9. Nate

NINE

NATE

T abby glowered at me, her eyebrows in a slash, mouth turned down in evident outrage at the idea of living with me. “What did you just say to me, fool ?”

The fool was implied.

I took her hand to help her off the table, absently skimming my hand over her stomach. She wore leggings and an oversized button-down shirt. Likely an ex-boyfriend’s. I’d like to burn it.

Undeterred, I repeated myself. “Move in with me.”

She didn’t seem any more amenable the second time around as she gathered up her hair to tie it on the top of her head with a few twists of her hands, loose strands by her temples and ears. With her nose still pink from all the crying she’d done today, she looked like she needed a hug. But with her spine straight and chin proud, she might take me to the mats instead.

That was what I loved, her dichotomy. At once, both quiet and confident, strong yet wounded. I’d always understood these different facets of her, appreciated each part of her, but it hadn’t been until the day she’d told me she was pregnant that I really realized I couldn’t lose her.

I couldn’t ignore the strange fascination and odd possessiveness I’d always had with her.

I couldn’t stand the thought of her being with anyone else. Of having someone else’s baby.

And I didn’t even want a kid!

At least, I hadn’t until it was Tabby’s. As if now that I’d been shown a vision for a future I hated, I chose a different one.

And after seeing Frogger with my own eyes? Hearing the steady ba-dump , ba-dump , ba-dump ? I was toast.

I had no goddamn idea how to be a dad, but I’d figure it out. I’d prove to her that she wasn’t alone. I’d show this kid they never had to fear anything. I was here now.

“I’m taking you out to eat.” I handed her the envelope with the index card revealing the sex of the baby, along with the printed photos from the scan. With her attention diverted to the picture of the baby’s face, she didn’t fight me.

Step one, hit her over the head and drag her back to my cave.

Step two, love her.

I opened the passenger side door of my reliable Honda that appeared to be able to fit a car seat, but I didn’t really know how big those things were. In my head, they were like a bucket. Babies were little, so I assumed the things you carried them in couldn’t be much bigger either. But after I closed the door and rounded the trunk, suddenly I considered space and safety and how truly excellent that minivan seemed now.

As I buckled in, I glanced over at Tabby to find her going through all the photos, her barely there smile so timid, as if she was afraid to be happy, and my heart attempted to karate kick out of my chest to get to her. I smoothed my hand up and down her thigh, and it only occurred to me at that very moment how touchy-feely Tabby and I had been these last few weeks. Sure, she’d push my shoulder when I annoyed her or finally give me a high five after I stood in front of her with my hand up for five minutes, but we’d never been like this .

These natural embraces and fingers laced together and thigh rubs.

Almost like she didn’t mind.

Almost like she wanted it.

I hit the road with a smile on my face, cueing up my Spotify, and Tabby didn’t mention anything when Hall & Oates floated through the speakers. Didn’t even blink an eye when I used the steering wheel like a drum kit. I might’ve even caught her lips pursing, fighting a smile as I sang along to the chorus, about a girl making my dreams come true.

“Don’t quit your day job,” she muttered when the song ended and another one started. A favorite from my childhood, “Chasing Cars” had been perfect for me as an emo teenager, struggling with my parents’ divorce, desperate for the attention of Katie Pritchard.

I had thought I’d grown up from that kid, but maybe I never really had. Maybe I’d never been able to fully let go of all I’d been holding on to. Until now.

Until I stopped chasing women I’d hoped would heal that bruised part of me, leftover feelings of inadequacy from my father and being used as a weapon by my mother. I wanted something I couldn’t quite grasp.

Until I opened my eyes and recognized what had been in front of me all along.

I didn’t need Tabby to soothe me or fix whatever broken bits I had inside me. Hell, she was broken too. I couldn’t know how many bits and bobs had been rearranged in her over the years—and wouldn’t until she allowed me to know the full story—but what I did need was for her to say yes to me. So we could take all our broken and bruised fragments and build something new and lasting, all our own.

“We’re gonna sit down, have some lunch, and then negotiate,” I told her, making a right turn toward Tony’s, her favorite.

“Unless it’s for another raise, I’m not interested.”

I shot her my best grin, which she responded to with a bored expression.

Tough nut, my little mama was, but I’d get her. I’d pull out every trick in my book if I had to.

Seated at the corner pizzeria, I ordered a couple of slices for me and the usual for her, chicken parm with baked ziti. Over the years, it had been easy to spot her patterns, identify how she scrimped and saved. On more than one occasion, we’d talked about spending habits and loans. Since she helped me make almost all my business decisions, we were pretty open with each other in that respect. When she’d decided to go to school, she’d wanted to keep her expenses down and come out with the least amount of debt possible. That was why I’d given her any and every opportunity to make more money.

I’d been fortunate to have been gifted a nice nest egg from my grandfather. Walter Kozlowski had survived World War II on his family’s farm in Poland and immigrated to America shortly after with his brother. They’d found work as furniture salesmen, which eventually parlayed into their own furniture manufacturing company. Walt had married a nice girl named Doris, and they’d had three kids, including my father. When Walt died, he had left each of his grandkids a good sum of money to make our dreams come true since he had been able to do that himself. I remembered when they read the will, I had thought that line was so sappy about how his dreams were having a family and providing for them.

But boy did I get it now.

After college, I’d put Grandpa Walt’s money to use, along with my marketing degree and the same enthusiasm I’d had for playing football, to pivot toward opening my own business. Like Walt.

“I got the permits for the new place,” I said once we started eating, and Tabby nodded.

The idea for the wine bar and bistro had come from her. Of course.

She’d mentioned she would like a place to drink a nice glass of wine and eat a good dinner in a quiet atmosphere. Basically, the opposite of Walt’s, which was more of a corner neighborhood bar, and not exactly highbrow.

Not quite Tabby’s “scene.”

“Tell me about your dad,” I said, and she froze with her fork halfway to her mouth.

“Why? What do you want to know?”

I shrugged. “I know you were close to him and he’s the one who taught you karate, but besides that… Was it like a Mr. Miyagi situation?”

She fought a smile. “No. We didn’t wax on and wax off, and he didn’t teach me. We learned it together.”

I gestured to her with my pizza crust. “Was it always just you two?”

She carefully chewed and swallowed her food, staring off into the distance over my shoulder. “Yeah. I never knew my mother. My dad was in the navy, and from the little he told me, he wasn’t with my mom very long before she got pregnant. They married, had me, and I guess they tried to make it work, but she left before I was a year old. My dad once told me he thought she was suffering from postpartum depression, although he wouldn’t have known because she was on the base with me while he was out on the ship. He came home, and she was gone the next day.”

“Oh man, I’m sorry.”

She lifted her shoulder, outwardly not too put out about it as she scooped more food into her mouth. “I never had a chance to miss her, so it never really bothered me until I was older. Until I would’ve rather talked with my mom about stuff than my dad.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “Did you keep living on base?”

She wiped her mouth and took a sip from her personalized water bottle, which satisfied me immensely. “Yeah. He asked for a transfer to Norfolk. I was just a baby, so the base was really all I knew growing up. My dad took a job working in logistics, making sure the ships had all their supplies loaded properly before deployments. It meant long hours, but we lived in military housing. I was never far from him and sort of raised by everyone there. So, I don’t know. In that respect, I guess I was lucky. I had a lot of people around who loved me.”

I pictured Tabby running around among all the men in uniform, all of them treating her like their own daughter. I guessed that was why she was so regimented. It was literally in her blood. “Where did the karate come in?”

She smiled wistfully. “Dad started taking me to martial arts classes when I was six. Said it was important I learn self-defense, but I think he wanted something for us to bond over. By the time I was ten, my dad and I practiced side by side every night.”

“How’d you end up here?”

That was when her smile faded. “Uh, my dad met somebody, he retired, and moved us here.”

I inclined my head. “And…?”

“And that’s all you’re getting out of me today.”

I accepted her boundary with a nod and offered her something of myself. “I’d always had a crush on my dad’s secretary. She was super hot and the first real-life girl to give me a boner.”

Tabby huffed, shaking her head at me like I was a bad puppy.

“She’d always be like, ‘Hey, handsome,’ and run her hand over my head and neck. Literally sent chills down my spine.”

Tabby’s eyes narrowed, and I smiled. Because I was positive it was jealousy. Even over this story about me as a horndog kid.

“And then my dad married her.”

Her eyebrows rose into severe arches. “So you had wet dreams about your stepmom?”

“Basically,” I admitted, earning an amused snort. “Makes family dinners real awkward.”

“But you talk to your mom a lot,” she noted, accidentally giving herself away. She knew more about me than she probably wanted to concede.

“Yeah, but only because I don’t really know how to say no to her. My sister used her job as an excuse to avoid everybody, but I don’t have that same willpower. I mean… It’s my mom.”

Tabby studied me, her head ticked to the side. “You’re a mama’s boy, huh?”

“I wouldn’t say no to her wanting to take care of me. She can be a little overbearing, but…” I shrugged.

“So, that’s where you get it from.”

“Get what from?”

“You being so overbearing.”

“I’m not overbearing. I’m…protective.”

“You’re more than protective. You’re—” She wagged her fork at me, a bit of chicken on it, so I caught her wrist and shoved the bite into my mouth. “Hey!”

It was a perfect bite, of chicken, cheese, and sauce, and as I swallowed it down, I took the fork from her to scoop up another perfect bite. Holding it out to her, I said, “I might be overprotective and occasionally overbearing, but I don’t know how else to be. I’m not close to very many people.”

“You have a lot of friends.”

I moved the food up to her mouth, urging her to take the bite. She closed her lips around the tines, her fingers on my wrist, as she ate it. I watched her lips purse, her throat swallow, and her tongue glide along the corner of her mouth to lick away the dot of sauce there, stealing away my opportunity to do it.

“I have a lot of friends, but not a lot of people I trust,” I explained. “I only really care about a handful of people, and I would do whatever I had to if they were hurting or needed something. Because when they hurt, I hurt. When they’re happy, I’m happy.”

She didn’t need me to tell her she was one of those people. She had to know it already. She had to feel it. Because she offered me a slight nod, her eyes going watery again.

So, I went for it. “I want you to move in with me.”

But her answer was immediate. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Not a reason.”

She flapped her hand around, appearing to struggle to name one. “Because you don’t need to fix this for me. This is my life, and I’m not going to intrude on yours when I know you don’t even want kids.”

I stopped her there. “Things change. Wants change. People change.”

“So, how do you know what I want? How do I know what you want?”

I set my elbows on the table, heaving a sigh. This was bullshit. Because she knew. I knew she knew everything. She just didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t want to trust me.

“Besides,” she went on, “my life has nothing to do with yours.”

And, yep. She wanted to poke the bear? She’d get the bear.

“Please, Tabitha. We’ve known each other for a decade. I knew you before you were even able to buy a drink legally. I hired you when you still had light brown hair and sad eyes. I watched you level a frat guy when he got handsy with a girl and then go right back to slinging beers without breaking a sweat, and I promoted you to my manager the next day. I know you study on your breaks for a degree you’ve been working on for years. I know what you look like when you don’t want to talk about something you love, and I let it go because I know you’ll eventually tell me one day, and I know that you’ve been dealing with this life-changing thing for months on your own. And I think it’s about goddamn time you start accepting some help from people because your life has everything to do with me, you understand? I don’t want to see you hurt or, god forbid, something worse happen. I wouldn’t be anywhere without you, so don’t give me any of your bullshit. Now, please say yes to me with a smile on your face before I lose it.”

She sat across from me, no smile to be found. “I’d say you already lost it.”

Yeah. Yeah, I had.

I’d lost my head, my heart, my whole fucking cool for this girl.

And clearly, I’d have to call in backup, but for now, I texted my friends an update.

Went to the ultrasound today.

Saw the baby.

I’m going to convince her to move in with me.

I don’t want to hear any of your I told you so bullshit.