Our Finest Hour (The Time #1)(10)

He holds up a hand. “I don't want any details.”

I make a face. “I wasn't planning on giving you any.”

He pushes off the wall and sits by me again. “Who's the father? What did he have to say when you told him?”

“Um, well, the thing is, we didn't really exchange a lot of information, so I don't know how to get a hold of him to tell him.” This is what I've been dreading telling him the most.

His open palm catches his drooping head, and he holds it there, his elbow propped on his knee. “Aubrey, I failed you.”

I blink. I’ve spent a lot of time imagining what he would say, and I failed you did not make the list. “What are you talking about?”

“I should have talked to you more about sex. How to be safe.”

We were safe. At least, we thought we were. And as far as Isaac goes, he still thinks the condom did its job. You had one job, Condom. One job.

“Dad, I'm old enough to know. And we were safe. The safety failed.” I blush again. This conversation is not getting any easier.

He sits back against the couch, but I stay upright. I haven't relaxed in two weeks, not since I realized my period was late.

“How are you going to tell him? What's his last name?”

“I don't know.”

My dad sighs. “What's his number?”

“I don't know.”

He sighs louder. “Can you go back to the scene of the crime and find him there?” He winces as he says it.

I do too when I realize what he's asking. “It happened at his apartment, Dad, not between pallets behind a grocery store.”

He lifts his face to the ceiling and mouths Thank God.

“Geez, Dad.” I rub my forehead. “I have his address, but it won't do any good. He was moving three days after we, um, spent time together.” How am I supposed to describe it? I can't use the words Britt did. Single serving, hit and run, one hit wonder. And then I made the mistake of telling her about our one-hour arrangement, and it became our hour of power.

“And he wasn't lying, either.” I add when I see the skeptical look on my dad's face. “There were moving boxes everywhere. Packed.”

My dad drains the remainder of his beer.

“What now?” he asks.

“I need to find a doctor.”

“And school?”

“I'll figure that out. Just not yet.”

“What about the father? Does he have a name?”

I bite my lip, preparing to lie. I've already decided that Isaac's name doesn't matter. Knowing his first name isn't going to make him magically materialize. It was one hour. At this point he was a sperm donor. Just like my mother was a deliverer.

“Mike," I say, picturing the neon sign of the bar. Can't get more basic than Mike. “But I've already decided it doesn't matter. I can't locate him, and you won't be able to either.”

“The hell I won’t,” he growls, his chest puffing out. “I’ll hire a private investigator and—”

“He left the country three days after that night. A long trip, he said. And before you ask, I don’t know why he was leaving. I didn’t ask. Because I didn’t want to know.” The less we knew the better, or so I thought at the time.

One hour spent trying to forget, and for that I’ll spend the rest of my life remembering that one hour.

“I made my bed, and now I'll lie in it. This baby wasn't planned, but it's mine.” My hand goes to my stomach, rubbing the flatness. “I'll raise it myself. I know how to be a single parent. I've been watching you for years.”

Dad shakes his head. “If only your mother—”

“Don't give her that much power. Don't start thinking about the way things could’ve been if she'd stayed.” It's a fruitless endeavor. And it does more harm than good. I would know.

His eyes grow shiny. “Can I come to your first doctor's appointment?”

“I'd be mad if you didn’t."

He hugs me the same way he did whenever I got hurt when I was little. The way only a dad can.

“Do you want dinner?” he asks when he releases me.

I nod, wiping my eyes. “Of course. A lot of dinner. I'm hungry these days.”

He chuckles, but the sound is more incredulous than joyful. He goes to the kitchen. I follow.

“I have just one request for you." He looks over his shoulder as he stands in the open pantry and moves stuff around. “No more life-altering surprises for a long time, OK?”

“Agreed.”

The rest of our evening is pleasant, mostly, but there are some awkward moments. My thoughts move frequently to Isaac, to our hour together, the way I quietly dressed and tip-toed out. Leaving wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I liked his deep voice, his quiet competence, the way his hands felt on my skin, like they were supposed to be there. We had a tangled rhythm, an interwoven flow. The entire hour was an apex of cast-away pain and welcome pleasure. When our time was up I thought about telling him that something other than flowers when he came back was possible. In the end, my rational brain won. We had placed a time limit on ourselves, and so had circumstance. He was leaving soon. So I left first.

I had no way of knowing this would happen to me.