Finding Perfect (Hopeless, #2.6)(16)

Holder shakes his head. “No. No, sir. No babies here. Not yet. I mean, not for a long time. Years.”

As much as I like seeing Holder nervous, Six and I have stuff to do. People to inform. Parents to piss off. I grab her hand and lead her to the front door. “Sorry I was a dick earlier!” I yell back to everyone. Then I look at Breckin. “I’ll never call you Powder Puff again. I’m a dad now, I have to set a good example.”

Breckin nods. “Thanks. I think.”

Six pushes me out the door. “Let’s tell your parents first,” she says. “We’ll tell mine in the morning. They’re already in bed.”





Chapter Seven


Six and I are seated on the loveseat together. She’s clutching my hand. Hannah and Chunk are on the couch. My parents are too worried to sit down, so they’re pacing the living room.

“You’re scaring us, Daniel,” my mother says.

“What is this about?” My father asks me. “You never call Wesley family meetings.” He looks at Six. “Oh my God. Are you pregnant? Did Daniel get you pregnant?”

We glance at each other and then Six says, “No. Well...not…technically.”

“You want to get pregnant?” he asks, still throwing out guesses.

“No,” Six says.

“You’re engaged?” my mother asks me.

“No,” I say.

“Sick?” she asks.

I wish they’d just shut up and let me form my thoughts. This is a tough thing to blurt out.

“You’re breaking up?” my father asks.

“You dropped out of college?” my mother asks.

“For Pete’s sake, they had a baby!” Chunk yells, annoyed. Then she immediately slaps her hand over her mouth and looks at me with eyes as wide as saucers. “Sorry, Daniel. I was getting really irritated with all the guessing.”

“It’s fine,” I assure her.

My parents look at me in dumbfounded silence. And confusion. “You…what?”

“Six and I…we um…” I struggle to find my words.

“We had sex in a dark closet about a year before we formally met,” Six says. “I got pregnant. Found out on a foreign exchange in Italy. I didn’t know who I had sex with, which meant I didn’t know who the father was, so I gave the baby up for adoption. But when I moved back and started dating Daniel, we figured it out. And now we know where our baby is and we’re going to meet him over Christmas break.”

That wasn’t as delicate as I was hoping it would come out, but it’s out there now.

And my parents are still silent.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “We used a condom.”

I expect them to be angry or sad, but instead, my father begins to laugh.

So does my mother.

“Good one,” my father says. “But we aren’t falling for it.”

“It’s not a prank,” I say.

I look to Hannah and Chunk for backup, but their jaws are practically dragging the floor. “Wait,” Hannah says. “You found him? You actually found him?”

Oh yeah. I forgot Hannah and Chunk didn’t know that part.

Six nods and pulls out her phone to show Hannah. “They emailed us today.”

Hannah grabs the phone from Six.

My mother looks at Chunk like she’s the only one who will be honest with her. “It’s true,” Chunk says. “Daniel told us a couple days ago. It really happened.”

“We have pictures,” I say, pulling out my phone.

My mother shakes her head and starts pacing again. “Daniel, if this is a joke, I will never forgive you.”

“It isn’t a joke, Mrs. Wesley,” Six says. “I would never joke about something like this.”

“Look, I know it’s a shock.”

My father holds his hand up to shut me up. “You had a baby and put him up for adoption and didn’t tell us?”

“He didn’t know until after it happened,” Six says in my defense. “I didn’t know who the father was.”

My father is standing next to my mother, still glaring down at me. “How could you not—”

My mother puts a hand on my father’s shoulder so he won’t finish that sentence. “We need a minute,” my mother says to us.

Six and I look at each other. We’ve been so excited, I don’t think we really thought about how this would go down with our parents. We go to my bedroom, but we wait with the door open so we can listen to what they have to say. But nothing is said. Just sighs. Lots of sighs.

My father is the first to speak. “Do we ground him?” he asks my mother.

“He’s nineteen.”

Another pause. Then, “We’re grandparents?” my mother says.

“We aren’t old enough to be grandparents.”

“Obviously, we are. And they said it was a boy?” she asks.

“Yeah. A boy. Our boy had a boy. Our son has a son. My son has his own son. I have a grandson.”

“So do I,” my mother mutters disbelievingly.

Six and I just wait patiently and listen as they work it out.

“I’m not ready to be a grandmother,” my mother says.