Who's Your Daddy? Read Online Free PDF

was this parenting thing that would do me in.
    Isaac shifted, and that prickling feeling in my spine intensified.
    “Sorry,” I said. “What did you need to talk about?”
    His eyes darted toward the direction Ryan had just gone. “Maybe it should wait until he comes back up with his homework.”
    My stomach flipped. “Why?”
    Isaac looked at me, something unusually and unnervingly intense hiding in his hazel eyes, and cool water flooded my veins. There was nothing less than we shouldn’t discuss this in front of him written on his face, and now I needed to know what was on his mind.
    I chewed my lip.
    A moment later, Ryan returned with a small stack of printed pages paper-clipped together. “It’s not done yet. I’m going to finish it when I get home.”
    Normally, I’d have gotten on his case for procrastinating, but instead, I just flipped through it, skimming over everything to make sure it wasn’t an attempt to skate and bullshit. Then I nodded and handed it back to him. “Okay. Good enough. Remind me tomorrow, and I’ll get you some cash.”
    “Thanks.” He took the paper and disappeared down the stairs again.
    Isaac and I stood in silence. Awkward, tense silence that had never existed between us. Not even the morning after we’d slept with Carmen. Yeah, it had been uncomfortable, but not like this. Maybe it was the difference between “what did we just do?” and “what aren’t you telling me?” Maybe it was that additional undercurrent of fear on my part.
    Ryan emerged from downstairs again, and with his customary mumbled good-bye, took off out the back door. Once it had banged shut behind him, I released my breath.
    Facing Isaac, I said, “So, what’s up?”
    He glanced at the door one more time, as if to make absolutely sure Ryan was gone. Then his eyes shifted toward me. “Carmen came by my office today.”
    My spine straightened. “Really? How’s she doing?”
    “She’s…okay.” He chewed the inside of his cheek and dropped his gaze, watching his fingers drum on the counter.
    “I’m guessing this has to do with, um, last time?”
    He nodded, still not meeting my eyes.
    I resisted the urge to tap my foot just to release some nervous energy. “So, is she okay with what happened?”
    “She is,” he said. “But she’s coming over tomorrow evening, and all three of us need to sit down and talk.”
    I cringed inwardly. Awkward conversation, here we come .
    Then he went on. “Don, she’s pregnant.”
    For a few seconds, shock and denial kept me from connecting everything, and my first instinct was to be concerned to the point of panic about my friend. The last few months had been hell for her, and this was the last thing she needed.
    As I held Isaac’s gaze, though, the rest of the pieces fell into place, and I grabbed the kitchen island for balance just before my knees gave out.
    “Are you—” My mouth had gone dry. I moistened my lips and shook my head. “You’re serious. She’s pregnant.”
    Isaac nodded.
    Blowing out a breath, I raked an unsteady hand through my hair. “Oh, my God…”
    “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “And here I was thinking she’d just be concerned about things being awkward between us.”
    “No kidding.” A million thoughts crowded their way to the front of my mind. Fears. Worries. An unsettlingly familiar “oh, shit” feeling that had unraveled in my gut just like this almost seventeen years ago. The feeling that reduced me to that scared, stunned teenager who’d just learned he was about to be a parent the first time.
    “Fuck…” I whispered.
    “Need some time?” Isaac asked.
    God bless the man and his unwavering understanding of my need to process things on my own before we could discuss them.
    “Yeah, I do. I…” I moistened my lips again and gestured over my shoulder with my thumb at the stairs. “I’m going to go up and grab a shower. Then I guess…we can…”
    “Talk over a couple glasses of wine?”