He was trying to figure me out. His eyes were flickering, taking it all in. He wasn’t sure whether to smile or not but in the end, the corner of his mouth won.
“I can’t do that,” he teased.
“But you have to,” I pleaded in my lightest tone of voice. “You said during the hockey game…if you were dared. This is your dare.”
“It’s kind of inappropriate.”
Actually it was perfectly appropriate when you took in everything I had just said.
“Whatever,” I said. “You have to take truth then.”
I tried not to look as rejected and pathetic as I felt with him turning me down, and kept that flirty smile on my face. He leaned in a little closer. Our eyes locked but I didn’t want to give anything away. I hoped that being drunk was preventing him from reading me.
I think it worked because he leaned back slightly and said, “OK, give me truth then.”
I wanted the truth to be something he couldn’t back out of. Something he had to answer, inappropriate or not, something I really wanted to know. I had just the question.
“What was that phone call about? The one you got at the hockey game that you freaked out on and ran away. Who called you? What did they say?”
From the way his shoulders sunk like I had placed some giant, invisible weight on them, to the way his eyes went blank, I knew I had asked the right question. It was something he would have never answered in a million years and now he had to. Or at least, I hoped he had to. I couldn’t force Dex to do anything but I hoped this time I wouldn’t have to.
I let him bide his time, let him suck on his full lower lip, let his eyes try and to stay hidden by blasé and the shadows. I let him feel the booze work through his veins, hoping that it would take his guard down a few notches like it had done with me. I let him decide what to do next.
He answered. He tried to appear casual about it but he said, “Jennifer is pregnant.”
And with those words, my whole world came crashing down.
CHAPTER NINE
I couldn’t believe what had come out of Dex’s mouth. Jennifer was pregnant?
“Jennifer is what?” I squeaked. “Pregnant? Your Jennifer?”
He nodded somberly, his face as blank as possible.
Mine wasn’t. I was unable to hide my emotions, even though I wasn’t really sure what my emotions were. This hit me like a pile of bricks had dropped off the top of a building. I was floored. I was flattened. Jennifer was pregnant. His girlfriend was pregnant with his baby.
Wait, maybe it wasn’t his baby. The thought relieved me for a second.
“With your baby?” I asked to make sure.
“Yeah. My…mine,” he said awkwardly.
Fuck. Shit. Obviously this was all about Dex, this was Dex’s problem (or not problem), but I couldn’t wrap my head around it, about the way it was affecting me. He might has as well have told me they were getting married. My heart lurched again at that thought, more horrifying and defeating than the one before. It felt like I had a fish hook through my guts.
I needed to pull it together. I needed to stop staring at him with what I was sure was a pained expression. There he was, telling me something he didn’t want me to know, something life–altering, life–halting (to me, anyway) and I was so engrossed in my own feelings I couldn’t take a moment to ask what this meant to him.
What did I say? I’m sorry? I looked at his face and got nothing from it. He was as serious as he ever was, but I couldn’t gather whether this was a joyous occasion or not.
So I just said, “Oh. Wow.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh and reached for the Jack Daniels.
“When did you find out?” I asked.
“Just last night. During the hockey game. Actually she had been suspecting she was. Missed her period last week. We thought maybe it was just stress because she travels so much for the show. That can fuck women up or something. She’s on birth control, so it didn’t seem possible. I mean, how the fuck is that fucking possible?”
“So…she thought she was pregnant…and she told you this?”
“Yeah, a few days ago.”
“And you still came out here to the island?”
He didn’t look vaguely bothered by that. “Yeah. It’s work. Like I said, we thought it was just stress. She took a test yesterday. It was positive. That’s when she called me.”
No wonder he was so upset during the game. Wait a minute….
“So, she calls you and tells you she’s pregnant. And then you celebrate by dragging me off to a bloody strip club?!”
He did look sheepish at that. He tried to shrug but it seemed the weight on his shoulders was too much.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he said feebly.
“I know what you don’t do,” I said, pointing at him. “You don’t go to a fucking strip club and buy your girl partner a lap dance when you know your girlfriend just found out she’s pregnant!”
As much as I hated Jenn, Dex was acting like a royal douchebag. My mind kept rolling back the reel of last night, looking for signs that Dex was dealing adversely with something so huge as finding out his girlfriend was pregnant. I couldn’t find anything except his damn perversions and borderline sleaziness.
“Yuck, Dex. Yuck,” I said again for emphasis, leaning back in my seat and staring him down like some disapproving mother figure.