Page 106 of Love Expert

“I’m the stubbornest person I know. I don’t wear that badge with pride, and I swear, I feel horrible every single time I open my mouth and hurt your feelings.”

“Billy—”

“I’m sorry for every unkind thing I’ve ever said to you.” He takes half a dozen steps forward, closing the gap between us until there’s just eight feet instead of twenty. “I’m sorry for all the things I didn’t say that I should’ve. I’m sorry for being too proud all the damn time, and I’m especially sorry for the way I treated you the morning after we…” His cheeks warm as he looks left, then right. “Ya know.”

“Bumped,” Ramone tosses in with a bright smile. “After you bumped bums. It’s okay to use grown-up words, Wilbert.”

Billy grits his jaw tight, his eyes flashing with a fiery glare. But then he brings them back to me. Like magic, they soften. “I’m truly sorry for how I handled that situation. It’s clear I have massive unhealed trauma I still need to work through.”

“It hurt,” I rasp. Finally, I unlock the words that’ve been caught in my throat for weeks. “It’s not like I plan to trap you with a baby or anything.”

“I know.”

“It just hurt, because you didn’t even ask what I wanted. You decided for us instead of workingwithme on a solution.”

“I know,” he repeats, dropping his gaze. “And then I made you do something to your body I had no right to demand.”

“I didn’t take the pill.”

His cheeks turn ghostly white, his entire frame freezes in place. All but his eyes, as they stop on my torso, mostly hidden by the counter. “Y-you didn’t take it?”

I stand taller, broaden my shoulders, and straighten my back. “No.”

Shout at me, Billy. Scream and rage and show me exactly who you are when your unhealed trauma comes back to visit.

But that’s not what he does. Instead, he grins wide and verges on unhinged. “Good. Are you pregnant?”

“What? No! Are you crazy? I didn’t take the pill because I’m already on birth control, and my period came a couple of days after we…” I tip my head to the side. “Ya know.”

“Bumped,” Ramone inserts again. “Y’all are grownups. Act like it.”

“That’s too bad,” Billy rumbles, his lips curved into a smug smirk. “Because wanting a dozen babies means you really should start soon.”

“I can’t,” I rasp. “Because you want none.” I draw a long breath, expanding my lungs until they ache. “You break out in hives at the very thought of making a baby.”

“I delivered a baby today.”

“You…” I blink, blink, blink. And when that doesn’t help the buzzing in my brain, I shake my head. “What?”

“It was so badass!” Ramone spins on his stool, bumping his thighs against Devina’s. “This chick ended up in a fender bender on her way to the hospital. Her baby daddy’s a piece of cow manure,” he looks to Elson and nods, obnoxious, “so he’s ignoring her calls. He has no interest in stepping up and helping her on the scariest day of her life. So she climbs into her crappy little car and makes tracks for the hospital. But I guess she’s not concentrating, or maybe her contractions had her skidding on the road. Next thing, she’s in a ditch, and dispatch is sending us out.”

“The statistics were mocking me, Magnolia. The universe was testing me. So I’m the sorry son of a biscuit?—”

“Nice one,” Ramone chortles. “Smooth as butter.”

“I’m the one who ends up on the scene first, since the accident wasn’t too far from the house. Ramone was only two minutes behind me, but I swear, those two minutes felt like a hundred years. It was just me and this chick. Her car is busted up, her face is wet with blood, because she got nicked by some broken glass. I get there and drag her out of her car, lay her on the road, and Jesus, Magnolia.” He runs a hand over his face. “She’s pregnant as hell, and the metaphor for every single thing that terrifies me. If I were ever gonna spin out emotionally, it was in that moment.”

“But you delivered the baby?” I whimper. “All by yourself?”

He grins, bright and wide and so freakin’ beautiful, it makes my stomach tumble.

“I tried to convince her to cross her legs and wait the paramedics out. Oh, and Dara was one of those paramedics, by the way. I heard Barbara soliciting you for a match-up between me and her. My answer is no.”

“What happened with the baby?” Devina snaps. Shy, sweet, non-imposing Devina. “It all worked out, right?”

“The leg-crossing thing didn’t work. So then I suggested she hold her breath.” He exhales a gusting laugh. “Not my finest moment. That’s when she snapped at me. Said how her boyfriend was a piece of crap and she couldn’t count on him, so she needed me to handle myself. She was scared out of her head, blood all over her, contractions tearing her up from the inside. She needed me, Magnolia. So, I pulled myself together and delivered that baby. All by my damn self.”

“I was directing traffic.” Ramone brushes breadcrumbs off his shirt. “Very important job.”