The Box Cutters

"Trouble wieghs a ton." -Dan Auerbach

LEO

"I'm pregnant."

He wasn't sure if he had heard it correctly at first. She said it without hesitation, without a hint of emotion, she carried such an alarming confidence in her voice.

"What?"

She repeated herself, this time he watched her closely and saw she was serious, there was no lie in her eyes, and that struck fear in his gut. Sweat broke out from his forehead. He took the napkin from the table and wiped his brow, self-conscious that other people in the restaurant would see him.

"Are you serious?"

It was a useless question. Of course she was serious, she was serious the minute she walked into the restaurant to meet him. She was serious when she told him she couldn't be sneaking around with him anymore. She was serious when she said she loved her boyfriend very much and didn't want Leo to impose on their relationship. She was serious that the first time was going to be the last time. And now here they are once again, sneaking around behind Arturo's back only this time the circumstances were different and all the progress that Jackie has made to better her relationship with him is ready to topple over like an overrun glass of water. And to add to that, as she looks at Leo with his scruffy face, combed back hair, and his black button up shirt, she is suddenly struck with the realization that she might be developing feelings for Leo that far surpass her relationship with Arturo and such an epiphany makes her sick to the core.

Leo shakes his head, looking down at the paper tablecloth that little kids could write on. Fear runs through him in the form of chills, a feeling he was almost to familiar with.

"Who's the father?"
"I don't know."
"Do you have any clue?"
"I might."
"Then tell me."
"Why do you think I'm here?"
"Well..." He couldn't say anything. What could he say? "It's me isn't it?"

He sees her starting to choke up, fighting back tears in her eyes. the air in his lungs seems to shorten and the noise in the room amplifies with every passing moment, the people surrounding him in the restaurant are moving at an impressive rate, a panic attack seems inevitable. He hasn't had one in almost a month. But somehow in the midst of all this subtle chaos, he for some reason could not stop thinking about Jackie's ass. The roundness, the weight it carried, the surprisingly sexy tan line that he so vividly remembered the last time he saw her on all fours, looking back at him with the kind of eyes that let you know exactly what she wanted. It had only been a few weeks, but to him it was a lifetime and a half since he had felt her warm skin at the tip of his fingers. A lifetime and a half since he had given her that bite mark on the back of her neck and tried to pass it off to Arturo as a burn from a curling iron, which he fell for despite the fact that she never curls her hair except for special occasions that come only once every few months. 'He can be such a pendejo sometimes.' Leo thought, but he was in no position to talk anymore, because all the sneaking around, and lying, and late night dates in the backseat of the Shitbox Suburban would all eventually lead up to this. The two of them here sitting across from each other at this overpriced Italian franchise, underneath the dim lighting with the events to come beyond their imaging.
He waves down the waiter and asks for the check. The drive home is a quiet one, not even the blasting radio could drown out the silence. At the front door he tells her that he doesn't know what to do.
"You do what you need to do." She says back to him, and that was the end of that. He'll call her in the morning but their won't be very much to say, even though he knows there is a lot to talk about. He knew it wasn't the right time to tell her he quit his job at the Shell Station.
When he got back into his truck, he picked up the phone and dialed the only person he could trust.