He cupped my cheeks and hunched down so he was almost eye level, “I love you, I'll give you all the time you need. Unless. Unless you don't want me anymore?”
I pressed my face harder into his left hand and closed my eyes, inhaling his clean masculine scent. “I've told you, I will always love you Chase, but I'm still not sure you won't eventually leave me. Because of that fear, I don't know if I can be with you. And some things have changed since we talked last, you might change your mind about me altogether.”
“That's not possible.”
I pulled his hands off my face and wrapped his tattooed arms around my shoulders. After placing a kiss on his throat I buried my head in his chest, “I wish that were true.” My life had drastically changed in such a short amount of time. For obvious reasons, I'd had to break up with Brandon and now Chase and I were going to have a baby. Because of the turn of events, I found myself wanting a life with Chase more and more, I wanted him to be there for me and his baby. Here, wrapped up in his strong arms, I could almost let myself believe it might happen. But Chase was about to graduate college, he was a tattoo artist and spent most of his mornings surfing. I couldn't see him settling down with me and our baby.
“It is Harper,” his voice cracked when he said my name, and tears started falling down his face, “I love you so damn much, why can't you see that?”
Oh God no, please don’t cry again. My eyes instantly watered again looking at him. I couldn’t mean this much for him to start crying in public at the thought of us not being together, could I? “I have to go, I'm sorry.”
“Harper please. Please don't just walk away, talk to me baby.”
I kept my head down and walked around the corner to meet Bree near the parking lot. Her eyes widened when she saw the two of us together and took in the trails of tears on both our faces. I glanced around and people were looking in confusion as Chase begged me to stop. I probably would have stared too, if I saw a six foot three inch gorgeous man covered in muscles and tattoos crying. He didn't seem to notice or care. I shook my head once at Bree and she reigned in her expression.
“Harper, please talk to me!”
I reached Bree's side and turned to him, “I will. We will talk, but right now I have to go.”
A choked sigh escaped his throat when I lifted my hands to wipe away his tears. “Promise?” I nodded and he whispered, “I love you.” kissed the inside of my wrist and watched me step back. Bree lightly brushed her hand against his arm and he jumped back, he looked nervously between the two of us but slightly relaxed when she smiled at him. He hadn't even known she was there though her arm was wrapped around my waist. Now that he'd seen her he took in the few people staring at us and ducked his head as he walked away.
When we were in her car, Bree grabbed my hand and looked at me, “I've never once in my life seen Chase cry. There is no doubt in my mind he is completely in love with you Harper, you have to tell him you're pregnant and he's the dad.”
Never seen him cry? That made me feel even worse since I’d made him cry three times in the last month and a half. “I will, just not today. First, I need to tell your mom that he is.”
She bit her lip and looked at me, unsure. She didn't think I ever would. I'd told her mom, Sir and Brandon all in the first day of finding out, but it had been over a week and I still hadn't talked to Chase.
“Let's go, we need to get to lunch so I can tell Mom.”
She smiled, cranked her car and drove us to the restaurant. I thought about that night with Brandon on the way over. Besides Bree, he was the only one who knew about Chase, and I was still surprised he hadn't said anything.
~~~
“Sweetheart, what's wrong?” Brandon grabbed my hands and led me to his room.
Looking at the worry in his eyes just made this harder. I hated myself for doing this to him, and I hated what I was about to do.
“Come here,” he wrapped me in his arms, “tell me what happened.”
I placed my hands on his chest and pushed until he let me go. “Maybe you should sit down.”
“I'll stand.” He said warily.
“Brandon, I –” Just do it Harper. Just like with Mom and Sir, don't skip around it. I stopped and took a deep breath, “I ch–…I'm pregnant.”
He bent slightly at the waist, looking like I'd literally just punched him in the gut. “That's not possible.” His said confused as he sagged onto the bed, “We haven't even –” His face fell and his breath came out in a huff, “Oh my God. Did you cheat on me?”
It was pointless to keep trying to wipe my tears away, they were coming too fast. “Brandon, I'm so so–”
“You cheated on me?!”
I bit my lip and nodded my head.
“And you're pregnant?” He sounded completely defeated. I would have rather he been mad, it would make this so much easier.
“Yes.”
He ran his hand over his buzzed hair and down his face, “Who? Never mind. I already know.”
“How? Did he tell you?”
“I'm not stupid Harper. I see the way you look at him when you think I'm not watching, and you bite your lip and space out whenever you look at that damn ring.”
He did know. “Brandon, I'm sorry! It was just one weekend, and I hate myself for it!”
“Does he already know?” He glanced up to meet my eyes.
“No.” It barely came out above a whisper.
We stared at each other for an undetermined amount of time, both silently crying, before he asked me one last question, “Why Harper?”
I wanted to make up an excuse, say we were wasted and I regretted it, but he needed to know the truth. “I love him too Brandon.”
He flinched and shut his eyes.
“I know I don't deserve this, but would you please not tell him? And if you're going to be angry at someone, please be angry at me. I did this to you.”
“You did this to us Harper.” Slowly standing, he made his way towards the door and opened it, “I won't say anything. I've always known how he felt about you, and if you chose him, then there's nothing for me to be mad at him for. But I need you to leave. Now, please.”
He wouldn't look at me as I left, just held the door with a tight, shaking grip and tried to calm his breathing.
“I'm so sorry.” I whispered before leaving.
~~~
I glanced up, surprised to see we were already at the restaurant. “Well...here goes nothing.”
“How do you think she's going to take it?” Bree ran a hand through her short blonde hair.
“Ha. I was hoping you'd tell me.”
“Uh, no. This is the one situation I haven't known what to expect.”
I looked at her in horror, “What if she hates me? What if they kick me out Bree?”
“They wouldn't do that to you, and my parents could never hate you. I just don't know how she's going to take it.”
We stopped talking when we walked in and were greeted by the hostess and hugs from Mom.
“Oh, I'm just so excited for the appointment! We'll be able to get a due date, and if you're far enough we can hear the heartbeat!” She was clapping and bouncing.
Aw hell, this was about to all be real. “Is it okay if I'm not exactly thrilled right now?”
“Sure it is honey, but you've already gotten over the hard parts. This is when it gets exciting.”
The waitress took our drink orders and we ordered our food without even looking at the menu. This is where we always came on our girl’s day. We chatted about school, Konrad and Bree, if I planned to go back to school after this year ended, which I didn't, and started to talk about if I wanted a boy or a girl.
“Uh, Mom? I saw the baby's dad today.”
Her mouth formed an O, “Did you tell him?”
“No not yet, I thought I should probably tell you who he is first.”
“Well I don't see why you had to tell me first unless…do I know him?” Her eyes were large and she looked like she was holding her breath.
“Yeah. You could say that.”
Bree tried to cover her laugh with a cough and grabbed her iced tea to take a sip.
Like a band aid Harper, just rip it off. I took a deep breath and blurted out, “It's Chase.”
“Oh thank God!” Claire exclaimed and put a hand over her chest.
Bree spewed out her tea and my jaw dropped, as well as my spoon. “What?!” We screeched in unison.
She shushed us and looked around for a second before leaning over the table, “You have no idea how much of a relief this is.” She held up a hand to stop my question, “My son is in love with you Harper, he has been for a while now. That's why he doesn't come to the house on Sundays anymore. He came to us a month or so ago and said as long as you were with Brandon, he couldn't handle being around you anymore, said it was too hard.”
I swear my jaw dropped even more.
“When you said you were pregnant, I knew he was going to be devastated, but when you told me Brandon wasn't the daddy, I hoped it was Chase's. Don't get me wrong, I wish this wasn't happening to you two while you're so young and not married, but what's done is done. He'd even talked about maybe moving away after graduation. I knew he would do it if he found out you were having a baby, especially with some random guy.”
“Mom! Why didn't you tell me? I didn't know I was the reason he wasn't coming around, you must have hated me! Why did you let me move in?”
“Because we love you Harper. Just because he wasn't dealing with it well, doesn't mean Robert and I were going to stop loving you. Even if he did move away, that wouldn't have been your fault. Just his choice.”
“Holy crap.” I huffed and sunk into my seat.
“Ditto.” Bree chimed in.
“Harper sweetie,” Mom began, “You have got to tell him. If he finds out your pregnant from someone and doesn't know it's his. He'll be gone.”
I love him, I don't want him to leave. But his possible leaving has been stopping me all along. Claire was wrong, Chase would know it was his, but he'd still be gone. “He isn't going to want a baby, I can't take him walking away from me. I love him, this baby just proves that, but I'm terrified he will leave me one day. He's always doing that Mom, one day he's in love with me, the next few weeks he refuses to speak to me.”
“He stays away because it kills him to watch you with Brandon. When you would go to his house, he always came to ours so he wouldn't have to see you guys together. I never knew you two had even spoken to each other about this. All he does is talk about you in a way that suggested you didn't know he loved you. He won't leave you, I don't think you realize he's never even spoken about a girl with us, until you showed up last fall.” My face must have shown I didn't believe that, “Regardless if he's ready for a child or not, he's the father, he has to help you.”
“No!” I said a little too loudly and quieted my voice, “No. I want him to want to be with me, I will not force him to endure this with me. My entire life Sir has resented me, I'm not going to go through the rest of it with Chase doing the same.”
“He wouldn't.” Bree cut in.