Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Of course I do. I just found out that Christine’s carrying a kid, our kid, inside her and we’re… whatever the hell we’re doing. All the lecturing I did earlier about not worrying and keeping present and all that bullshit seems to have gone right out the window now that I understand what’s on the line.
And, at the same time, I’m unexpectedly concerned about the kid, Andra. Alec’s kid. The little moppet who talks with an accent I can hardly understand and who just wants to play fuckin’ hopscotch. Is she okay? And if she is okay, physically, what about the rest of her? Psychologically? Emotionally?
Are these what paternal instincts feel like? Because, if so, I’m already exhausted from having them and I’ve only felt ’em for about thirty minutes.
“What?” I say to Alec, pretending I didn’t hear him clearly.
“I asked if everything’s all right, man. You both seem… Is everything aces?”
I don’t look over at Christine this time. Just nod down at my drink, say, “Yeah, man. Aces. I just… I don’t like not knowing what the fuck’s going on,” and down the rest of my drink in one big gulp, slamming the tumbler down when I’m done.
Alec nods, presses his lips tight together, bringing them inside his mouth, and then, after a few moments of assessing, says, “Well… perhaps we should make a pact then.”
“Pact?” I repeat. “What kind of pact?”
“That when all of this is over and we walk away together—which we will,” he emphasizes, almost as if by saying it out loud he can will its truth into being—“that we see to it that transparency reigns. Rules the day. That we don’t withhold anything from each other ever again. Out of the darkness and into the light and all that.”
He gives a kind of a knowing smile that makes me think he’s aware of what’s happening and is trying to get us to tell him. But, in reality, he’s not. He’s just on a fishing expedition of his own now. I want to say something. I really, really do. But I’ll be able to soon enough, I hope. Because, after all, we’re all in the same boat. As it were.
“Deal,” I say, meaning the shit out of it. “You got it. Out of the darkness—”
“—and into the light,” Christine finishes, putting her hands on the table and opening her palms.
Alec places his hand on top of one of her palms and I do the same with her other, interlacing our fingers. We clutch onto each other, saying nothing for long seconds while the train continues to shuttle us along through the night.
Into the light.
Yeah.
But not yet.
There’s still a little more darkness we’re going to have to endure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Excuse me, Ms. Keene? Mr. Fortnight? Mr. Van den Berg?” comes Nigel’s jovial British voice from beyond the door, accompanied by polite but incessant knocking. “We will be arriving soon.”
Danny, lying next to me on the bed, yawns and stretches out, whacking me in the face as he does.
“Ow,” I say, rubbing at my nose.
“Fuck, sorry,” he coughs, readjusting on the bed and kissing around my just-dinged face like he’s trying to repair any damage done by smooching it away.
“It’s fine, I’m fine, I’m—Danny. Dude, stop. I’m fine,” I insist until he finally flops back on the bed and stops semi-mauling me.
I don’t even remember falling asleep. The last thing I recall is coming back here with Danny and Alec and that’s basically it. I clearly must have just collapsed onto the bed, because my clothes are still on. Danny’s too.
“Morning, loves,” Alec says. He’s sitting just out in the living room area, sunk deep into a club chair, legs crossed, clearly having been watching us sleep just as I watched Danny earlier.
In the moment, I am transported back to a recollection that isn’t mine, but I feel it just the same. I slumbered through Alec’s return to our lives after I fell from the roof and Danny found me in that basement apartment and brought me back to his place—the one that got shot to shit not that long after—but I know Alec was sitting watching us sleep then as well.
This time is so very different.
Not threatening. Not contentious. Not packed with bitter history.
This is just Alec, of Alec, Christine, and Danny, sitting quietly, watching his partners rest before we head off into yet another new unknown.
Of course, what he doesn’t know is that he’s not just watching the two of us. I mean, in the most literal sense it’s true that that’s what he’s doing, but in a more metaphorical sense, he’s watching three of us sleep. Although I don’t know if this new kid I’m carrying sleeps yet. In fact, I’m not even thinking of it yet as “a kid.” I’m still coming to embrace the reality that I am pregnant. And that if nothing goes horribly wrong, it may one day become “a kid.”