Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
A tear tracked a line down Frankie’s cheek. Her leg kept bouncing, but now, she’d started chewing on her lip.
Nico started to think he had missed something here. Something big.
And maybe, so had Frankie.
“So, now I’m going to ask you what I need to ask you,” Carina continued, not even noticing Nico’s panicked restlessness that had him flexing his hands at his sides. “And before you answer, just know, now is the time we need to be told. Not in two months, or three. Now. Because your father is trying to do something, but he can’t focus on you and that, at the same time. Now would be the time for us to know. Okay?”
“Okay,” Frankie whispered.
“Can I ask now?”
Frankie nodded jerkily.
“Are you pregnant?”
Frankie didn’t answer right away.
Nico moved closer, leaning around her to make her look at him as he asked the same question. “Are you pregnant?”
Another tear escaped after sliding off her long lashes as she held his gaze from the side. She tilted her head down like it made looking him in the face easier as her lips pressed together in a thin line. Still, she nodded.
Nodded.
“You’re fucking pregnant?” he asked again.
“Nico—”
His face found his hands as he took two big steps backwards and mumbled, “Holy shit.”
“I couldn’t do it,” she snarled at him.
He knew exactly what she meant.
Fuck his whole life.
“You said it was my choice!”
Nico nodded behind his hands, but his whole body had gone numb. “And you couldn’t even be bothered to tell me that you didn’t take the second one?”
“You said—”
“I know what I said!” he roared back.
If people on the field and sidelines of the training camp hadn’t noticed their scene before, they certainly did after that.
Frankie’s tears came in droves, now, her chin trembling. “Don’t yell at me, Nico.”
That’s all he wanted to do. He’d really fucked up this time.
“How long did you know?” Carina asked. “How many weeks along are you?”
“I found out when we went to the gyno.”
Nico flinched, remembering the morning Carina interrupted them. “How many weeks?” he asked, repeating the only question she didn’t answer.
“They estimated eight to twelve, but that didn’t even make sense at the time. We weren’t even having sex that far back, so...I don’t know.”
“Oh, no, we do know,” Nico returned, trying to keep his tone level, “because the only time it could have happened was in Chicago. So how many weeks today?”
“Like twelve to fourteen. Depending on if you’re saying from conception or the last missed period, which didn’t even happen.”
“Jesus Christ, Frankie,” he breathed against the tips of his fingers.
“Okay, now we know,” Carina said quietly, the only calm one between the two teenagers, “and now we can handle it.”
Right. Handle it.
Nico had to handle it—at least, one part of it. That was on him to do as a man. In his soul, he knew it. And he couldn’t wait another minute to do it.
Spinning on his heel, he beelined it for the aisle between the seats, needing to leave. Behind him, Frankie called after him.
“Nico, wait! Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
She made her choice. He had to make his.
22. — can’t take that...
Staten Island, New York
Salvatore, Gallo Estate
“There was what you wanted to do, and what you had to do,” Salvatore told Nico as he leaned against the front of the desk in his study. “Doing the right thing isn’t the easy option, a lot of the time.”
“Y-yeah.”
The way Nico’s word hitched had Salvatore scrubbing a hand down his face and swearing under his breath. He had not expected to arrive home to a distraught Nico waiting in the driveway to speak to him.
Salvatore tried to do the math in his head, coming up with a two month, or thereabouts, difference between what would be Francesca’s due date, and his own wife’s. He thought one newborn in his fifties would be a lot to handle and adjust to, but two? Weeks apart?
The longer Salvatore stayed silent, mulling over his thoughts and feelings on the bomb that had just been dropped at his feet, the more restless Nico became on the white couch. Sunk deep into the cushions, his leg rested over his bouncing knee, and his gaze locked on the windows behind Salvatore. But his mind, that went somewhere else. He could see it in his eyes. Nico barely even noticed the dog sleeping at his feet.
Stella the cat, sitting on the edge of Sal’s desk, nibbled at the hair between her pink toe beans as if she didn’t have any concern for it all.
Nico drew in a shaky, wet breath, sniffling hard after. He used the heel of his palm to wipe away the tears that spilled down his cheeks. “Fuck.”
“Well, the time for crying is done,” Salvatore murmured, “as that’s not going to help now.”
“I’m s-sorry.”