Karen Templeton - Playing For Keeps

“The kids, yeah.” She twisted the brand-new engagement ring—even getting it at Sam’s Club, it had pretty much wiped out his Visa—around and around her finger. “Not your ex. Or her parents.”

God, this sucked. The whole reason he’d fallen for Tori to begin with was because their relationship required little mental effort on his part. Not like him and Jo, who were like those two cats that still lived out in back of Joanna’s house and couldn’t cross paths without spitting at each other. And he was thrilled about the baby, even if he wasn’t about to admit to Jo or anybody else that he’d nearly had a coronary when Tori’d told him she’d found a tear in her diaphragm. How they were going to manage, what with a good chunk of what he was making already going to Jo and the kids, he had no idea. So he figured he had plenty of worries without having to deal with pregnancy hormones, too.

But ready or not, he had to, didn’t he?

“Hey. We talked this all through, remember?” And since talking things through wasn’t exactly Bobby’s strong suit, the prospect of tilling the same ground ad nauseum wasn’t exactly giving him a big thrill now. “About how everybody being together is gonna be inevitable from time to time? That it’ll be easier for the kids to accept you if you’re included in family get-togethers?”

“I know. But this is just so…weird. Not what I imagined, y’know?”

Praying for the smarts to get through the minefield without blowing off his balls, he said, “You knew I had kids from the get-go, Tor. It wasn’t like I sprung ’em on you.”

“I know. But…”

He saw her hands slip over her tummy and something primitive and possessive shot through him. In a way, it was kind of sexy, knowing he’d put the baby there. But it also signaled the onset of what amounted to nine straight months of PMS. Hell, if you wanted teenage boys to abstain from having sex too early, just lock ’em up with a pregnant woman for twenty-four hours. Guaranteed to kill any chance of an erection for a good five, maybe ten years.

“It’s just I watch you and Jo together,” she was saying, “and all I can think is, I can’t compete with that. With what the two of you still have.”

He panicked for a second, afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep up. “What are you talking about? All Jo and I do is fight.”

“Not always.”

“Okay, only like ninety percent of the time. And when we’re not, we’re either recovering from a fight or gearing up for one.”

“Because you still care about each other.”

“No, because we’re from two different planets.”

“But you have this…this history together.”

“Well, yeah. We were married for nine years. We have three kids we’re raisin’ together. I can’t change that, can I?”

She blew out a quick sigh through her nose. “No, I suppose not.”

“But now it’s time for you and me to make our own history, right?”

“And I’ll always be second.”

By his estimation, he had maybe ten seconds to defuse this bomb. “That’s not how I see it, honey. Yeah, maybe you’re…second, chronologically, but…okay—you know how a movie might be number one at the box office? But then, the next week another movie comes along and that movie is number one?”

She stiffened.

“Dammit, Tor…I’m lousy at this—”

“Oh, never mind,” Tori said on another sigh. “I know what you’re trying to say. It’s just I keep thinking, if your marriage to Jo didn’t work out, what’s to say ours will? And it’s not like I’ve got a whole lot of experience to fall back on. My mother’s been married and divorced twice. I haven’t seen my real father in years. So I’m not exactly feeling real secure. Especially as…”

“What?”

Tori gave him a look that scared the crap out of him, because she looked far too much like Jo did, there at the end. Still did, come to think of it.

“Look,” she said, “I know I had nothing to do with you two breaking up, but still. I feel bad. That I’m in the middle. That you’re in the middle. That I have you, and I’m so happy, and she has…nothing.” Then she pulled her feet up onto the edge of the bed, toying with one of her toe rings, her mouth all funny.

“What?”

“I can’t say it, it’s too tacky.”

“Tori, I’m not a mind reader. Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.”

After a moment she said, “It’s not that I resent the money you give to Joanna for the house and stuff, and certainly not whatever you pay for child support, but somehow…well, I wish she didn’t need to depend on you quite so much. And that really sounds selfish and stupid and horrible, but I don’t want to start out our lives together wondering if every time we buy something for us, we’re spending money that should go to your first family instead—”

“Dad?”

At the sound of his daughter’s voice, Tori pulled away. Dammit, they’d been dating for more than a year, living together for three months. The kids spent every weekend with them. In other words, their relationship was hardly a secret—and would be even less of a secret once he told the kids about the baby—but Tori refused to show any affection toward him when they were around.

Dulcy stuck her head in the door, her dark, thick curls struggling to escape her ponytail. As usual, she wore some loose top, her long legs encased in a pair of bleached-out jeans. She was nearly as tall as Jo now. Way she was growing, she might even end up passing Bobby. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

But he sure knew it scared the hell out of him to think there were boys just like he’d been out there, lying in wait….

“Dad? Hello? The boys are totally driving me nuts.” She frowned slightly at Tori but didn’t acknowledge her presence. “Can we please get going?”

“Sure. Just a sec, okay?”

With a huff, Dulcy stomped away.

“She hates me,” Tori said.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Right. She looks at me like I was something she found in back of the refrigerator.”

“Honey, she looks at everyone like that. If this is a girl—” he laid his hand on Tori’s belly and immediately felt stirrings that would do him absolutely no good right now “—she’ll look at you that way, too.”

Tori covered his hand with hers, which wasn’t helping the stirrings any. “How come you know so much about teenage girls?”

“I’ve got three sisters, remember? First time a girl looked at me like I wasn’t something she found in the back of the refrigerator, I couldn’t talk for three days.”

A small laugh bubbled out of Tori’s mouth. Then she said, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It’s not my place—”

“No, it’s okay, baby, I want you to feel you can tell me anything.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. Frankly, half the time women told him what they were thinking, he only got more confused. Like now. He was pretty sure he was supposed to do something about whatever was bothering Tori. He just had no clue what that might be.

“I love you,” Tori said, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.

“Aw, I love you, too, sweetheart,” he said, figuring he’d just hang on to that, for now. Then he kissed her, long and deep, deciding maybe all this communication garbage wasn’t so bad after all, once you got used to it.

But during the fifteen-minute drive to Jo’s house, the boys about to bust from excitement in the back seat of the Taurus—which made him realize he was going to have to go the minivan route, once the baby came, damn—he kept mulling over what Tori said, about Joanna’s being alone, about how it would be nice if there was somebody else to help out financially, since she was never going to get rich off those Santas she made, that was for sure.