“It was a mistake!” I put both hands on her knees. “I was scared, OK?”
Her eyes teared up. “Too many games, Miles. And what were you afraid of? Did you think I didn’t feel the same?”
“I knew you didn’t. You told me you wanted space. Time to yourself. Time to process the end of your relationship. For all I knew, you were still in love with Dan.”
“I hadn’t been in love with Dan for a long time. I wouldn’t have slept with you if I had been.”
“It wasn’t only that. I was also scared I wouldn’t be able to make you happy even if you did feel the same way.”
“Because you don’t want a monogamous relationship. You don’t ever want to get married or have a family.”
“But that was before I knew you were pregnant. Now I want to do the right thing. I want you. I want the baby. We could get married.”
She shook her head, her eyes tearing up. “You’re a good guy, Miles, and I appreciate that you came all the way up here tonight, but I don’t think you know what you’re saying, and I don’t want you to make promises you can’t keep.”
“Natalie.” I got to my knees in front of her. “Maybe I’m saying this all wrong. I’m not good at this stuff. But please give me a chance.”
“A chance at what? Being a family? How? You making a living writing about sex and the single guy. How does a family figure into that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“And you hate being tied to one spot.”
“But I’d try it for you. For the baby.”
“You’d try it. Oh, God.” She put her face in her hands, and when she picked up her head, tears were dripping from her eyes. “Look, Miles. A family is not something you can sample and send back like a bottle of wine. It’s a permanent commitment. You don’t do those.”
“I haven’t in the past,” I admitted. “But I want to start. I can change, Natalie.”
She hesitated. “I want to believe you. I want to think that we could be happy together.”
My chest felt strapped tight. “But you don’t love me?”
She took my face in her hands. “Of course I love you. You know I do.”
Relief coursed through me, but it was tempered with fear too. She was still holding back—or else she didn’t feel what I felt, which was even worse. “But you’re not in love with me. Not the way I am with you.”
“I’m scared to love you like that, Miles. I’m scared because you’ve always been there, always been this amazing what if in the back of my mind, ever since that night we almost kissed. But you told me yourself you weren’t capable of loving someone completely and forever. You weren’t capable of the sacrifices it would entail. And I want that.”
“You deserve it.” I kissed the palm of her hand. “Tell me what to do to prove to you I can be the man you want.”
She pulled her hand away and wiped her eyes. “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. I just know that it’s not enough to hear you say you want to do the right thing. I’m sorry.”
• • •
She let me hug her goodbye, and I held her for a long time. I’d stopped talking, because clearly I wasn’t saying the right things. And why would I? I’d never talked this way to anyone in my entire life. I didn’t pay attention to those scenes in movies, I didn’t read those kinds of books, and people in porn and cartoons don’t really talk about the future. I’d thought saying I wanted to do the right thing would indicate to her that I was ready to grow up and be the kind of person she wanted, but I’d been wrong.
But I wouldn’t give up. As I embraced her by the front door, I vowed to try harder. I thought about the little life we’d created, a life that she was protecting inside her body, and I wrapped my arms around them both.
Suddenly my chest hollowed out like it was cleaving in half. It was similar to the feeling I had when I realized I was in love with Natalie, and yet different. Just as compelling, just as shocking, just as relentless, but more ferocious, more possessive, more instinctive. It came from a place inside me that hadn’t existed until this very moment, an empty space that was rapidly filling with the most powerful emotion I’d ever experienced.
Somehow I knew it was the beginnings of the fierce, protective love of a father for his child.
I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
I held her closer.
Mine. This was mine, and I wouldn’t let it go.
Somehow I’d find a way to prove it to her.
On my way to the house, I called Nick Lupo.