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“That’s genius.” Ami always believes Granny B’s bullshit.
They spend the rest of the afternoon with me, and it’s a nice distraction from my own thoughts. And I get to take a nap without the baby. Biggest highlight of my week right there.
* * *
When Leo returnshome from Phoenix, he can immediately tell I’m struggling with being left at home with Caleb every day. Maybe it’s because I’m crying about as much as Caleb is these days.
He drops his bags at the door and stares at me with wide eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Do I have depression? Is this how it works? I have a baby, money, a boyfriend who is hot as fuck… so what’s the problem?”
Leo continues to stare at me like nothing I said made any sense at all. In fact, it probably didn’t over Caleb screaming and me crying.
He rushes forward and grabs Caleb from me gently. “Baby… it’s okay.”
“But is it?” I ask, still bawling my eyes out. “Why am I crying?”
“I… don’t know,” he admits, watching me as he rocks Caleb, whose tears are starting to slow.
Our eyes meet, and I realize why I’m crying so much. It hits me like a ton of bricks to my chest. Him. I want to believe that everything is fine between us, but we haven’t talked about anything that happened the night we got into that huge fight. The night we brought Caleb into our lives.
Leo breathes out deeply through his nose, shifting Caleb in his arms and tugging at his tie. He tosses it aside and falls to the floor next to Caleb’s car seat I left in the middle of the room. “Talk to me,” Leo urges, still rocking Caleb back in forth in his arms. “If you’re not happy, I need to know. I can’t fix it if I don’t know.”
I stare at him as he holds a baby in his arms. Our baby. The life we created together in what was essentially a one-night stand. Leo hadn’t wanted anything to do with being a dad and now look at him. He knows how to calm his son down in minutes, and I’m the baby’s mom and can’t do that. “He hates me,” I cry, feeling like my blood pressure is going through the roof.
“No, he doesn’t,” he whispers, kissing Caleb’s forehead. “He’s a baby. He doesn’t know what hate is.”
“I don’t want to go back to work” is the next bullshit excuse that leaves my lips. I’m scrambling for anything but the truth.
Leo cocks an eyebrow at me as though he knows I’m lying. “So don’t. Quit and stay home with Caleb.”
“I can’t.” I lift my eyes and stare at the ceiling, not wanting to let him see the fear in my eyes. I want to punch this version of myself. Where is the strong independent woman I was before having a baby? She’s sleep-deprived. “I need the money. I can’t not work.”
Leo snorts. “You don’t need money. We have plenty,” he says, as if I should have known it’s “our” money, not just his. I don’t think of it as our money because we aren’t married. How am I to know he thinks of it this way? He hasn’t even told me he loves me.
“How am I supposed to know that? You’ve never told me.” I turn to face him completely. “You’re never here.”
“I can’t be.” Again, he says this as if I should know. “You know that. But that has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”
“That’s not what I mean. Even when you’rehere, you’re not reallyhere.”
His eyes search mine, his brow scrunched in confusion as he continues to rock a now just-fussy baby. At least he’s not screaming his head off still. “What does that mean?”
I motion between us with a flick of my wrist. “How is this supposed to work exactly?”
Leo shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“We haven’t… talked about what happened.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he grunts quietly and then sets Caleb in his swing. For a moment, Caleb stares at him, and then me, as if he can’t figure out what just happened.
Leo turns toward me, rubbing his hand across his jaw. “Jesus,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “It shouldn’t be this difficult.”
“You’re right; it shouldn’t.” My eyes burn with tears again.
Leo stares at me, and the honesty in his face knocks me sideways. “I want to marry you… someday,” he says, his words warm, but his eyes, they’re conveying emotions I haven’t seen before.
Someday? Part of me is annoyed. It’s as if saying marriage is easier than dealing with our issues and talking about what we really need to say.