Page 145 of The New Place

He leaves the shower running for Abbot and pulls on pants he hasn’t worn since Friday, tugging them over wet skin. He fishes a shirt from the drawer and goes downstairs, ready to see Pat either wearing a cast or in the middle of some prank Ned’s going to walk right into.

But Pat’s sitting on the couch with Baxter, his jacket still on, curled in on himself.

Ned slows, sure he’s never seen Pat so pale. Whatever this is, it isn’t a joke and isn’t a prank, and Ned wishes he’d checked his phone before Pat had to show up here to find him.

“Hey,” Ned says, sitting in the chair across from him. “Is everyone okay? Your mom and dad?”

“Oh.” Pat straightens. “Yeah, sorry to freak you out. Everyone’s good.”

“So what happened?”

“I—Claire—she just—” Pat spreads his hands and his mouth works silently for a moment. “She just drove up this morning. She left already, headed back home. She came to tell me that she’s, we’re—she’s pregnant, Ned.”

“Oh.” Ned blinks. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Congratulations.” It comes out more as a question. “Or not? Where are we with this?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Pat half shouts.

“You don’t know in terms of how you feel? Or whether she’s keeping it?” His mind spins. If his thoughts are going this fast, he can only imagine the state of Pat’s. “Or if it’s yours?”

“It’s mine,” Pat says, his volume collapsing in on itself as he buries his face in his hands. “I mean, she said I was welcome to get a paternity test, it’s not like we were together that long or anything, but she also said she’s entirely sure. And yeah, she’s having it. In October.”

“October,” Ned echoes. “This is soon that she knows, isn’t it?”

“She got super sick,” Pat says. “Like right away, I guess.”

“Is she alright?”

“Yeah, she went to the doctor for what she figured was the flu, and they gave her a pregnancy test, and yeah. She’s good. Feels like crap, I guess, but fine.”

Claire’s pregnant. With Pat’s baby. Pat’s having a baby. Ned waits for his brain to figure out what to say next, but all he manages is, “Did you send soup?”

Pat drags his hands down his face. “Yeah, but should I send more?”

Ned blows out a breath. “I don’t know.”

“You have to know,” Pat says, “Because I’m the one who doesn’t know, so you have to be the one who does know, okay? Ned, okay?”

“Okay,” Ned agrees. “Okay. This is—this is a lot.”

“It’s so fucking much,” Pat says, his voice rising again. “It’s an entire baby.”

“It is,” Ned agrees. A whole-ass baby. Who is half Pat’s. He’s smiling, he realizes. “Congrats, man. You’re going to be a dad.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Pat says.

“Not on Abbot’s nice rug, please. This is awesome. You’re going to have a kid.”

“With—” Pat waves his hands. “With Claire? I don’t even know her.”

“Sure you do. You’ve been super into her.”

“Yeah, but there’s hooking-up into her and there’s having-a-baby into her, and Ned, what am I going to do?”

“You’re going to support the hell out of her while she’s pregnant and then afterward,” Ned says. “It’s a baby. It’s not rocket science.”