Penny sighed. She listened to the voicemail, then shook her head. She felt bad for vanishing on Chase like she had, but she hadn’t known what to tell him. In a panic, she moved out of her old apartment, wanting to get away from the world. It wasn’t as if she could afford her apartment for much longer, anyway.

But moving into her parents’ spare bedroom wasn’t her idea of moving forward with her life, not now that she was pregnant and trying to work on herself. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She needed to clear her head and rework her plan.

At the same time, she knew she owed it to Chase to talk to him. She couldn’t just disappear on him like that without an explanation, not after the night they had together. No matter what happened, she didn’t want there to be any more problems between them—whether or not they were together. After thinking about it, she decided to send him a text with the location of her favorite bench, telling him to meet her in the park the next day.

Almost immediately, he texted her back.

I’ll be there.

Penny took a deep breath. She had arrived early to get rid of her jitters, but Chase was already at the bench, waiting for her. He was sitting bent forward, his hands clasped in front of him and his head resting on them. She immediately felt bad once more, not wanting to put him through so much, but not seeing what other choice she had.

Nervously, Penny walked up to him. Chase, seeing her feet in front of him, looked up expectantly. He immediately rose to his feet, looking her over with concern in his eyes. It was clear he wanted to make sure she was okay, and she gave him a weak smile.

“Is it mine?” he asked, looking down at her still-flat stomach. She gave him an offended look.

“Whose else would it be?” she snapped. She took a deep breath. She didn’t want to fight with him, but she still found the question offensive. After the two weeks they spent together? Of course it was his.

“I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that I talked to Doug, and you know how he is. He made it sound like something it wasn’t, I’m sure, but at the same time, I just…I just had to be sure,” Chase said, looking down briefly before trailing his eyes back up to hers.

Penny sighed once more. She noticed the way he was drinking her in. It seemed that her very presence did something to him, and she liked it. She was clearly important in his life, and he wasn’t going to let her feel alone in any of this.

After glancing around the park, she sighed and gave a slight nod. “Yes, the child is yours.”

“What the hell, Penny,” he muttered, rubbing his face with stress. “When were you going to tell me this?”

She gave him another look, and he quickly apologized.

“I don’t mean to be a dick about it, but you should have said something about this before now. This isn’t the sort of thing you keep a secret from someone, you know? Especially if I’m just as responsible for it,” he said in a gentler tone. She looked at him with raised eyebrows, crossing her arms.

“Just like you kept a secret from me that I was nothing more than a bet between you and your friends?” she shot back. She wasn’t over it yet, and she felt bad when he gave her a pained look.

“You know that’s not what it was, and we already talked about it. Not to mention, that’s a little different than a child, don’t you think?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he put his hand up, stopping her before she was able to argue with him once more.

“Wait, before you say anything, don’t answer that. I don’t want to argue with you anymore, Penny.” Chase sighed. “Look, I don’t know how you feel about me, but I love you. I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to tell you that, since I’m pretty sure I’ve felt this way about you from the first day we met. I don’t want to fight about this, and I’m not going to intrude on your life any more than you want me to be there, but I can promise you that you are not going to be alone in raising this child. I am going to be there to help you take care of it as much as you want me to be—as much as you will allow me to be. I will love this child as much as I love you.” He took both her hands and looked into her eyes as he spoke, and Penny felt a lump form in the back of her throat.

Her entire life, she had been on her own. Though her parents had offered what support they could for her throughout her childhood, she had often gone without, and she knew even now they weren’t able to give her the help she was going to need with this infant. They were hardly able to keep up with their own bills; there was no way she was going to be able to ask them to take on the cost of her as well as her child.

It was something that was very much stressing her out, but she now sensed that she wasn’t going to have to. Now, at the very least, she knew that her baby above all was going to be taken care of. Not even just financially, but emotionally as well. This baby would have two parents that loved it so very much. It was more than she would ever be able to ask for, but it was enough to make her feel wanted once more.

“Thank you,” she whispered at last. She didn’t know what else to say, but Chase didn’t need her to say anything else. With a single, sweeping gesture, he pressed his lips to hers, holding her head in his hands and brushing away her tears with his thumbs.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, Penny felt that she was secure. She felt that someone was there to take care of her, and above all, to care for her and love her.

This was something she wasn’t going to fight.