“Miss Lorne?”
“Sorry, let me get back to you in an hour. I’ll let you know,” I said, hanging up.
I felt dumbfounded and a little sheepish. I had a chance. But Burke’s absence was making it damn near impossible to commit or decide on anything. Part of me wanted to say if the asshole wanted to toss aside his chance to have a say, that was his problem. He knew where to find me.
But I couldn’t sink so low as to be that crass. I had to be better.
I looked at my phone and decided to call Kelly. I didn’t want to depend on her for all the answers, but with the stakes of this case, I couldn’t let it go. I needed to bounce this off someone else.
I called.
“Em?” Kelly said on the other end. She sounded a little more alert—and also a little more frazzled. Cognizant that Charlotte and Cody might have given her hell this morning—perhaps all weekend—I told myself to remain calm and not overwhelm her with information. “Is everything all right?”
“No, it’s not. Fucking Burke ghosted me and now the doc is asking if I want to implant more than one embryo which could result in twins.”
Well, so much for remaining calm and not overwhelming her. I guess now that I’d gotten the chance to get it off my chest, the unloading was going to be fucking intense.
“He agreed to do everything over the weekend, and I even saw him at the fucking clinic on Sunday when he dropped everything off. I asked him to do dinner with me, he said lunch today, and well, here I am, at the restaurant, waiting for Burke to show up, and the bastard is nowhere to be seen.”
I was partially aware that being in a public restaurant was probably not the place to say a lot of what was on the tip of my tongue, but it was much too late to reign myself in.
“I’ve been giving myself injections every day and doing an unbelievable amount of ultrasounds and blood tests just to get this shit set up, Kelly,” I said, my voice starting to crack a bit. “And that’s on top of my regular daily life. What should I do?”
“OK,” Kelly said, taking a breath. “First, breathe.”
I did as commanded. It gave me the chance to look around and see that people were giving me side glances. Fuck ‘em, though at least I was calming down some because of Kelly’s words.
“You need to remember that this is how these guys roll. It is not personal. He didn’t ghost you.”
I nodded.
“Emily?”
“Sorry, I was just…I think I know where you’re going with this.”
“It’s all good,” Kelly said sweetly, though there was still something somewhat frazzled about her voice. I made a note to ask her about it at the end of the call, but not right now. “These guys aren’t very good at being open and expressive about what they want. Commitment isn’t just something they’re afraid of; they literally actively avoid it. So give it time. Burke may come back.”
“And if he doesn’t?” I said.
Those four words stung me more than I thought they would. Saying them out loud seemed to somehow make them more possible. Like I’d made the ultimate deal with the devil, and for the first time, I was realizing what the catch might be.
“Remember why you’re doing this,” Kelly said. “You’re doing this so you can have a kid, right? I know you are crushing on him and were hoping he felt the same but you’re still in a spot where you can have a kid, yeah?”
Possibly even two, actually. Haven’t decided yet, but…
“True,” I said, feeling a little more uplifted.
“So I’m not saying settle for it, but just remember, these things are complicated. You’re in a great spot compared to before. You just…need to give it some time, I guess.”
And then Kelly said something, perhaps without even realizing it, that utterly cemented my desire to press forward, Burke or no Burke.
“You can back out, right? Just throw away the sperm and move on?”
The very thought was atrocious to me. Perhaps a couple years ago, I could have easily dismissed it. But now, being so close to the “finish line,” there was no way.
“Hell no,” I said emphatically. “I want this kid more than anything, Kelly, and I’m not backing down on that.”
I took a breath.
“Sorry. I should have really called you somewhere private.”
“It’s OK,” Kelly said with a laugh. “I’m here to talk to you anytime, you know.”
“I know, you’re the best.”
It was easy to conclude—or at least, easy for me to decide—that Burke had agreed to this by the very act of entering the center and providing sperm. I did want to proceed. I would not stop.
The only question I needed to figure out was if I wanted two embryos or just one. But I’d need the full hour to figure it out. And there was something else I needed to ask right now.
“Everything all right with you?” I asked. “You sound like you’re in a more chaotic situation than Saturday.”
“Yeah, a bit.”
I waited for Kelly to fill the gaps and explain why. Strangely, though, the other end of the line was silent. I almost wondered if we’d gotten disconnected.
“Kelly?”
“I’m here.”
How odd.
“What’s going on with you?”
“Oh, the kids have just been fussy. Charlotte’s hitting the terrible twos, and Cody didn’t sleep well last night. Liam’s been out, but…yeah, mostly just the kids.”
“Liam’s been out?”
“Yeah.”
I was getting the sense that Kelly was getting more and more uncomfortable with the conversation. The more I asked about how things were, the more cliche the answers
