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“Is that what you really think?”
Was it? Kelli didn’t know how to respond to that because until those words flew from her lips, so certain, so…
Oh God.
Bitter.
She’d sounded bitter.
A few thousand concrete bricks came crashing down on her head as she struggled to catch her breath, to think of some joke, some way to shove off the crushing weight on her chest before she suffocated.
It took a minute before she found her voice again. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you and I to…” Her words faded to nothingness…because she didn’t know what else to say.
She wasn’t sure what Colm saw in her face, but given how well he knew her, she figured he could tell she was silently freaking out.
And because he was a good man, he dropped that argument. Sort of.
“So use me as the sperm donor. Pretend I’m the orthodontist in Iowa.”
“You want to gift me with sperm?” she asked incredulously.
“Why not?”
“You know why not. Colm, I didn’t ask you originally for the same reason I didn’t ask Paddy. Neither one of you would ever walk away from a kid you helped create. Besides, we don’t live six states apart. We see each other. All. The. Time. You’re going to see my baby a lot because I want your family to be a part of his or her life.”
“You keep talking about this relationship like it’s already over. Like we’re going to erase the last month, rewind the clock, and go back to bickering and giving each other a hard time.”
“If we were smart, that’s exactly what we’d do.”
She didn’t miss the disappointment in his tone when he said, “You know better than that, Kell.”
He was right. She did.
“We’re not those people anymore. We couldn’t be those two again if we tried.”
“Colm—” she started.
“This is the new normal, Kelli. This. Right here. Right now.”
She shook her head, searching desperately for some way to counter his claim, to prove him wrong, but she couldn’t come up with a single thing. Which scared her even more.
Why was her gut telling her this wouldn’t work? Was she really that jaded? That convinced forever didn’t exist?
“Why are you shaking your head?” he asked. “What part of this is so hard for you to accept?”
Kelli wasn’t sure if she was shaking her head at him or at herself, suddenly not liking all the hard facts hidden in shadow he was thrusting out into broad daylight. “Dammit, Colm. It’s only been a month. That’s way too soon to—”
“To what?” Colm interjected, rising from the couch. He was frustrated, and that emotion, suddenly wafting off him in waves, fueled her own aggravation. She stood too, refusing to give him the power position. They were standing toe-to-toe, facing each other down.
This stance, between them, was as familiar to her as breathing.
Colm waved his hands in the air. “Why do we need months or years to know what this is? Jesus, Kell! You know me. You know every fucking thing there is to know about me.”
“You’re not being practical,” she countered.
“No. You’re not thinking.”
She narrowed her eyes, but before she could call him to task, he continued.
