Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
“I would if I could, but that’s not how this works.” He plucks out the stick and the mini pamphlet of directions. “You want me to hold your hand?”
I drill a Fuck you glare into him.
He’s not intimidated. “You want to wait for my sister and do this with her?”
“I want to wait for the person who’ll jump out of the closet and say, Aha! Gotcha! This is all one big joke!”
“Okay, a stranger hiding in the motel closet is some horror shit that’s not going to happen. So let’s stay in fucking reality.”
“As if this isn’t horrifying?” My voice cracks. Fuck.
Rocky stares deeply into me until I look away again.
I didn’t realize just how relieved I’d been learning I wasn’t pregnant until this moment—when I’m faced with another scare. Only this one feels a hundred times worse. Because my own dad could’ve baby-trapped me.
I blink out of my heavy thoughts and reach for the stick in Rocky’s hand.
He retracts it from me. “Let’s talk about this first.”
I swallow a pit in my throat and manage to ask, “Do you want to be a father?”
I’m surprised when he doesn’t volley the same question back at me right away and instead answers, “Not really. Do you want to be a mother?”
“I’ve literally never pictured it.” I stare at the tile floor. “Even now, the image is just so…blank.” I look up at him.
Rocky’s gaze skims me head to toe. “Do you know if you want kids or not, Phebs?”
“Like now or ever?”
“I know you don’t want them now. It’s very fucking clear. I meant ever.”
I touch my wedding ring absentmindedly. “You know what would be really unexpected, we just married each other and we’re on different sides of a deal-breaker.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says quietly.
“Will we?” I try not to cry. My burning eyes feel swollen from restraining waterworks on the drive here. I’m used to bolting the emotion behind closed doors. Being numb. What I’m trained to do. Just carry on. “I don’t know, Rocky…”
He tenses more. “Don’t know what?”
Fuck being closed off. I’m done pushing it down. Even if this part hurts. I rip the feelings out with the words. “I don’t know if I ever want to be a mom. I don’t know if I ever want to carry a child in a body that barely feels like mine sometimes. I don’t know if I want to be a parent when the only road map we were ever given was so fucked-up, it’s impossible to follow. And then I think I do know…I think I know that I don’t want any of it.”
He seems stunned, either that I just purged my feelings in one breath or by my answer.
I try to inhale. “You better say something.”
“You don’t want kids,” he realizes.
“I honestly…” I swallow. “I just can’t see that changing. It would take decades for me to feel differently, and by then, I’d be too old to have—”
“I don’t want kids either, Phebs.”
“Never?” I ask.
“Never.” He nods. “After all we’ve been through…I’ve never wanted to bring something so innocent into a world so corrupt.”
I wince. That hurts for some reason, and I figure out why very quickly. “Hailey.”
“I know,” Rocky says in a deep breath. “I know. Hailey is going to have a baby. And it’s a blessing that Oliver or Jake will be the father. Your brother is so unfettered. He won’t let life drag that child down, and Jake—Jake is fucking noble. He was practically born to spawn a litter of golden retrievers.”
I frown. “You don’t think the world could use more German shepherds?” It’s what Hails says Rocky would be if he were a dog breed.
He glances at the pregnancy stick, then back at me. “I’m not going to say I’d be a bad father, because that’d be a lie. In the end, I think I’d be cut out to be a great one.”
“Cocky,” I tease.
His lips tic up, rising with mine. “All I’m saying is that you don’t have to think you’ll be a bad parent to not want a baby. You can just not want one. Because I do know that we would be great parents.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, we both would try to give a kid everything we never had and everything we ever loved, and I know this because we’re going to give my sister’s kid absolutely everything.”
It swells inside me, and I nod strongly, knowing he’s right.
I would do anything for Hailey’s baby. Absolutely anything and everything. Just like I’ve always done for her.
I inhale the deepest breath yet. It’s audible when I exhale, and I say, “You’re really good at this.”
“Talking?”
“Making me feel better. Just when I was about to feel guilty for never wanting to have kids of my own while my best friend is pregnant.”
He raises his brows at me. “Fuck your guilt. We have way more shit to worry about.” He’s still holding the pregnancy test.