I thought of my brothers during the silence and I figured it would be best to ring and call them around to my father’s house for a family meeting. I dug my phone out of my bag, unlocked it, found Harley’s number and pressed it.
“Who are you calling?” Kane inquisitively asked.
I looked straight ahead as I answered, “Me brother.”
Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Kane nod his head in understanding. I refocused on my phone when I heard a voice say, “Hello.”
“Hey, are you with James and Dante by any chance?” I asked my brother, Harley, when he answered his phone.
Harley chortled, “Good morning to you too, little sister.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you with them or not, Harley?”
He clicked his tongue at me. “Temper, sister. They’re both round in mine. Why?”
I exhaled a nervous breath, “Meet me at Da’s house in ten minutes, I need to tell you all somethin’.”
Silence.
“Are you okay?” Harley asked apprehensively.
I glanced at Kane, who was driving and swallowed. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Kind of.
“Okay, see you in ten,” Harley quipped.
I put my phone back into my bag when my brother hung up. I busied myself with closing my bag just so I wouldn’t have to look up. I didn’t want my eyes to drift to Kane because I still couldn’t believe the situation we were both in.
“Before we tell your family about the baby... can we talk about it first? After you had told me last night, we talked a little but not much.”
That caught me off guard.
“Sure... wh-what do you want to talk about exactly?”
“Okay.” Kane nodded more to himself than me. “Be honest with me... are you happy you’re pregnant?”
I blinked. “Why are you askin’ me that?”
Kane sighed, “Because I don’t want you to carry on with the pregnancy if you don’t want to.”
I stared at Kane. Hard.
“I’m not havin’ an abortion Kane, not even if you want me to. I will not murder an innocent child because we were too stupid to use protection!”
“Hey!” Kane snapped. “I am not suggesting that at all. I swear I’m not. I was just putting the option on the table in case you felt pressured into having the baby. Honestly, I’m fucking thrilled you feel the way you do because I feel the exact same way.”
I swallowed. “You do? Really? You aren’t just sayin’ that?”
“Really, sweetheart. I never thought I’d have kids, but surprisingly I’m really excited about it. I can’t begin to explain why. I’m scared shitless, but I’m very happy at the same time and I want you to be happy about it too.”
I blew out a big breath. “I’m happy now. At first I wasn’t because I thought of the worst possible things like how you would react, would I be able to be a good mother, things like that, but now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, I’m happy. I haven’t fully processed it all yet, but I’m excited.”
“I don’t feel as sick now,” Kane chuckled.
I laughed and rested my head back against the headrest.
“I’m not going to flake on you, you know that, right?” he said a few moments later.
I had to look up because his question confused me.
“Huh?”
Kane glanced at me and nodded to my stomach before returning his eyes to the road. “You and the baby. I won’t flake—I’ll be there every step of the way. I won’t be a deadbeat dad, I promise.”
The comfort that gave me shocked me and I tried to play it off like it was nothing.
“Oh, yeah, sure. I know you’ll be a good father.”
It was my ability to be a good mother that was still worrying me.
“It’s all going to be okay. I know the girls have been repeating that to you, but it really will be okay. I’ll look after you. The both of you.”
That made me curious.
“How?” I asked.
Kane glanced at me for a moment. “What?”
“How are you goin’ to look after me and the baby?” I clarified.
I sounded snippy and rude. I didn’t mean to, I was generally interested in this discussion.
“By supporting you—”
“In what way?” I cut in and probed.
Kane’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Financially, emotionally... whatever way you need my support, you’ve got it.”
I blinked. “You don’t have a job, and we aren’t in a relationship so how can you support me financially and emotionally?”
Kane shook his head. “I don’t need to be dating you to be there for you... and you let me worry about my money, okay?”
“No,” I answered. “I’ll give on the emotional aspect, but if this is goin’ to work, if you want to raise this baby together then I want to know where the financial support is comin’ from.”
“Aideen,” Kane said, his tone firm.
I straightened up. “Kane.”
“Do we have to do this right now?” he asked, irritated.
“Yes,” I replied. “You may think we have all the time in the world to have this conversation, but this baby will be here before we know it and babies require a lot of things before they even get here. I’m three months gone, so that leaves me six months to find somewhere else to live because me current apartment is too small for a party bigger than one. I’ll need to go out and buy a cot, a pram, a changin’ table, a whole wardrobe of clothes, nappies—a lot of nappies—wet wipes, creams, lotions, powders, linen, blankets, a car seat—”
“Aideen!” Kane cut me off with a shout. “I get it! I know there is a lot of things that we will need to buy and a lot of things that need to be done, but I’ll make sure it gets done. Okay? Just trust that I can take care of you.”
I wasn’t convinced. I shook my head and turned to look out the window of the car.
“Why are you shaking your head?”
I huffed, “Because you sayin’ ‘trust me, I’ve got this’ doesn’t make me feel better at all. I work a full-time job five days a week, and I live in a tiny apartment. Granted it’s bigger than Keela’s old place, but it’s not ideal for everythin’ I’m goin’ to need. I’m worried, okay? I’ve never had another being dependin’ solely on me before.”
Kane was silent for a moment before he said, “You could move in with me. That’s an option.”
I hurt my neck when I snapped my head to look at Kane. “That was a joke, right?”
Kane set his jaw. “No.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, “We aren’t in a relationship and you think livin’ together is the way to go?”
He ground his teeth together before saying, “Living in the same space doesn’t mean anything has to happen, or that anything will happen between us. Believe it or not, my focus is one hundred percent on our baby inside of you. I can’t even think of sex or anything else right now.”
I snorted, “Yeah, well that makes two of us.”
Kane sighed, “I don’t want to fight, not about this. When you—I mean when we have time to process things we can talk about this further, okay?”
I saw no point in arguing against that right now, so I nodded my head and remained silent for the final few minutes of the drive. We got to my father’s house quicker than I would have liked. Before I knew it, I was standing outside staring at the front door, hesitant to knock.
“Do you want me to—”
“No,” I cut Kane off. “I can do this. You just tell your brothers to stay across the road.”
Kane mumbled something. I didn’t know what it was, but I took it as an okay. I stepped towards the front door of my father’s house and just as I lifted my hand to knock, the door swung open.
“Hey, what took you so long? We got here five minutes ago.”
Five minutes ago?
“What the hell do you drive? A rocket?”
My eldest brother, James, laughed at me, but when his eyes drifted past me and landed on the soul to the right of me, they instantly narrowed.