Chapter Sixteen

Troy

I didn’t actually think it was possible to have cabin fever in a New York City penthouse, but I was starting to feel like I had it. Maybe it wasn’t cabin fever, maybe it was the prison of my mind that I had trapped myself in with the revelation that had been thrown at me over the last week.

I’d taken a few days off of work to try to clear my mind. During that time, I fielded several phone calls for business issues that, though not particularly important, no one else knew how to take care of. Between phone calls, I wavered between pacing and staring out over the city. I had pretty much worn a pathway in the hardwood from walking back and forth, completely immersed in my own mind, and the chair by the window had my ass permanently imprinted in the seat. The apartment hadn’t seen this much of me since the flu of 2012.

My mind was all over the place, jumping from the past, to the present, and onward toward the future. There was a restlessness within me that I just couldn’t shake, something that made me know I was facing one of those life- altering moments. I still couldn’t believe that I was going to be a father. It wasn’t Melinda that made the whole thing insane; she was great. It was the idea of me changing diapers, wiping drool, and helping a small human being become a productive person in society.

The whole thing was completely overwhelming on multiple levels. Everything had hit me like a truck. Not many things in life surprised me, but I had to admit this one had gotten me out of nowhere and knocked the wind right out of me. Even in the moment, when I’d known that my support was vital, I’d frozen and split. I knew I’d messed up, possibly beyond repair. I’d undoubtedly broken Melinda’s heart. But even so, I couldn’t get my head wrapped around things enough to man up and call her. Not to apologize—I was more than willing to do that.

The thing was that calling her felt like an acknowledgment of the fact that I was going to be a father. And I so wasn’t ready to let that sink in yet. Not even when it made me the biggest ass on the planet, since Melinda was facing the same issue, but didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. Not unless she decided not to have it—and that was a whole other story, one which, weirdly, left me just as panicked.

Everything in my life for so many years had revolved completely and totally around my company. I had worked my ass off for the opportunities that I had afforded myself. Because of the hard work I had put in, my company was number two in the entire country when it came to successful marketing firms. All of that, every single late night, every single time I had given up on something amazing for work, and every celebration and disappointment, could be completely changed because Melinda was expecting my child. I had no experience with children, and I had no idea what to expect from it all.

When I was growing up, my father had worked nonstop, taking us on “family vacations” that were really just work trips. He had instilled in us from the moment that we were born that if we wanted to be successful in business, we had to give up our dreams, or at least put them on hold. I’d known that one day I wanted to be a father, but I also knew it was something that was going to have to be put on the backburner.

It looked like that pot had been moved forward and now I had to face the reality of it all. Growing up, all I wanted was for my father to be like other dads, showing up at baseball games, taking me on father/son trips, stuff like that, but that wasn’t what I got. I had told myself that when I decided to become a father, I would do much better than he had. However, from the surprise of it all, it might not be something that I could bring myself to do. I didn’t know how to be a father, much less someone who put work in the background.

Melinda had called me a couple of times and sent me a couple of texts, but I didn’t know what to say, so I ignored them. After a while she stopped trying to contact me, which I wasn’t sure was a good sign or bad. Either she was attempting to not be the crazy girl, or she had completely given up, deciding that she would handle all of this on her own. The idea of letting her go through this alone made me feel absolutely terrible, and I knew that was not the man that I wanted to be. I didn’t plan to do that, honestly. I just needed some time to think.

I walked across the room and stood in front of the window, staring down into the city. It was a windy day, and I could see the trees in Central Park swaying back and forth. It was probably amazing outside, the cool wind pushing the hot August temperatures down, the sun shining high in the sky. I needed to get out of the apartment and calm my nerves.

I picked up my phone and scrolled to Chance’s texts, sending him a message to meet me at the pub we always went to when we just needed to think and talk. I waited several minutes until he responded, letting me know he could be there in fifteen minutes.

I stared at the reflection in the bathroom mirror, realizing I hadn’t shaved in days and looked like I was strung out. I took in a deep breath and fixed my hair, deciding to leave the more than five o’clock shadow alone. As I headed out of the apartment I told myself that no matter what, I was going to tell Chance the truth.

When I arrived, he stared at me inquisitively but didn’t say a word beyond ordering us a pitcher. He sat there next to me, watching me as I downed two beers back to back. He was always patient with me when he could tell that something was going on. There was definitely something going on, but I needed some liquid courage to actually say it out loud. I almost felt like as long as it stayed in my head, it wasn’t actually real. Once it escaped my lips, I knew that I was locked in.

As I drank the last sip from my glass and nodded at the bartender for another pitcher, I took in a deep breath and turned toward Chance. He looked at me calmly and took a sip of his beer, his eyebrows starting to rise. I looked around to realize we were alone in the bar, which was good.

“All right,” I said. “Melinda was sick, really sick, about four days ago. She called me and asked me to come over, saying something had happened. I went over, worried that she was sicker than expected, and she told me that she was pregnant. She showed me the pregnancy test and everything. I didn’t know what else to do, so I kissed her on the forehead and told her that I needed some time. I took some time off and have been ignoring her ever since.”

By the time I was done getting everything out, I was out of air. I breathed heavily for a moment, turning back to my beer. Chance sat there, true to his nature, absorbing what I had just told him and formulating his response. His silence made me incredibly nervous, but I knew whatever he said would be well thought out. I had always appreciated how Chance handled me, always thinking things through before saying them.

He had never given me advice based on that initial emotion that we all tended to have. I was too quick with my thoughts sometimes and always wished that I had that kind of restraint. There had often been situations where my decisions, based solely on that initial emotion of the situation, had come back and bitten me in the ass. Chance would know what to say since he, too, had a baby on the way.

“Well,” he said at last, clearing his throat and folding his hands in front of him. “I have to say, bro, I am completely disgusted by how you have handled this. Do you think for one second that Melinda got to take in the information and then step away from it? Did she have the luxury of going, ‘Time out, I need to think?’ No, she didn’t, and I know that it probably took a lot of courage for her to come to you and tell you the truth in the first place. She’s a professional woman with dreams, aspirations, and a history of hard work. Harder work than your own, from what you’ve told me.”

“I know. I—” I stopped when he put his hand up.

“She came forward to you, not waiting, not hiding, not running off and taking care of the situation without your knowledge, and you paid her back by dipping,” he went on. “Can you even imagine what that must have felt like? To be the woman with the child inside of her, the fear rolling through, then being abandoned in that moment, left to deal with everything on her own? When I found out I was going to be a father, it was definitely a surprise. Let me just tell you that being in a long-term committed relationship does not make the situation any less scary. I felt completely lost and scared, but when I looked into my beautiful wife’s eyes, I could tell that she was just as terrified. She’s a career woman too, and she knew that this meant that everything was going to change. However, instead of bolting, like everything in me told me to do, I realized that she didn’t have the luxury of thinking it over, so that meant neither did I.”

“I fucked up,” I said, hanging my head.

“Yes, you did,” he said, softening his voice. “You really made the wrong choice in that moment, and that has to have completely screwed things up between you and Melinda.”

The thought left me hollowed out inside.

“If you love her—” he stopped and looked at me hard. “Do you love her, Troy?”

“Yes.” I said it without needing to think twice. Even though love had never been a part of a single one of my relationships, I knew that without a doubt I was deeply in love with Melinda, even after just a few months of dating.

Chance nodded. “Good. So if you love her, then there are a few things to keep in mind here. For one, she might not have kept the child, Troy. She has her own career to think about. Have you considered that? She could have been calling to tell you she took care of things.”

My stomach lurched at the thought, which bewildered me, since I didn’t want the baby. Right?

“I don’t think she’d do that without talking to me first,” I began, then stopped because duh, she’d been trying to talk to me.

“The alternative is that she kept it and that, like it or not, you need to move forward and patch up what you broke as much as possible. Not for your sake. For the kid’s. From what you’ve told me about Melinda, you probably really messed her head up, and you’re going to have to work really hard to fix it.”

I sat there staring at Chance, his words really resonating with me. Instantly the fog began to lift, and I could see everything as clearly as I should have from the beginning. Chance was absolutely right about everything. Melinda hadn’t had the luxury of kissing my forehead and running away. She’d been stuck right where she was the day she found out about the baby, probably worried that she was going to have to handle everything on her own.

“You are so right.” I dragged a hand down my face. “That woman did not deserve, for even one second, the way that I acted in the moment, and every moment thereafter. She deserved someone to walk through the fears side by side with her, not run off and leave her to deal with this on her own. I have to make up for this. I love her, more than I have ever loved anyone in my life, Chance, and if this is how it’s going to play out, I need her to know that I will be there every step of the way.”

He nodded. “Just be aware that gaining her forgiveness may be next to an impossibility. She may not feel you’re trustworthy enough to be in the kid’s life.”

Again, my guts twisted up. Somehow I had to fix this. Letting things stay the way they currently were was not an option. No way.