“But what if he isn’t—”
“He is,” Alec says, speaking the two words slowly.
“I can’t let you—”
“You can’t let me do what? Love a baby that’s part you? An innocent baby who will have your blood flowing through his veins. When I was eight years old, I met Mason, and from the moment he moved into my mom’s house, he loved me as if I were his own. And you know why? Because I was my mom’s son, and he loved her. He treated me like his flesh and blood, the same as my sister even though she really is his. The same way your dad treats Georgia, and your mom treats you.”
Tears course down my cheeks. I’m crying so hard I can’t speak. I’m hiccupping between sobs, and it’s hard to breathe. “I know, but you deserve better than this.”
“What I deserve is you,” he says. “What I want is you…the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want it all with you. Life isn’t always beautiful, Lex.” He reaches out and tucks a hair behind my ear.
“Sometimes it’s downright ugly. And it’s during those times we want to give up, hide so we don’t have to deal with it. Like when my dad died…I wanted nothing more than to wallow in my grief. But it’s because of those ugly times, we’re able to appreciate the beautiful. What might’ve happened to you, the possibility that that asshole might’ve raped you is really fucking ugly, but, baby, you have a healthy baby growing in you, and if that’s not fucking beautiful then I don’t know what is.”
Alec edges closer and wraps his arms around me. I close my eyes and inhale his fresh scent, immediately calming down, my body relaxing. I don’t know what I was thinking running from Alec. He’s the other half of me. My path. My past. My present. My future. My forever.
Alec takes my hand in his and slides my ring back on. “Don’t ever take this off again. This is where it belongs and where it needs to stay.”
He kisses the top of my forehead and I sigh into his chest, feeling like I can breathe for the first time since finding out the date of conception. But then I remember what the doctor told me…
“Dr. O’Neil, my OB/GYN, said that in California, even if I can prove Jason raped me, if he’s the father he can fight for rights to the baby.” I couldn’t believe what she said, so I looked it up when I left her office and she was right. In California, on several occasions, the men who were tried and found guilty, later went on to receive some sort of visitation.
“It’s not going to happen,” Alec says. He lifts my chin, so I’m looking at him. “That baby is ours and nobody will ever know anything different.”
Alec
Lexi is pregnant and she ran because she was scared I wouldn’t be able to love her and the baby she’s carrying if it turns out he’s not mine. I hate that she didn’t have enough faith in our love, in me, to know that I could never stop loving her, and I would die for that baby in her belly. But at the same time, I get it. She was scared. She still is. What she went through, is still going through, is traumatic as fuck. She still doesn’t know what happened that night she was attacked, and she more than likely will never know. And now she’s carrying a baby that was possibly conceived out of hate instead of love. But I meant what I said: nobody will ever know that. As far as everyone will ever know, that baby is ours, created out of love. And that asshole, Jason, will never know that Lexi is pregnant or that the baby might carry his DNA. I’ll make damn sure of it.
I pull into our complex and Lexi parks next to me. I tried to convince her to leave her vehicle there, but she wanted to get it over with and bring it home now, so I followed her home. We need to run inside and quickly change and then head to Georgia’s graduation. We’ll just barely make it there, but at least we’ll be there, and Georgia will have her sister there when she walks across the stage.
As I step out of my truck, I take a look around at the complex with new eyes. This place isn’t exactly family friendly. It’s adjacent to a busy road. The majority of the tenants are college students and young couples. There’s a park, but it’s about a half-mile down the street. When my parents bought me the place as a gift for graduating from the fire academy it was perfect, but now…
“What are you looking at?” Lexi steps closer to me and glances around, trying to see what I’m seeing.