Where Do We Go From Here?

“The baby isn’t mines.” Tony repeated.

I nodded, but even then I was still reeling from it. “How?” I managed to ask. It surprised me that I could even speak because there was a small part of me that was convinced that Tony was lying.

“Carmen…she uh—well, she fooled around with Austin around the same time she fooled around with me.” He explained. He then scoffed a little bitterly before saying “Well, she actually fooled around with Austin a few hours after having sex with me.”

“Oh.” I replied. I wanted to kick myself for not coming up with better ways to speak, but it seemed that in this moment my vocabulary was extremely limited.

Tony rubbed the back of his neck; a nervous habit of his. “Yeah, after Mike told me that Carmen messed around with Austin, I confronted him about it, wondering why he’d do something like that and not tell me. Austin said it was a onetime thing and that it didn’t mean anything to him.” He began, allowing this new information to sink into my brain.

“Okay.” I responded wanting him to continue.

“Turns out that Carmen didn’t want to tell Austin that she was pregnant because then he’d have to tell Gielle about their affair, and well, Carmen didn’t want her best friend to find out she just cheated with her boyfriend. So, Carmen being Carmen decided to pin the baby’s origins on me.” As Tony said this there were hints of bitterness in his tone. He didn’t direct it his bitterness to the unborn child, but towards Carmen.

I nodded. His story, although believable, still hadn’t reached full circle in my eyes. “So how do you know the kid isn’t yours?” I asked. It was the first time I actually said something that was more than two syllables.

“I made her take a DNA test. She put a fight about it for a while, which is why I was avoiding you for a while because I didn’t want to talk to you until I was completely sure about this baby business or whatever. Carmen gave in after I threatened to tell Gielle about her and Austin.” Tony said, a smile tugging at his lips. “That was when she agreed to take it. The test results came back, and basically it said I wasn’t the father.”

I guess Tony was waiting for me to speak up because there was a pause. I didn’t say anything because I felt like he had more to say.

“I actually stopped by your house the other day to tell you the news, but you weren’t home.” He mumbled out. It finally made sense why there were so much people wanting me and Tony to actually talk. He needed to tell me this because, well, it was something worth knowing before I’d carry on with my life thinking Tony chose Carmen over me.

“I wanted to know if the kid belonged to me or not because if he or she didn’t then I wouldn’t want to pass up on an opportunity to be happy.” He said after a few moments of utter silence passed between the two of us.

It was a good thing I was already sitting because everything he was saying made me a little dizzy. Just a few months ago I had a similar feeling; however, a few months ago Tony was telling that Carmen was pregnant with his kid, but now things were much different. I got the gist of it though.

Carmen’s a liar and a cheater.

Austin’s an idiot.

The kid isn’t Tony’s.

Tony wants to be happy.

It was the last part that stumped me though. Happy? What was his opportunity to be happy? I was hungry for more information, desperate to know more.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. I could probably guess his answer, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to hear him say what’s on his mind rather than assume.

“You deserved to know the truth.” He answered almost instantly. Then, from the back of his pocket, he pulled out the envelope, the one I gave to him a few weeks ago. “And also because of this.”

I felt my heart skip a few beats. I wasn’t exactly sure why I began to feel nervous and sheepish all at once, but due to those two mixed emotions, I found myself tugging at my t-shirt while palms were sweating.

“You made me swear not to open it until I knew what I wanted, and well, after finding out the truth I knew what I wanted and tore this sucker open.” He began, a faint smile crossing his lips.

“And?” I asked, egging him to continue.

He pulled out the plane ticket from the envelope and stared at it. At first he had an impassive expression on his face. It was hard to read, but then a smile bloomed on his lips, dancing across his face. I wasn’t sure why, but it was like I could breathe again. Relief had spread through me like fire in a dry field—it warmed my entire body up.

“Is this offer still open?” He asked, looking at me through his eyelashes.

I was practically chewing the crap out of my inner cheeks the entire time that I was literally biting back a smile. By now our eyes had locked onto each other, and without another word being said, we knew the answer to our questions. It was like everything was falling into place so quickly that I didn’t realize I was standing in front of Tony. I didn’t know who made the first move to walk closer to each other, but I knew what I wanted to do next. I grabbed Tony’s hand in mines, our smiles broad on our faces, my thumb tracing circles on his hand. Then, as if time seemed to fluctuate between fast and slow, I stood on my tip toes to place a soft kiss on his lips. It wasn’t anything like those exaggerated kisses in movies or television shows. It was nice and slow, much like our first kiss at the beach, before I stepped back from him. Tony looked down at me, mimicking the smile on my face. Our fingers laced together, like puzzle pieces finally being put together.

“So…” I began.

Tony smiled. “Where do we go from here?” He asked.

Here, there, anywhere is what I wanted to tell him because I didn’t care about where we were going as long as we were going together.

Notes

Not sure if I should end the story right here...I'll let you guys decide that :)

Sorry for the hella, extremely long wait on these two chapters. I had so much different scenarios planned out that it kinda fried my brain for a while. This story was literally haunting my dreams that I needed to just sit down and write. I let my fingers type it and before I knew it I had two chapters. I didnt do much revisions because I was afraid that if I did I would end up rewriting the damn thing, so sorry if it sucks.

Hope you like it and thanks for reading!!! <3