I crane my head to look at the door, expecting there to be a knock. Man would I be pissed—but not surprised.

“So what next? Where do you go after you move out of Tripp’s place?”

True seems to freeze, setting down her fork. Uses the napkin to dab at her mouth and sits back in her chair.

“Well. That’s a good question. Um.” Her palms run up and down the legs of her jeans, like they’re sweaty and she needs to dry them off. “So. Originally I was going to look for an apartment because um, I travel so much—used to travel so much,” she amends. “But I think I’m going to have to rethink those plans.”

“Why?”

True swallows hard. “Um.”

That’s the third time she’s said ‘um,’ which has me staring at her curiously—she has something to say but can’t seem to spit it out.

I wait silently.

“So, yeah. I…will probably look for a house with…a yard. Or, I don’t know, something a little more…” Another pronounced swallow. “Kid-friendly.”

Kid-friendly.

Nice, she must be ready for a serious relationship if she’s thinking that far ahead, planning for a family. Kids. The proverbial house with the white picket fence in a nice neighborhood. One dog, perhaps a cat.

Wait, no.

No to the cat.

I don’t need one eating me in my sleep, or sitting on my face and suffocating me.

“A house around where your brothers are?”

More hesitating. “I guess that depends.”

She’s being cryptic, and if she’s waiting for me to read her mind, she’s going to be waiting a long time.

But for now, I’ll play along and ask the questions she’s guiding me to ask.

“Depends on what?”

“You.”

I stop eating and look up, pausing with the fork halfway to my mouth. “Is this a proposal?”

I mean, I’m all for commitment, but True and I haven’t even been on a real date. We banged once at her brother’s wedding, she ghosted me, and—

The gears in my brain start to turn.

Clicking.

Eyes stray down the front of her button-down shirt. Up again.

Banged at her brother’s wedding.

Ghosted me.

House that’s kid-friendly.

Ghosted me.

Banged one time, how long ago. How long ago was it, Mateo?

Think dude, think!

Let’s see, the wedding was in late fall—before or after Halloween? Shit, I barely remember. We were done for the season, so it would have been November? No—because Tripp would have been in season, right? Fuck, I’m terrible at math.

Eight weeks?

Twelve?

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” True asks softly.

“I just did.” My stomach is in knots. “I said, Is this a proposal?”

She looks as ill as I suddenly feel. “Ha. No.”

I wish she would just say what I know she came here to say, or maybe I’m so fucking wrong, but every instinct inside me tells me I’m right. What the hell do you know about women, idiot? You’ve never had a girlfriend that was a decent human being.

You’re being paranoid, bro.

She isn’t being weird and she doesn’t look sick and she’s not about to tell you she’s pregnant.

She’s not.

She isn’t.

Your mother would fucking kill you.

I remember all the lectures I’ve heard over the past ten years about wearing condoms and making sure the girls I slept with were on birth control, but still always wear a condom and don’t be stupid, this is your future. It’s not just the woman’s responsibility to be…responsible.

Wear a condom, wear a condom, wear a condom.

I did, didn’t I?

I can’t for the life of me remember.

Had to have worn one, had to have; I’d been drinking, but I wasn’t drunk.

Where would a condom have come from, though? It’s not like I’d planned to bang anyone that night…

True Wallace is not…she can’t be.

The rice I downed earlier comes halfway back up my throat, and if she has anything to say, now would be the time.

“So you’re thinking of buying a house.” I’m desperate to keep this conversation moving along, evidently at a snail’s pace. “That sounds cool.”

“Mateo.” Her voice is low and soft, and if it were a motion, she’d be resting her hand on top of mine to quiet me.

“True.”

“That night we slept together at my brother’s wedding—”

I rise from the table, knocking back the chair, fingers plowing through my hair. “I knew it. I knew that’s what you were going to say, oh my god, my mother is going to kill me.” And sure, I wish I were handling this better but HOLY FUCK I got a girl pregnant. A girl I’m not married to or engaged to and what the hell do I tell my family, oh my god.

What is my publicist going to say when he finds out?

Fuck.

The media.

Fuck the media.

True is watching me pace, and if she wasn’t sitting there I’d put on my running shoes and start sprinting around the block, adrenaline coursing through my body.

This is not how I thought I’d react when I found out I was going to be a father—but then again, these aren’t exactly the circumstances I dreamed up for myself. Yes, I’ve dreamed about it like most dudes who come from big families and want kids of their own have done.