Blood Love

Then: Same Evening

He hadn't even finished fitting a sheet on the couch when the door opened and she padded down the hall, red hair spilling over her shoulders, cheeks moist. But she wasn't crying.

"What do you think you're doing, you big idiot?" she muttered, rubbing viciously at her eyes.

Jason remembered turning to face her slowly, realizing he should approach the next steps with extreme caution. "Um . . . making my 'I've been a big idiot' bed?"

Her lips twitched. She dropped to the couch, curling into a tight, protective ball. It wasn't an action he appreciated very much. So with a severe frown, he followed and gently tugged her wrist, attempting to untangle her, and she all but leapt at him. He was startled but he didn't freeze up. Not this time. She clung to him with the fierce desperation of a woman at a dead end, between a rock and a hard place, and he didn't know why, so he just held her.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. I just-I'm sorry."

He closed his eyes and breathed her in. Lemon. Cinnamon. Damndest combination but it turned him the hell on. "What's going on, princess?"

"I can't tell you."

At that absurdity he pulled away, because they didn't just keep things from each other. That wasn't how it worked. The honesty didn't even really stem from one of those stupid couple truth-packs, like the one Butch and Ana made. Hayley was too happy to share everything and Jason knew there wasn't anything he couldn't tell her.

Well, almost anything.

Point is, for her to think she couldn't tell him was downright odd.

"You know I'm not cheating on you, right?"

Her index finger traced his ear, breath languid and warm against his neck. "Yeah," she whispered.

"Good."

She said nothing.

"Princess, you gotta tell me what's going on with you. It'll kill me if you don't and you know it."

"I know."

"Good."

But still, she said nothing.

"This is usually the part where you say words."

"Shut up."

He held up his hands. "Fair enough."

Hayley shook out her hair and slapped her cheeks, and proceeded to move through the entirety of a breathing exercise regimen right there with him on the couch. When she finished, she stared him right in the eye. Fierce. Determined. Every bit his Hayley. "I'm-"

And then his phone rang.

Her eyes narrowed. "If you answer that . . ."

The threat was crystal clear, but he fished in his back pocket anyway to check the caller ID. His stomach churned. A bad taste entered his mouth. He was torn.

"Jason, who is it?"

By God, man, just make a decision already. Him or her? Him or her?

"Jason?"

Ball's in your court. Don't fuck up.

Knowing he would regret it later-in blood, no doubt-he shoved the phone back in his pocket and pushed hair away from her face. "Nobody," he said.

"Good, because this is huge. And-and I need your full attention."

"What is it, princess?"

The next few moments he was sure he was present for, but for some reason everything moved by like some surreal dream. She grabbed his hand and palmed her stomach with it, eyes sparkling, cheeks flushing. Her lips moved. Formed words that looked a lot like, "I'm pregnant."

Holy fuck. For fuck's sake. What the hell.

"Jason?"

Nothing. He had nothing. Except maybe the urge to puke. Or run away. Or shoot somebody. Not the most ideal outlets, but come on.

"Jason, please say something."

"I . . . it's . . . I mean . . . shit."

"Really?" she wrenched away, casting him a dry look. "That's all you have to say?"

There was definitely a whole hell of a lot more to say, but all he could manage to do was open and close his mouth like a freaking fish out of water, trying not to lose his cool while simultaneously racking his brain for when it possibly could have happened.

"Jason!"

"How?" he blurted out, heart racing. "We always use-"

Oh.

Dammit.

Hayley seemed to have realized the same thing, because she gnawed on her bottom lip and pushed into the corner of the couch, away from him, away from the truth.

"You've got to be kidding me," he laughed hoarsely, banging his head against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. "Seriously?"

"It fits, Jason. It's the only time that fits."

"But we-we couldn't have-" his eyes dropped to her stomach, still fairly flat; too flat for him to have noticed anything.

She blew out a harsh breath. "Well, I sure as hell didn't sleep with anybody else, and I'm like ninety-nine percent sure it's not immaculate conception, so."

He laughed. He couldn't help it. "Who knew the one time I convince you to-be adventurous-would end with this?"

"Last time we ever do anything like that in the back of your car."

"Whoa, now, let's not get crazy."

She kicked his arm and he grabbed her foot, reeling her in toward him. He caught the yelp of surprise before it could roll off her lips, opening his mouth wide against hers. It was a sloppy, fumbling kiss, broken by intermittent laughter, but perfect all the same.

"We're having a baby," he gasped, framing her face with his hands, staring into her eyes. A terrifying slideshow passed through his head: diapers and formula and late nights and projectile vomiting; crying and tantrums and a family. A family. "Shit, Hayley. We're having a baby."

"I know, right?"

"I'm going to be a father."

"That's generally how it works."

"Holy shit."

Narrow fingers grabbed his cheeks. He focused on a pale face outlined by bright red hair and enlivened by sparkling emerald eyes. "I hope that's a happy 'holy shit'," she murmured, half joking and half nervous. Jason kissed her palms and then pressed his own to the cool flesh of her stomach beneath her top.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah, it's happy."

"Good." Their foreheads knocked together, the little life-to-be nestled between them. "Good."

And for just that moment, before everything fell apart, it really was.