As a single mom in a small town, there's only one thing I want. Another baby. When all the roads to getting what I want lead to dead ends, I turn to one of my best friends for help.
In my mind, Trent Castillo is the perfect baby daddy. He has good g...
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After Emily stops crying, we move to the living room couch. The rest of this conversation probably isn't going to be as easy as what just happened. I'm not sure how she's going to react to my terms.
My test results are in her lap, and she keeps looking through them and then staring at me as though she's never seen me before. Which is fair—my response a few weeks ago was pretty emphatic. Does this give me a way to make sure I'm always in her life? Yes. Is that the best reason to be doing this? Maybe not, but I'm offering anyway.
"If you still want to do this, then I'm willing, obviously," I say, gesturing to the papers. "But I have some requests."
"What are those?" she asks, her voice still hoarse with emotion.
"I don't want anyone to know I'm the father," I say.
"Trent," she says, and I can hear the disappointment in that one word.
"People already think you're using a donor, and my big reason for saying no in the first place is still valid. I have a shit reputation in this town. Horrible. I'm not putting that on a kid. The Sullivan shine isn't enough to counteract it, at least not yet. If I can turn around people's opinions of me through the shop, then we can reconsider."
"We're going to have sex in secret," Emily says, her tone brimming with disbelief.
"Well, that answers another one of my questions. I wasn't sure how we'd do it, but yeah, I guess we would."
Her cheeks turn red, and she avoids eye contact.
"If that's not the way you want to do it, then that's fine. We can use a fertility clinic instead."
"I suspect the route you had in mind would be much more fun," I say. "Not going to lie. That kiss got in my head." Really far in, so far I'm not sure I'll ever forget it.
"For me too," she says, her voice still abnormally quiet.
There's a beat of silence between us, and then Emily squares her shoulders. "I'm not going to lie to our kid about who their dad is."
"I'll be around a lot, and he or she will know me as a person, just not as their dad," I say. "Hopefully, by the time we need to worry about telling anyone, I'll have the shop in good shape, and I'll be back in the good books of most of the town."
"I have complete faith in you, Trent, and I'm not asking this because I don't. But what if that's not what happens. What if you never convince all the people you want to convince that you're a decent, upstanding guy who made a colossal mistake at nineteen? What then?"
"Then I'd only want our child to know if it was critical."
"A dad is important. You know that." She stands up and starts pacing. "If you're not okay with our child knowing you're their dad, then I don't think we can do this. Donor sperm would honestly be easier. More straightforward."
