One Moment Please (Wait With Me #3)(27)
My life as its current state…
No job…check.
No place to live…check.
No love life to speak of…big, fat, bolded check.
And as if that list wasn’t sparkling enough, now I’m pregnant with a stranger’s baby…check, check, check.
I lean my head against the wall and let out a deep sigh.
How did I go from living my best life as a student, hanging with friends, wild and free, to being pregnant, jobless, and moving in with my parents? Where the hell did I go wrong?
Hot tears trail down my face. Tears have become my new best friend these past few days as I’ve processed this unexpected news.
This isn’t how my life was supposed to go. I have plans, goals, a career to start. I should’ve been in love and married to someone before I became a mother. And I certainly never intended to have a baby with a guy who can barely tolerate me.
How in the hell am I going to tell my parents all of this?
They already ask me why I can’t be more like my sister who got married right out of college and gave them two beautiful grandbabies. Whereas I graduated college and worked tirelessly in social work while pondering what I wanted to do with my life.
So, what does any self-respecting millennial do when they don’t know what their future holds? They go back to school. Because surely a master’s degree at twenty-seven years old will be the answer to all my problems.
Foolish.
I sniffle and pull my shirt up to wipe my nose. My front door opens, revealing Dean.
His smiling face falls when his eyes land on me. “Why are you crying?”
I shrug and then more tears fall.
He strides to me, squatting beside me. “Seriously, Lynsey. Why are you crying?”
I shake my head, my emotions so thick I can’t even communicate with words right now.
“Is it because you’re moving?” he asks, adjusting his dark-framed glasses and pinning me with a grave look.
More crying.
“Because you have to move in with your parents? I told you that you could crash at my place. This is stupid, Lyns.”
I shake my head, covering my face with my hands. It’s true, Dean did offer his place to me, but I worried that he would struggle with boundaries, and after him professing his love for Kate last summer and our history of dating, it would blur a lot of lines.
And moving in with my parents was supposed to be temporary. Now that I’m pregnant, I have no clue what any of it means.
“Lynsey, what’s going on? You’re freaking me out.” He lifts my chin, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Are you sick or something?”
I huff and shake my head. “I’m not sick.”
“Then what is it?” He brushes away my tears with the backs of his fingers and squeezes my arm sympathetically.
I sniff and turn my face away to wipe my nose on my shoulder before blurting, “Dean…I’m pregnant.”
His hand stiffens on me as he croaks, “You’re what?”
I look at him, his brown eyes wide and a little scary. “I’m pregnant.”
He jerks away like I burned him. “With whose baby?”
I look down and swallow the painful knot in my throat. “Remember that guy who was with your client, Max, that night we went to Bitter Bar?”
“You’re pregnant with that asshole doctor’s baby?” he snaps, his deep voice rising in panic. “The one who was mean to you in the cafeteria? I thought you hated that guy!”
I scrub my hands over my face. “I did. I do. I don’t know. I’d had a lot to drink that night, and we shared an Uber, and…we had sex, okay? You’ve done far worse!”
Dean stands and runs a hand through his hair. “That was like three months ago, Lynsey. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
“I only found out a couple of days ago.” I crane my neck to look up at him. “I had no idea I was pregnant all these weeks.”
“Shit,” Dean says, blinking away his shock as he leans against the wall and slides down beside me. He stares at the empty space before us for a moment before adding, “You’re actually pregnant.”
I let loose a deep breath. “I’m actually pregnant.”
After a short pause, he asks, “Are you…keeping it?”
“Yes, I’m keeping it.” The thought of giving up my baby never even entered my mind.
He nods thoughtfully. “So then, what’s your plan?”
I force a wobbly smile. “Well, for now, I’m moving back in with my parents, but once I get the nerve to tell them the news, they’ll probably kick me out.”
Dean’s jaw tightens. “Would they really do that?”
I roll my eyes. “Hopefully not. They could ship me off to some weird single pregnant mother’s Catholic camp.”
Dean blanches. “Those don’t still really exist, do they?”
I shrug helplessly.
“So, the doctor doesn’t want anything to do with the baby?” Dean’s body tenses as he awaits my reply. “Does he know?”
“Oh, he knows.” I laugh pathetically. “He said he was going to call me, but it’s been two days, and I still haven’t heard from him.”
Silence spreads between us, and I lift my gaze to his.