the man this baby is lucky to call daddy.” She rubbed her face with the back of her hand. “You were always so patient with me. You never called me on any of my bullshit and you forgave me when I hurt you time and time again. You might not be driving this time but I promise I’m not going anywhere without you.” A weak smile tugged at her mouth. “You can be the navigator. You’re good at making sure no one gets lost.” She nodded at the Eldorado. “The Caddy is gonna look really cute with a car seat in the back.”
I choked a little and looked at my car and back at the former love of my life and current mother of my child. “Shit. I just got used to the idea of having a nursery in my house. I didn’t think about my car.” I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck and sighed. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be the minivan type.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes at me. “Who’s asking you to drive a minivan? As long as you can belt a safety seat in the back you’re fine, and if that doesn’t work you own a garage. You can borrow a family-friendly car on the days you have the baby and keep the Caddy for the days you don’t.”
I felt both of my eyebrows shoot up as I considered her thoughtfully. “You’ve been giving this a lot of thought.” I was surprised she was the one making all the sense. The screaming she-devil that had made the last year of my life a living hell was nowhere to be found. In her place was the girl I fell in love with all those years ago, but this version was even better than that one. It made my heart hurt for everything that could have been if Kallie and I were different people.
“Well, Roni won’t talk to me until I get things squared away with Mom and Dad, Dixie is stupid in love and has her hands full settling into her new life in Mississippi, and up until today my best friend was ignoring me and pretending like I didn’t exist.” The last was a jab at me and I felt it slide right under my skin just like she intended it to. “All I’ve done is go over and over the best way to make all of this work and I know that asking you to change or expecting you to be anything other than the guy who I made this baby with is not the answer. You spent our entire relationship trying to be the guy you thought I wanted you to be, but the reality is you couldn’t be who I wanted no matter how hard you tried. That scared the crap out of me, and instead of dealing with it, I put you through the wringer and made you jump through endless hoops. I was terrible to you, Wheeler, and I’ll never be able to make up for all that wasted time.”