Everything Unexpected (13 page)

“YOU SURE IT’S yours?”

I look up from my coffee mug, a glare of warning silently threatening Bryan to think carefully about his next few words. I won’t even dignify the question with an answer. He should know better. He
does
know better. This is Leah we are talking about.

Realizing he’s struck a nerve with that comment, he immediately back tracks. “You’re right. Sorry,” he says apologetically. “Just covering the bases.”

“I don’t understand how this happened,” I groan, rubbing the tiredness out of my eyes. I wasn’t able to sleep at all last night. After Leah left, I went back to my room and just…sat there. For minutes, hours, the entire night. I heard Bryan come in around midnight, slowly moving about in the kitchen, but I stayed in my room, lost in blank thought.

Leah is pregnant.

Leah is pregnant with a child.

My
child.

No matter how many times those two words run over and over in my mind, it still doesn’t make any sense to me. How could this have happened? We used protection. Sure, we were a little drunk, but we weren’t stupid. I still have the second unused condom somewhere in my room.

“Well, when a boy’s peepee and a girl’s—” Bryan starts.

“Shut up. You know what I mean,” I say looking up at him. “We used protection,” my voice adamant. “I got them out of
your
drawer. How am I ever supposed to trust latex again?”

Bryan’s brows jerk up. “My drawer?”

I nod.

“The ones in your nightstand. You had a couple left in there,” I tell him, leaning back against the bar stool.

“I had rubbers in there?” he asks, surprised.

“I just told you that,” I say, annoyed at the circle this conversation seems to be taking.

Bryan narrows his eyes as if he’s trying to figure something out. “I haven’t put any in there in a long time. I usually keep them right under the mattress. Easier access,” he says, taking a sip of his own coffee. “And Kenny’s on the pill.” He looks up at me questioningly. “You check the expiration date before you used them?”

Check the expiration date? Who the hell does that? Of course I didn’t.

I hop off the stool and head for my room in search of that lone unused packet. I find it quickly, figuring I had thrown it in my nightstand, and flip it over to read the small imprinted date found on the bottom corner.

And there it is, staring me in the face.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. It feels like a hundred pounds of guilt has just fallen on my shoulders. I scrunch the lone packet in my hands, knowing I’ll never use it. I thought we were being careful. Obviously we weren’t careful enough.

Bryan comes into my room, walking up behind me. I throw the wrinkled packet back onto my bed and walk to the window, pinning one hand against the wall.

“Expired. Almost a year ago,” I tell him.

He doesn’t say anything. What is there to say? It won’t change anything. I hear his retreating steps before my door closes, leaving me alone to digest this information. Digest the enormous amount of responsibility I just had to swallow.

It was
me
who promised her nothing would change. It was
me
who reassured her everything would stay the same. It’s
me
who’s failed at the coming through on those promises.

Outside my window, the bright Miami sun beams from the blue sky and a sliver of the Atlantic Ocean is visible between the buildings and houses in the area. Even from here, that thin sliver of blue looks limitless. An infinite line with no ending.

I can’t help but laugh to myself at the irony. Staring out at something so vast and vigorous, nothing short of impressive by its sheer size and openness, yet here I am, a few short miles away never having felt more trapped.

THERE’S ONLY ONE person I can talk to about all of this, who I can trust to speak openly and honestly with me. Hopefully my father can give me some advice on how to better handle all of this, because so far, I haven’t done too good a job.

My parent’s home is an hour outside of the city. My mother spends most of her time here while my father, who refuses to retire, comes downtown to work every day. Why should he retire? He’s the CEO of an incredibly successful marketing firm—the same firm he aspired for me to take over one day—and he’s still at the top of his game. People want to work for him and clients want him to work for them. He enjoys what he does and he’s great at it. And truthfully, I don’t think my mother is ready to have him around all the time yet either.

“I couldn’t imagine a worse hell than him sulking around the house bored all day,” she told me once.

She, on the other hand, loves being out here, away from the city and the noise. She loves going to lunch with her girlfriends, playing tennis at the club, nurturing the house she and my father worked tirelessly to build. This was their dream home. There are several occasions she meets my father in the city and stays with him at their small condo during the week. It was just easier for them to have one there for those times my father had late nights or early mornings. It was also an excuse to drop by my place at any time because they were both already spending the night in the city. I think she likes to pop in and surprise my father as well, make sure he’s not cheating on his diet, or God forbid, sneaking in a smoke. My father may be the head of his company, but my mother is the CEO of this family, and neither of us have yet to meet anyone fiercer at that job.

No one has ever been a better partner to someone like my mother has been to my father. They love each other completely. It was nice, growing up with that around me. Two parents who loved and liked each other more than they didn’t. Divorce happened more often than you could imagine among many of my parent’s friends. I was lucky; my parents are the real deal. Still are.

I pull into the driveway and instantly feel at ease. It’s the first time in days I’ve been able to finally breathe. It’s this house, being here. It has nothing but great memories of family dinners, holidays, and anniversary parties attached to it. This house represents everything I want my future to look like one day. Much
further
in the future.

I pull up in front of the three car garage, only my father’s car is parked outside. I walk up the small stone steps to the front door, inhaling the floral scents coming from the bushes in my mother’s garden. She’ll spend hours out here tending to it. Pruning, weeding, caring plants back to life. My father offered to get her a gardener so she wouldn’t have to do it all but she insisted that putting in the work was half the fun of enjoying it. He couldn’t argue with that. He feels the same way about his company.

Although my father and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, he’s still the one person I trust most. Was he disappointed when I left business school for art? Yes. Was he worried about what kind of life I would have as a photographer? Without a doubt. Is he impressed with what I’ve been able to achieve so far? You bet. Does he hide it? Abso-fucking-lutely.

I don’t bother knocking, and let myself in. The house is fairly large with marble floors and a winding iron staircase in the middle of the entrance. Every room in this house is big in size but feels lived in. Family pictures are littered around each room, divots formed in the furniture from years of use. No one could ever say this house wasn’t a family home.

I hear the television echoing through the hallway, the soothing voices of golf commentators coming from it. “Dad?” I call out.

“In here!” he yells back.

I shake my head because “in here” could mean a few rooms in the house. I follow the sound of the television, entering the kitchen, finding the remnants of a sandwich on the counter. I look out into the family room where the golf game is being shown but my father is nowhere in sight.

“Where’s here?” I call out again.

“My office!”

I turn and walk down the hallway. His office is exactly what you’d imagine the office of a sixty-year-old man to look like. It’s the one room that’s the complete opposite of the rest of the house. Made up of dark mahogany furniture, dark shelving and a large obtrusive desk, this room oozes Able Carlisle. The walls are painted a mossy green and the windows are covered with dark wooden shutters. Not even the strong Florida sun can shine its rays through them when closed. But oddly, it feels welcoming. When I was younger, I loved hanging out in here with him. I’d do my homework on the couch in the corner while he worked away at his desk.

“My two men working hard,” my mother would say as she walked by.

I find my father sitting at his desk, typing on his laptop. The minute I walk in, he takes his reading glasses off and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his large chest, examining me for a minute before he speaks. “This must be bad.”

I look away, somewhat annoyed at how well he knows me. I look around his office, not quite ready to get into the reason why I came. A cheer from the crowd on the television roars, finding its way into the office.

“You could just watch this TV instead of having it on full blast out there,” I say pointing to the small flat screen hanging on the wall.

He shakes his head. “Too distracting. I like it as background noise.”

My father and I don’t look all that much alike. I take more after my mother except for the skin tone, though I’m not nearly as dark as him. He’s also shorter and burlier than my taller, leaner frame. I easily stand over him by several inches but he has the capability to make himself the tallest man in the room. I used to fear that about him. Now I admire him for it.

I walk around his office as I’ve done many times before, rereading the titles of books he has on his shelf, skimming over the awards displayed on his mantle. His office is somewhat of a shrine to his life’s work. Everything he’s worked so hard to achieve on display. And above all those awards, larger than anything else in this room, is our family portrait from years ago. His most prized accomplishment.

“All right, son. Stop sidestepping and tell me what you’ve done.”

I turn and look at him, his expression all too full of awareness. Like he already knows what I’m about to say will be life-changing.

“How much trouble are you in?” he asks, now serious.

“I’m not sure,” I say sitting down in one of the chairs in front of his desk. I rub my hands along my jean-clad legs before I lean in, resting my elbows on my knees. “Leah’s pregnant,” I say quietly.

He blinks and digests the news for a minute. “And since you’re telling me this, am I right to assume it’s yours?”

I nod, barely.

His hands fall to the armrests of his chair, and I’m surprised at how relieved I feel when I don’t see immediate disappointment flash across his face. He’s taking time to gather his thoughts, drumming his fingers against the black leather. He used do the exact same thing when deciding my groundings as a teenager.

“I’m also going to assume this wasn’t planned, which leads me to believe you didn’t follow the simple rule I gave you the minute you turned sixteen. Wrap it up! That was your responsibility Shane. You want to have sex, be prepared—”

“Dad, it wasn’t like that,” I interrupt. “We were careful. But it still…happened.”

He looks out the window for a brief moment before turning his attention back to me. I always wished I could tell what he was going to say before he said it. Have time to prepare myself for his words. To bask in the glow of his approval, or build armor for the hit I’m about to take. This time, I’m surprised when he doesn’t even make it about me.

“How is she?” he asks.

I don’t know why the question throws me. Both my parents have always really liked Leah and cared for her. Maybe it’s because I’m not really sure how to answer it. Our communication these last few days—hell, weeks—has been a little…strained.

I think back to the night Leah told me the news, then to the following day when she stopped by to drop off pamphlets the clinic gave her, the look on her face still very vivid.

“Scared,” I say.

My father stands from his chair and slowly makes his way around the desk, stopping directly in front of me.

“Boy,” he says that one word with such command, I look up immediately. “You want to be a man at night, you be a man in the morning. Understand me? Your only focus right now should be to make sure she doesn’t feel that way. This woman is carrying your child and—”

“I’m not sure for how long it will stay that way,” I interrupt him.

“Come again?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowing.

“We have an appointment this week. To discuss…options.” In the past, this would be a no brainer for me, but now, I’m too unsettled to even say the word.

“I see,” he says. His expression turning stern. “Was this her idea or did you—”

“Of course not. I would never,” I assure him.

He nods once, believing me before taking a seat right next to me.

“What about you?” he asks, crossing one leg over the other.

I turn my head towards him. “Me what?”

“How do you feel about this?”

I shake my head. “I have no clue. I mean, it’s not my choice. It’s her body. Like you said, my job right now is to support. I just have no idea how to do that,” I tell him. “That’s why I’m here.”

My dad laughs. “Son, no amount of advice I give you is going make this easier. The both of you have to figure this out together. You’ve put yourselves in this position and now it’s time to own up to it. Children are a blessing. But they deserve more than being born into a lack of options, you hear?”

I swallow and nod. “I hear.”

“Nothing will prove yourself more of a man than the way you conduct yourself right now. With her. So be the man I know you are. The man I know your mother and I raised you to be.”

I breathe out a small laugh. I want to be that man. The man my father believes I am. The man Leah needs me to be.

“Thanks, Dad.”

The front door of the house slams and my mother’s voice sings down the hallway. “Shane?”

She finds us easily in the office. Wearing jeans and a loose purple blouse, her shoulder length blonde hair falls just beyond her shoulders, still with little to no hints of gray. Her skin is lightly flushed from the outside sun, her green eyes covered by sunglasses. “I didn’t know you were coming by today.”