Dara laughed. “Probably pays about as well too.”
He chuckled. “No kidding.”
Sighing, she sank back against her seat. “God, it seems like there’s so much we need to figure out, and a few months doesn’t seem long enough.”
“Like what?”
She shrugged. “What we’re gonna name him. Which Metallica album we have to play for him first. Do we teach him to play on a PlayStation or an Xbox first? You know, the important shit.”
“Good point. And do we teach him to swear before kindergarten, or after?”
“Before.” She snorted. “I’m not letting someone else’s kid teach mine how to cuss.”
Matt grinned. “That’s my girl.”
Dara winked but turned serious again. “I guess I should think about setting up a nursery. While I can still move around easily, I mean.”
“I’m happy to help. Whatever you need.” He grinned. “Just don’t ask me to pick out colors.”
Dara laughed and patted his knee. “Oh, sweetie. I remember. You don’t have to remind me.”
He flipped her the bird, rolled his eyes and put his hand on the wheel again.
They both chuckled, and he kept driving. While he focused on the road, she was focused on him, and her mind kept wandering back to the room where she’d had the ultrasound.
Though she’d been devastated when Jon had dropped the divorce bomb on her, and she’d felt strange about having Matt there with her instead of him today, she was weirdly thankful it had been Matt beside her and not him. That there’d been someone there who was as simultaneously awestruck and confused by the image on the screen, staring at it like they’d just looked into the face of God but couldn’t quite figure out where the nose was.
Jon would’ve been…
Well, there was no way to know. But it would’ve been different. There would’ve been that simmering resentment about whose DNA the baby carried, and that might’ve blown up in the car afterward. Or even in the room while she was changing clothes. The paternity of her potential children had never really bothered her. Her ex-husband was apparently put off by it—though he could’ve mentioned it a little earlier in the game—but it never made much difference to her. She’d have been perfectly content adopting too.
But maybe now that there was a baby on the way, it did matter somehow. On some subconscious level, maybe it did make a difference, and having her child’s biological father by her side—even if they were just friends—was more important than she’d thought.
Except that didn’t make any sense. It was just DNA.
And the problems between her and Jon had gone deeper than who had provided that DNA, and nothing had driven that point home more emphatically than the warmth and comfort of Matt’s presence beside her during the ultrasound. The wonder in his eyes, the way he seemed to be holding her hand as much for his own reassurance as hers. There was no sniping, no tension, no complaining about how much time he was taking off work for this.
Maybe what it all meant was that Jon had done her a favor. They hadn’t been happy in a long time, and maybe that had run deeper than the stress over the frustrating struggle to get pregnant and who made how much money.
Maybe what she needed more than anything right now was a friend, and if she was honest with herself, she and Jon had never really gotten that part right. They’d been lovers. They’d been spouses. But thinking back now, she couldn’t ever remember being friends with him. She’d sure as hell never had a friendship with anyone—male or female—that held a candle to what she’d had with Matt.
Whatever was going on inside her hormone-saturated brain, there was one thing she knew for sure: she was damned glad to have Matt back in her life right now.
Chapter Fifteen
Dara had been so focused on getting caught up with her job, she hadn’t had time to do much unpacking. Matt figured that must’ve been driving her insane, so he offered to come by for another day of helping her settle in. It took some arm-twisting to convince her to take a day off, but after she’d apparently had to go through six boxes to find one measuring cup, she took him up on it.
Her nausea hadn’t been so bad recently, so he came by around ten, and between the two of them, Matt and Dara finally finished unpacking her kitchen and dining room by one in the afternoon. By three, they were almost done with her entertainment center.
“I am so glad to have the Xbox out,” she said as she stacked her games beside the TV. “My PC games are just not cutting it these days.”
He laughed, unwrapping another wireless controller. “Nothing quite like a good shoot ’em up, right?”