What Lovers Do(76)

He grins, releasing every single leash, sending them running.

“Eek!” I squeal and stiffen as they rush past me. “Why do you do that every time?”

“Because I like the look on your face.”

“Horror?”

He chuckles, sliding his hands in his back pockets instead of around my waist where I want them. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. How was your week?”

“Boring. Any morning sickness?”

“Shep…” I shake my head “…we don’t have to do this. I’m not showing. I’m not sick. You wouldn’t know I’m pregnant had I not told you. So let’s just be friends and not think about it.”

“How do you not think about a human growing inside of you?”

“Because this baby is supposed to spend nine months inside of me, and life around me doesn’t stop. Right now, you and those three billion dogs you brought with you are far more interesting than the little sweet pea that I can’t see or feel.”

It’s hard to read the expression on his face. It’s new. I thought I’d seen all of his expressions, but in the past week, he’s shown me a few new ones, and it makes me think that I don’t know my good friend Marcus Shepard as well as I thought I did.

The creepy part is the way his eyes keep going to my belly. I don’t have a bump. Nothing yet. There’s nothing to see.

“I’m free next weekend if you want to get in eighteen holes,” I say, trying anything.

“Millie’s pregnant.”

Whoa. Okay, where did that come from?

Eyeing him for a few seconds, I return a slow nod of acknowledgment.

“Hooked up with some guy she met on a dating app.” He stares past my shoulder at the dogs, unblinking with a blank expression. “He’s happy. Thought his dick was broken or he had weak swimmers that ended his marriage. Something like that.”

I’m not touching this. No way. He needs to be the one to keep this conversation going.

“She’s … happy.”

His story on the way home from California? It makes sense now.

“That must sting, Shep. I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah. It’s life. Sucks that it’s mine. Well, I guess it’s really not, is it?” His attention returns to me. “I loved her. She’s pregnant. And it’s not my baby. Not my life. I’ll get to show up at her house, my old house, every week to pick up or return the dogs while she’s growing some other dude’s baby. Like a weekly gut punch as her belly expands over the next nine months.”

“That does suck.”

He nods again. “I can’t do this, Sophie.” His eyes look different, misted over with emotion I’m certain he’ll never release.

My stomach twists as a heavy ache settles over my chest.

“It’s selfish of me. I know this. I wish I had militant control over my thoughts and emotions, but I don’t. I bleed just like everyone else. I fall victim to irrational thoughts and random musings of my life before now.”

I return an incremental nod, but I don’t know why because I don’t understand where he’s going.

“In a matter of days, I found out that Millie is pregnant and so are you. And I can’t do it. I can’t watch you go through this pregnancy with someone else’s baby. And before you state the obvious, I know it’s not your baby either. But my stupid, unreasonable brain will self-destruct seeing you pregnant, wishing it were mine because I want that life. I just can’t seem to find the right person at the right time in my life to have that.”

It takes everything I have to keep from begging him to just wait. Wait for me to churn out this baby. Then I’ll give him one too. An original baby machine.

One for you.

One for you.

One for you.

Everybody gets a baby!

He’s waited long enough. It’s his turn. He deserves to find the right person who is in sync with him now, not later, not after a divorce when it’s too late, not after having someone else’s child.

My mom’s favorite line to Chloe and me when we were young was “there will be another.”

Another toy because the one I want is sold out.

Another friend because the one I had no longer wants to be my friend.

Another chance next year to try out for drill team.

Another dress since my best friend just bought the prom dress I wanted.

There will always be another.

Except, there won’t. There will never be another Shep.

“So this is it? Like a forever goodbye? No more outings. I stop shopping at Wag Your Tail. We just end it forever?”

“I can’t tell you where to shop. And I won’t say forever.”

“True. But if you could, would you tell me to shop at some other store?”

“Sophie …” He bows his head and closes his eyes.

I shake my head and take a few steps back. “That’s a yes.”

“Sophie …”

“No. I got my answer.”

“It wasn’t an answer.”

“Cersei!” I call her, keeping my focus on Shep. “I didn’t pursue you. I didn’t call you first. I didn’t invite you to Sedona. I didn’t ask to be your friend. And I definitely didn’t ask to be best friends. I told you I could give you one day at a time. I never promised to share everything with you. I did not mislead you. Just friends. You could have said no, but you didn’t.”