“It’s going to be a twenty-seven-hour drive? Then we’re taking breaks.”
“It’ll be worth it. I hope.”
“I don’t mind. We have the week.”
“A little over.” I let a breath. “I guess we should go.”
“I guess we should.”
We started out on the road, and I told myself to calm down. There was no going back now—time to think, breathe and take a friend to a family reunion.
“Are you’re letting me pay for half the gas?”
“Yes, though I have a hybrid.”
“And a beautiful hybrid it is,” he said, admiring it, and I beamed at him. “It’s the first big thing I got after my business did well.”
“It’s a great car.”
“Your truck is a gas guzzler,” I muttered, then winced. “Sorry.”
“You’re right, it is, but it’s what I need for work. I was thinking about getting a small sedan or something to save on gas, but I don’t fit in them very well.”
He shifted in the seat, and I raised a brow. “I’m not making a comment on your size again.” He laughed outright, and I smiled. “This is turning out to be an okay drive.”
“Glad I could help.” He paused, let out a breath. “Thanks for letting me come. You never asked why I wanted to go with you,” he said, after a minute or two on the highway.
“I didn’t need to. You said you needed to be here, or wanted to, and I didn’t mind.”
“I guess I should tell you. I need to tell someone, and I can’t tell my family because then they’re going to have opinions, and I’m not in the mood for that.”
I glanced at him and he let out a breath. “Okay then, we’re not even out of the state, and yet I don’t think I can keep it in.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, my heart racing.
“I am. At least I hope so, considering what someone asked of me.”
I settled on the cruise control, with my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road, even though most of my attention was on him.
“What is it?”
“Do you remember my ex? Laura?”
I frowned and nodded as I took the next exit onto the other highway. “Yes. You were in her wedding to Michelle.”
“Good memory.”
I smirked. “I made the cake.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“It was a good cake. Buttercream frosting, lemon filling, with a cheesecake on the side, and it was so yummy. Nice and airy for one and very rich and dense on the other.”
“The perfect blend of them,” he said.
I smiled again. “I was always sad when you two broke up.”
“I wasn’t,” he said.
That made me snort.
“I meant only that we weren’t right for each other. She and Michelle are. However, they came to me with a request.”
“What is it?” I asked, though an odd feeling spread over me, and I knew he couldn’t be about to say what he was going to say. Right?
It would be too eerie.
“They want a baby. And they want the donor to be someone that they know and trust.”
“They asked you!” I nearly skidded off the highway but kept my calm as a truck hit their horn beside me, and Benjamin put his hands on my knee. He looked down at his hand, let out a breath, and I swallowed. “Sorry.”
“I probably shouldn’t have said that while we were on the highway and you were driving.”
“No. No. When else would you tell me that somebody wants your sperm? I can’t believe I just said sperm. Again.”
“Yes, sperm. It keeps going through my mind over and over again. I had a dream that there was a little sperm having a conversation with me about the pros and cons. It was like the devil and the angel on your shoulder, but instead, they were in my brain, and they were actual sperm. And I have no idea what’s going on, and I have to stop saying the word sperm.”
I snorted, my whole body shaking as I did my best not to drive us right off the highway.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” I risked a glance over at him before I looked back at the road.
“Yeah, I am.”
The astonishment in his voice surprised me. “You’re good people. You don’t need to sound so shocked that you want to make that decision.”
“It’s a big fucking decision. Part of me wanted to do it right away, but I needed time to think about it. I knew if I were around my family, they would keep pestering me until they figured out what was going on, and then they would have opinions.”
“Are you not going to tell them?” I asked, frowning.
“I will. Just after the fact. That way, they can’t talk me out of it.”
“You know, that’s probably a good idea, though I don’t think they would necessarily talk you out of it.”
“Maybe not intentionally, but they would bring around different ideas and opinions even if they were on the side of doing it, it would still twist my thoughts off enough that I just…I want it to be about Laura and Michelle, not about me.”
“You’re a good man,” I whispered.
“I hope so. I hope it works. They’d be great parents and deserve it.”
He talked about them some more, and I leaned my head against the headrest as I kept driving, thinking what he was doing and why he was doing it. I wouldn’t know the father of my child, but I was going to have to pick a donor soon. It wouldn’t be Benjamin, but hell, what were the chances? I was never going to ask him or anybody that I knew, but he was giving another family an opportunity to build a family.
I was always going to be on his side because I needed someone to be as selfless as he was being. I knew I needed to tell somebody. Soon.
It might just have to be the man beside me.
Maybe.
Chapter 4
Benjamin
I stretched my muscles before I turned around and remade the bed. I hadn’t slept too well, but I never did on hotel sheets. We stayed at a decent hotel, not a motel off the side of the road, one that might not have room service, but had doors that went to a hallway rather than the outside, and the place didn’t smell of smoke, and there weren’t water stains everywhere. I counted that as a win.
The fact that they had had an extra room for me at the last minute was a plus, considering that Brenna had had her trip mapped out for a couple of months now, so her rooms had been settled. I was tacked on and might be paying the higher rate, but it was still worth it—just time to get away and to think. What was funny is it hadn’t taken me much time at all to make my decision. We hadn’t even left the state yet, and I knew what I was going to do.
I was going to donate to help two people very close to me have a baby. I didn’t know what the legalities of it would be or exactly how everybody else would understand it, but Brenna understood it.
I would tell my family. Just after the fact, as I had mentioned.
Honestly, I knew that they would all support the decision. Only I hadn’t wanted to deal with all of the pros and cons of it with them. Then it would be a thing, and knowing Paige, there would probably be a color-coded list and a planner of when I should make my deposit and all of that.