Page 38 of Rigid

“Is it short for something?”

“Short for Eddie Cassandra Wallace.”

I smiled. My first name was Cassandra, but I wasn’t going to tell him. At least not yet. “I like it. A lot.”

His eyes widened just a little. “Which part of it?”

“All of it.”

He smiled a dimple producing smile. Seeing it all but melted me.

I was on a roll, so I pushed on. “What’s your name?”

“Grayson Edward Wallace. Middle name’s my father’s. First is his father’s. It’s a family thing.”

“I like it. So, you named your daughter after your father?”

“Yep.”

I folded my arms under my boobs and hugged myself tight. “I’m scared, Smokey.”

“It’s not going to be that bad,” he said.

I shot him a look. “How can you say that?”

“Been a while,” he said. “But I remember most of it. It’s not bad until the very end. Well, the puking is the shits. If you get the morning sickness, that is. Not bad, other than that--”

“Raising a child alone? You know a little bit about that, don’t you? I’d think you’d be a little more sympathetic,” I said.

He leaned forward and scrunched his nose. “What the fuck are you talking about?

I spread my arms wide and glanced down at my non-existent stomach. “This.”

“Oh, you’re doing it alone, are you?”

His response came so quickly it confused me. I hesitated for a moment, and recalled exactly what I had said, and how he responded. I decided I hadn’t made myself clear, and that I needed to take a different approach. “I have no one. I’m not going back to New Mexico to live with my aunt and--”

He stood, folded his arms across his chest and shot me a glare. “Whoa. Hold on. I’m not walking out on my kid, if that’s what you’re thinking. Stone cold sober, we both made the decision to fuck. It was a risk we took, and this is the result. Now, we’re going to get through it, together. One way or another.”

With my eyes fixed on his, I stared back at him, and blinked. Slowly. “Are you saying--”

“I’m saying I went to the doctor, and the he said my fucking vasectomy is dicked up. I’m saying I’ve done the single parent thing, and it ain’t worth a shit. I’m saying watching a kid grow up wondering what it would be like to have the other parent in the picture isn’t a pretty sight. I’m saying we need to figure out a way to try and make something work. And, I guess, I’m saying I’m willing.”

I should have been flattered or grateful, but, oddly, I wasn’t. I was fully prepared for him to get mad and stomp out, leaving me to make all the decisions – and raise the child – alone. His acceptance of the situation we were in wasn’t at all what I was expecting, and as much as I should have, I didn’t like it.

“We don’t really know each other. I mean. You can’t say you love me.” I looked him up one side and down the other, and although he looked amazing, I tried to act as if I found him repulsive. “I know I don’t love you. I mean. You’re cool and everything, but--”

“Fuck no, I don’t love you,” he snapped back. “Hell, I don’t even know you. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try and make something work. Our child doesn’t need to be punished, that’s for sure. He or she, whichever it is, deserves to grow up with both parents.”

“Two parents that don’t love each other?”

With his arms still folded in front of his chest, he shrugged. “We might end up in love someday.”

I laughed. “Really? How’s that work?”

He glared at me. “Fuck, I don’t know. We get to know each other, then we fall in love. I’m no fucking expert. People do it all the time.”

“They get to know each other, fall in love, have sex, get married, and then have kids.”