I was waiting at a table near a window, fiddling with my menu, and the sun was shining brightly in my eyes. It was starting to give me a headache, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything right now… except getting answers.

We said we’d meet at noon, and it was only 12:05, but every single minute that passed was driving me closer to insanity.

I had to end the conversation pretty quickly after Isabel told me she was pregnant. I was freaking out, and I needed to process. I didn’t even get a chance to ask the most basic questions about it.

Like if I was the only guy, how far along she was, what she planned to do?

I’d been in a constant state of anxiety since I’d found out.

It’s not that I didn’t want kids. I did, truly, one day and with the right person. But this Isabel girl was certainly not the right person. I never imagined my first child might be with someone I barely knew and had no connection to.

No, that was not how I’d imagined having my first kid. I wanted it to be much more traditional. I wanted to fall in love with someone, propose to them, have a beautiful wedding, and then make the decision to have kids. I wanted to feel overjoyed to be having them, not panicked. I wanted to bask in the comfort of knowing I trusted my significant other to take this crazy life journey with me.

The worst part was, I think I may have finally found that person. The one who I eventually wanted to be the parent to my children. And that was Ben.

He was so perfect for me in so many ways. And I knew it was too early to say it, so I never would, but I could really picture him being my husband one day. I could picture him being a great father. And I didn’t much care how I had kids. I didn’t care if I adopted them or they came from the womb of a woman I was with, it didn’t matter. As long as I loved the person.

And I love Ben.

Fuck, I love him. I really do. I was head over heels for the guy, and I had no idea what the fuck this was going to do to our relationship. I was terrified.

As I continued to fiddle with my menu, I heard the door open and looked up to see Isabel standing before me.

At least, I assumed it was Isabel. If I was being honest, I only remembered her face vaguely. I had been very drunk at the time we’d hooked up. Lord, why did I need to be such a man whore? I’m really not proud of my behavior at all.

“Hello, Grady,” she said nonchalantly.

“Hello, Isabel,” I said softly.

She sat down, hung her purse on the chair, and set her sunglasses down.

“Do you want to order something to eat?” I asked awkwardly, not at all sure of how to begin a meeting like this.

“Actually, no. I’m not hungry. I feel very nauseated.”

This made my stomach churn. Another reminder that she was pregnant, great.

“Right, well, I’m not hungry either, so… let’s just talk.”

“Sure. What do you want to know?” she asked coolly.

“Well, for starters, uh…” I thought on this. Man, I really should have had a bunch of questions lined up. “Um, do you know it’s mine?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said definitively, “based on the timeline, it has to be yours. You’re the only guy I slept with that month.”

“Timeline?” I asked. “So, you’ve seen a doctor.”

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“So how do you have a timeline?” I asked curiously.

She rolled her eyes. “Us women kind of have an internal timeline. I had my period the month before, so.”

“Right… okay,” I said through heavy breaths.

“You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?” she asked.

“No… nope,” I shook my head nervously. She didn’t buy it.

“I’m not super thrilled, either,” she said. “This wasn’t how I was planning to have my first child… I was in denial for the last few months, because I’ve been eating less and exercising a lot more, and it’s not the first time my period has disappeared for no reason. But last week, I took multiple tests, and…”

“Right. Got it,” I sighed. “So why haven’t you seen a doctor?” I asked.

She looked out the window, avoiding my eyes. “I really didn’t want to have to come to you, you know.”

“You didn’t?” I asked.

“Not at all.”

This surprised me . “Why not..?”

“Because I knew how it’d look. Me coming to you, a famous baseball player, claiming I’m carrying your child. I knew I’d look like a liar, like some gold digger needing your money…”

“I never thought that—”

She cut me off. “Well, you’re about to.”

I eyed her curiously.

She took in a deep breath. “I haven’t been the doctor because I don’t have health insurance. I can’t afford it because I… I got kicked off the ESLN team shortly after that party. And all of my savings has gone to living expenses the last few months, so I… I just don’t have much.”

“So, you need money to see the doctor?” I asked.

I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “Uh, yeah. And, trust me, that’s humiliating for me to ask. But I have this child growing inside me now, and I just… I can’t be selfish. I have to get this taken care of. I have to get myself taken care of, and I should be adult enough to handle it myself, but clearly I’m not so I just—”

I put my hand up to stop her. “I don’t think that, and the money is no problem. Seriously, I have no problem lending you money to see the doctor. It needs to be done.”

And I meant that from the bottom of my heart. This girl didn’t seem like a gold digger, and I don’t think she’s after my fame. She genuinely seems like a girl who didn’t mean to get pregnant and is now stuck in an unfortunate predicament.

“What I want to know, is where do we go from here?” I asked her.

“I… what do you mean?” she asked. “If you’re going to ask me to abort it—”

“No!” I cut her off quickly. “No, I absolutely wasn’t. And I already assumed that, because you were coming to me, that wasn’t something you planned to do.”

“No, it isn’t. I… I could never.”

I nodded. “Okay, so, a baby is going to be here. How are you and I going to handle it?”

She looked at me for awhile. “You want to be involved?”

“Uh, with my child? Yes, of course.”

This wasn’t how I’d imagined having kids, no, but there was no way in hell I was going to abandon my child. I was going to do whatever it took to be in their life.

It was sad for me, though. Just thinking about us being apart, our child living in two different houses, having to go back and forth between us…

Yeah, that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to see my kid every night. I wanted my child to have two parents who loved each other under one roof. I wanted a nuclear family.

And maybe I could still have that.

“You know, I’ve always wanted a family. This isn’t how I imagine starting one, but maybe this could be the start of something great.” I’m not sure if I even really believed that, but I was doing my best to stay positive.

“The start of something great?” she asked.

As she repeated it back to me, my stomach began to churn as I thought of Ben. But I kept going.

“Maybe we could… date?” I suggested.

It was such a betrayal, even just me suggesting it. I had nothing against this girl, but I didn’t know her, and I hadn’t had any kind of connection with her when I’d slept with her. She was just another person. She didn’t really mean anything to me, not like Ben did. And now I was going to, what? Just forget about him to date a woman I don’t even know?

But it wasn’t for her, and it wasn’t for me. It was for my unborn child. And my life changed when I got that news. Suddenly, life isn’t about just me anymore. And I couldn’t make decisions with only my interests in mine.

Trust me, if I did, I would choose Ben. I’d choose Ben in a heartbeat. But if I wanted to do what was best for my child, I had to at least explore this.

“I…” she seemed speechless, “you want to date me? Why?”

“Because when I imagined having my first child, I always imagined a whole family. Two parents living in one house taking care of a child they love more than anything. I don’t want to see my kid half the time.”

Her eyes widened. “Woah, but we can’t just… start living together!”

“No, I know!” I said quickly. “And I’m not suggesting that. But maybe if we date, if we figure out if we can make this work between us, then we can explore a future. A future where our child gets to have two parents.”

“Wow… oh… okay, sorry, I’m just surprised. This wasn’t how I expected this to go.”

“What did you expect?” I asked.

“Well, honestly, I expected kind of a bad reaction. Maybe you would try to convince to me have an abortion or offer me money to disappear from our lives…”

“I’m not that kind of man, Isabel.”

“I can see that,” she acknowledged, “sorry I misjudged you.”

“No need to apologize,” I told her, “and if you need time to think on my proposal…”

I was hoping she’d say she needed to think on it or that she couldn’t date me. That way, this whole thing was out of my hands. Then, there’d be nothing I could do to change the direction of my child’s life, and I’d be free to be with Ben.

But that’s not what she said.

“No, no, I don’t need time… I can’t say whether or not we’d really work as a couple, but, yeah, I’m always willing to try to date. There is no harm in that, right?”

“Right,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment while I thought of Ben and how the hell I was supposed to tell him this.