Ben grabs his ball and winks at me over his shoulder. He throws a damn strike and celebrates by moonwalking into our neighbor’s lane. Everyone around us laughs at his antics.
“Stop breaking the rules!” I call out.
He does some other weird dance back into our lane.
Shaking my head, I take a sip of my piss beer. I wince at the awful flavor and grab my ball to go next. Ben’s phone starts ringing on the table behind the computer. It’s Norah, and I glance away, unwilling to ruin this moment. He kisses me quickly on the cheek.
“I’m going to grab this. Try not to lose too badly,” Ben says, smiling.
It’s a decent ball. I knock over seven. I’m waiting for a barb, but when I glance at Ben, he’s ashen, the phone pressed against his ear.
Slowly, his eyes meet mine and the sheer terror I see there is enough to incinerate the whole world.
Twice.
Chapter Fourteen
Ben
I’m married to Norah. If I say it to myself seven hundred times a day it still doesn’t sound right. Her birth control failed and I’m going to be a daddy. Doing the right thing was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I made the decision to make her an honest woman after drinking a case of beer with Tahoe. Harder still was telling Harper that Norah was pregnant and I intended to marry her to make sure our child has both parents, all the time. Sometimes you make things work for the greater good. I know this firsthand. I expected hostility, but what I got from Harper was even worse.
Pride.
Harper was proud of me fordoing the right thing. Part of me hoped she’d tell me to love her, stay with her, that she’d be a great stepmother to my child, but Harper Rosehall will always do the right thing. The one time she deviated will go down as the best night of my life. Nothing is going to change that. Not a marriage of moral code and conduct, and surely not a child. Harper is too rational, calculating for that. Granted, tears started to pour down her face a minute later, which erased some of her proud words.
It’s fitting that the one thing that could pull me away from Harper and our age old love happened the moment I felt the most secure in all ways. It was a rug ripped out from underneath me when Norah called me at the bowling alley. She’d been trying to tell me earlier when she stopped by my house, but I was still in a fucking love cloud with Harper—too wrapped up in my perfect world to see how upset she was.
I’m a dickhead. No man has ever carried the amount of guilt on his shoulders that I do. I don’t let it show because that would make the women feel even worse about this fucked up situation. Norah wasn’t easy to convince, either. She immediately went on to tell me she’d raise the baby by herself and that I could be involved as much or as little as I wanted to.
Once the shock of her insinuation wore off I was furious she thought I was the type of man to not take care of his responsibilities. Especially one as great as being a proper father to a child. Everything else stemmed from there. My love and Harper’s feelings had to take a backseat to the new life I helped create. Norah is still wary of my love for Harper, but with a baby girl coming, it’s easy for her to get lost in the world of everything baby and pregnancy. She overlooks a lot. Or she pretends to.
The way I stare out the window waiting for Harper to pull up. The way I close my eyes when Norah kisses me good night. How I can’t bear to look at the full-length mirror in our bedroom. How I haven’t smiled in weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to be a father. More than I ever thought I’d be. I’m upset that it’s not what I pictured in my mind, but then again, what ever is?
Norah gets out of bed to use the restroom. Again. I roll over to face the window and stare. The long window is naked as Norah is redecorating, so it’s bright as fuck in the morning, but you can see everything at night. The stars. The clouds. The moon.
The toilet flushes and I feel her crawl back into bed and her soft breaths. “Ben,” Norah whispers.
I can tell by the tone of her voice this is going to be one of the conversations that make me want to jump out of that window and run fast and far. I clear my throat to let her know I hear her.
“You’re not happy. You told me you needed some time to get used to the idea. It’s a lot for me too. I don’t want you to be unhappy. That’s worse than co-parenting with two happily unmarried parents.” She’s more perceptive than I thought. Norah is my wife. I think that sentence three times. Norah is my pregnant wife. She’s carrying my child.
“We’re married. This is it for me,” I say, my voice cracking from disuse. It’s 2 a.m.
“Why does that sound like a death sentence when you say it?”
“It was the right thing to do.” I roll to face her.
Her face is lit with moonlight. Her blond hair cascades over her shoulders in long waves. She looks ethereal—a figment of my imagination. A woman I should be worshipping. Not getting used to the idea of loving. A small smile appears on her full lips.
“I’ll get there.” I grin back and lay my hand on her stomach.
I asked her father for permission after I asked Norah for her hand in marriage. He knew right away she was pregnant. Norah is in career mode. Nothing would force her from that path except for one thing. “It’s not an arranged marriage, Ben. You shouldn’t have to try,” she replies, laying her hand on top of mine. “When did you see Harper last? That’s why you’re so sad.”
“Seeing Har—her isn’t a good idea and you know it, Norah. Don’t say stupid shit like that. I’m doing what I think is right. What I want.”
“At my expense. I don’t want a marriage like this. You remember when I met your parents and they ended up talking about her? After, I told you I felt like I knew her even though I’d never met her?”
I nod. I can’t think of Harper let alone see her or talk about her.
