Boss with Benefits

Chapter 9 - Our Spark of Hope

"I want to have a baby with you."

Rody wanted to respond. Rody knew he had to respond for himself, for the need to continue this conversation, for the urging anxiety his mind was imposing on him from feeling the silence slowly but excruciatingly lowering its weight onto his shoulders as though taunting him with the suspense, and for he believed Vincent, the person still sitting there quietly on his lap with anticipating eyes, deserved a proper response.

And yet, nothing came out of his mouth, and all the words that he somehow couldn't find in his mind had seemingly all agreed to instead possess his eyes and guide them up and down Vincent, lingering on his face for a while longer than Rody felt was reasonable before following each inch of Vincent's body downward until they landed on his stomach. Outside the window, the snow was still falling, if anything the snowfall was getting heavier by the second to the point the sky was almost painted white, and t was still rather chilly in the room even with heating on with the only truly warm place being under the blanket that were hugging them snugly, keeping them close as the coziness embraced both of them. But somehow, a drop of sweat managed to roll down his cheek and landed onto his shirt.

He gulped.

"H-Hey Rody, are you... alright there?"

Vincent's voice snapped him out of whatever trance he was in that could've been there long enough for a train of thought to start its engine and run to god-knows-where. Forcing his eyes to take themselves off Vincent's body to maintain eye contact with Vincent, he caught a calm gaze that was the front to suppress the dark clouds that were muddling his eyes with rattling anxiety, covering those deep beautiful galaxies that pulled Rody in every time he saw them with a storm that was still quite far away but would be here at any second if this nerve-wracking quietness kept on, threatening to make itself more visible as his eyes shifted rapidly, changing their target with each second he didn't receive a response from Rody. It was in Vincent's hopes that it would help him conceal his growing urge to do something about it, to break the uncomfortable silence between them, with his understanding that he should perhaps be patient to allow Rody to think carefully about his answer—after all, this wasn't as simple as their usual banters, but rather an important question that would significantly affect the rest of their life, hopefully for the better. But with each second that passed by, one more doubt popped up in his mind, teetering dangerously close to his rational side.

Deep in Vincent's wandering mind, there was no reason for Vincent to think Rody had changed his mind on this question that many of their discussions had revolved around for this exact reason—to ensure they were still on the same page—but the silence combined with the unreadable expression on Rody's face gave him pauses. While Vincent was never the greatest at reading people, which he admitted, he had enough experience to say most of his guesses were pretty spot on and, if he dared say it, it was the reason he had managed to avoid many interactions he felt was in his best interests to remove himself from and not repeat the same mistakes his younger self did. However, Rody's expression wasn't even giving any hints to go off of. If anything, there was a sinking feeling inside him saying there was a chance Rody wasn't even sure what emotions he was feeling at all, as though there were simply too many for him to decide on, too many to process, and too many to pin-point which one accurately presented his mind the most at the moment. His rational mind sighed as it told him Rody was merely caught off guard, his indecisiveness claimed Rody was confused about how he really felt about this whole thing, and his intrusive thoughts were the ones exclaiming the most loudly about how Rody was silent because the time had arrived for him to make up his mind about having kids and the confrontation was convincing him that he was actually not ready for it. If that wasn't bad enough, there was even a possibility that he even wished for it to not happen at all.