Brutal Game (Flynn and Laurel #2)(15)

She nodded.

“C’mere.”

He took her wrist as she drew close and pulled her down onto his lap. Strong arms encircled her waist and hugged her tight, and he pressed his mouth to her throat. His exhalation was long and warm and heavy.

“What do you think?” she whispered, wishing she knew her own answer to the question.

“I don’t know.”

“I have no idea what to do—” She’d nearly said, what to do about it, but that sounded so cold, like it was a pest and she had to choose between squashing it or trapping it with a glass and an envelope and shunting it out the window.

“Two choices,” Flynn said, lips tickling her neck.

“Two really awful choices. Oh. Three, I guess.”

He pulled back to meet her eyes. “Three? You mean adoption?”

She nodded.

His smile was small, a mix of sad and mischievous. “Honey, if you decide to have this baby, I’m raisin’ it, whether you want to join me or not.”

She could only stare at him.

“That’s not to say that it isn’t completely your decision to make. And whatever you decide, I’ll support you. But I know what it was like, having my dad walk out of my life, and no child born into this world with me as its father is gonna find out what that feels like.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She doubted she could form words, anyhow, emotion lodged like a fist in her throat. Flynn’s expression was soft but those eyes shone with something she knew well both from fight nights and from sex. Something hard and male and unbreakable.

“If you’re not ready to be a mom,” he said, “I get that. You have plans. Ones you put on hold long enough.”

“Yeah. I do.” She didn’t want to have a child now, not before she put her degree to use, landed a job with a salary capable of even making parenthood feasible. Boston was no place to raise a kid on tips. She needed a career, and a chance to live with this man for a while, as a couple— “Honey, you okay?”

She blinked, slipping free from the swirl of panic. He must have seen it on her face. “I’m okay. Just overwhelmed.”

“We can talk about it for ages, still,” he said. “For weeks, probably, right? Until you have to make a decision?”

She wasn’t sure how long you could wait before getting an abortion, but she guessed she was only five weeks along, so there was time, probably. Although time sounded suffocating, same as the choices. “I’ve got a while, I guess… You’d really raise a kid on your own, if I decided I wasn’t ready?”

“If the choice was that or adoption, yeah. I would.”

“That’d be so hard.”

“It would. But Heather managed it.”

“I can’t imagine what…” She trailed off, lost all over again. What on earth would the kid think of her if she walked away, left it all in Flynn’s hands? To imagine saddling a child with the pain and resentment she felt toward her own mother opened up a pit in her stomach, raw and aching. She put her hand to the spot then quickly moved it away, remembering what was going on in there.

Would leaving it in his hands really be so bad, if the alternative was subjecting it to an unfit mother? A depressive, thoroughly not-ready mother? She couldn’t even seem to get her professional life in order. How the f*ck was she qualified to raise a child?

“You’d be okay if I decided I wasn’t ready, period?” she asked.

“Completely.”

But could he be? If he knew already he’d be willing to take the responsibility on by himself, did that leave room for ambivalence? Did it leave room in his heart to keep loving a woman who might choose to end the pregnancy? Was it even okay, she wondered, to be so completely clueless about what she wanted to do? Both choices made her sick to her stomach.

“I wish I felt as certain as you seem to,” she whispered.

He laughed faintly. “Honey, I’m as lost as you.”

“You promise?”

She felt him nodding, his chin brushing her temple. “I’ve felt more lost, though,” he said. “Like after Robbie died, and after my dad walked out. I might be sure of what I’d do if you decided to have it, but my certainty ends there. Trust me.”

“Okay.” She wanted to believe that was true, but maybe he was only saying it so she wouldn’t feel pressured.

“There’s no way we’re gonna feel any more sure about what to do before bedtime,” he said.

“No, definitely not.”

“What should we do, then? Movie?”

“Maybe.” She wouldn’t take in a second of it and she doubted Flynn would either, but it sounded like a comforting farce. She left his lap to cross the room and open her bag, pulled out her computer. He didn’t own a TV, so they watched things in bed, the laptop propped on a milk crate between their feet. Half the time they just wound up messing around, but for some reason they never sat on the couch.

“I brought cheesecake back from work,” she said. “You want any?”

“Nah. Maybe for breakfast.”

Probably wise. Her stomach was a merry-go-round.

One with a single tiny rider. Jesus Christ.

“What movie?” she asked, voice half-breaking.

“You pick. No superheroes.” He headed for the bathroom. He’d no doubt find and study the pee-wand still sitting on the sink.