Waiting On You (Blue Heron #3)(42)

He met her at a bar near her place. They had a drink. They had another. Two beers for him, two glasses of white wine for her. He paid and walked her home, the smell of chocolate from Blommer’s thick in the air. Talked about mutual friends, professors, the usual.

When they got to her place, a town house on North Astor Street, she asked him if he’d like to come up. He said yes. When she offered him another beer, he took it. When she told him to have a seat on her sleek gray couch, he did. Then she kissed him, and he kissed her back, slightly drunk and feeling oddly surreal.

He hadn’t kissed anyone other than Colleen in four years.

Colleen, on the other hand, had already moved on.

Ellen was nice. She smelled good. Her lips were soft.

“Do you want to stay?” Ellen whispered.

“I don’t have anything with me,” he said.

“It’s okay. I’m on the Pill.” She smiled and kissed his neck.

So he took her to bed for the simple reason that she was nice, and she was uncomplicated, and he was almost unbearably lonely.

The hard place in his chest remained.

In the morning, he thanked her for a nice time and said he’d call her. She smiled, said she had a nice time, too.

Nice. It was the only word applicable. Ellen was nice. They’d had a nice time. He’d been nice, too.

Jesus.

She didn’t seem to have any expectations, and she didn’t seem needy or desperate. It certainly hadn’t felt like his heart might stop because he loved her so much. It had just been sex, and despite the reputation of the twentysomething American heterosexual male, Lucas was finding that just sex and making love were miles apart.

Because he didn’t want to be a dick, he called Ellen that weekend. They went to a movie and he held her hand, and when it was over, he apologized. He had to be at his construction job at 6:00 a.m., which was the truth. Maybe they could do this again, since it was all so nice. He kissed her quickly. She emailed him a few days later, saying she was going away for a while with her mom. Have a great time, he responded.

Three weeks later after they’d gotten that beer, she called him and said she needed to see him. It would be best if she could come over.

Before she even got there, he guessed. She waited until he’d gotten her a glass of water and sat across from her at his tiny kitchen table before saying the words.

“It appears that I’m pregnant. And I’m so sorry.”

“No,” he said. “It’s...it’s not...it’s fine.” There were probably better responses he could’ve made, but his mind was a roaring white space at the moment.

Ellen cried a little—hormones, she said, and apologized repeatedly. She’d been on antibiotics a few weeks before, and apparently, that weakened the birth control. He told her it wasn’t her fault, just biology. She admitted to being in love with him since freshman year but knowing that he had a girlfriend back home. She wasn’t asking him for anything, but he had a right to know that she’d be having a baby, and even though the circumstances were far from ideal, part of her felt blessed.

He looked at his hands for a long minute.

“Let’s get married,” he said finally, meeting her eyes.

She made some token protestation, but her eyes lit up at the prospect.

Besides, what else was he going to do? Be a baby daddy? Hopefully get some visitation rights? His father had gotten his mother pregnant with Steph, and they’d worked out okay. They’d been happy.

He’d been raised to be honorable, despite how things might’ve looked from the outside. He’d gotten a girl pregnant, and he’d stand by her.

Just how things had become so badly butchered between him and Colleen...he couldn’t think about that anymore. He was going to be a father.

CHAPTER TEN

“MOM, LET’S GO already!” Colleen bellowed up the stairs of her childhood home. “We’re gonna be late.”

“This is Satan’s plan,” Connor said mildly.

“Oh, yeah? Got any better ideas, brother mine?”

“You could set yourself on fire. That’d probably be more productive.”

Colleen narrowed her eyes at him. “Look. She’s finally interested in meeting someone else. Take a gander, Con. This place is a shrine to Dad.” She looked back up the stairs. “Mom! This place is a shrine to Dad, for the love of God! You should redecorate!”

“You’re right, Colleen. Maybe I’ll just burn the whole house down.”

“Is she serious?” Connor muttered. “It’s always hard to tell.”

“I don’t know. You’re her favorite.”

“Don’t burn the house down, Ma,” Connor said as Mom emerged (finally) from the bathroom. “And you look very nice.”

“Are you ready to go, Colleen?”

“I’ve been ready for forty minutes,” she said. Any outing with Mom tended to be like this. Suicide-provoking, in other words.

“Have fun, you two. You’ll be the prettiest ones there,” Connor said, securing his position as favorite.

“Thanks, Mr. Cutie Potatoes.” Mom beamed.

“You know what would be so great, Cutie Potatoes?” Colleen said. “If you came with us.”

“That will never happen.”

“Why? You’re single!” Mom said. “I want grandchildren. Now.”