"A ring is a little presumptuous. And unnecessary. I haven't agreed to this."

"And yet I spent my day fielding congratulatory emails from colleagues due to your fiancée stunt at the party. Then I was late for a meeting due to an unannounced visit from my grandfather demanding to know if I was going to run his company into ruin with my erratic social life."

"Okay, wow. Did he also talk to you about the proper handling of condoms? By the way, did you use the store brand? I've been dying to know. I imagined you sitting at your desk using your employee discount to order a case, but now that I've met Mrs Lascola I'm wondering if you just add them on your shopping list and let her buy them when she's out picking up your dry-cleaning."

He side-eyes me while merging onto the expressway. "You're kind of a bitch," he says, but his lip is twisted in amusement and he's not saying it with any animosity.

"Don't I know it." I nod in agreement. "And I hope you told your grandfather that if you crash and burn his company it will be all your fault ’cause I don't need that on my head."

"Something like that, yeah." Kyle laughs. "I told him I had a vested interest in seeing the company succeed."

"I can understand that. Being the one to fuck everything up sucks."

"Are you speaking from experience?" He doesn't ask the question in a snarky way, more like he's genuinely interested.

"Sort of. I'm a twin and my sister was the perfect kid growing up. She's still perfect, so it's like living your life with a side-by-side example of perfection staring at you all the time."

"You get along though? You and your sister?"

"Oh, of course. She's my best friend."

"But she worries about you, so you try not to be a burden," he fills in. He's not wrong.

"She's a fixer, my sister. A natural-born leader. I've always imagined that our mom must have told her to keep an eye on me at some point and she never stopped."

"You don't think of yourself that way? As a leader? You run your own business, with the blog. You're very successful."

I blink. No one ever really gives me credit for my blog. And I get it—to a certain degree, I get it. It sounds like a hobby. But it's not, far from it. And it's more profitable than a lot of careers. I make more money than most of the people who glance at me and ask, “But is that sustainable, dear?”

"I guess, but it's not like I have employees, it's just me. So I'm not really leading anyone, I'm just doing my own thing." I shrug, but I turn in my seat so I can watch him instead of the traffic. The view is better this way.

"Sometimes leading yourself is the hardest part."

"Hmm," I hum while I stare at him. "True. But I don't usually do such a great job of that in my personal life. I do stupid things like lose my credit card, or forget to renew my vehicle sticker. And as hard as I try not to, I somehow always pick the wrong guy."

"Maybe you don't have to try so hard. And maybe I could be the right guy."

I think I forget how to breathe for a second, because who says that? Who actually says that? I'm reminded of how instantly right we felt together the day we met. How easily we fell into rhythm, kinda like now. But I'm also reminded that he didn't seem interested in staying with me until he had a vested interest—his baby.

"Do you have commitment issues?"

"Far from it."

"Yet here you are, mid-thirties and unattached until I stumble along and then you put a ring on it." I look down at my hand, the ring sitting in all its surreal splendor on my finger. Does it make me a whore that I like it? A shiny bauble on my finger? I like the ring. I like looking at it on my hand. I like that he picked out exactly what I described, even though I never meant for him to. I like the symbol of being taken.

Or maybe I like the symbol of being picked, like I'm not the last kid standing during team selection for grade school dodgeball.

I rub the ring band with my thumb, back and forth, making it wiggle on my finger.

I like feeling wanted, as if I'm not temporary or disposable. Even if this relationship is both. I need it, that feeling.

"It's complicated," he finally answers.

"That's not an answer." Or maybe it is. He's traditional. He has an image to maintain. He wants to get married for the baby, blah blah blah. Except if he's not the jerk I thought he might be, and he doesn't have commitment issues, why hasn't some other girl snapped him up already?

My baby daddy is a conundrum, but I don't really feel like interrogating him right now because it's not how I operate. What I'd like is a fun date night.

"So where are we going?"

"Phillies game," he says with a quick glance in my direction. "They're playing Boston. I hope that's okay? I thought"—he pauses here to adjust his sunglasses—"I thought it might remind you of the first time we met."

"It does." I still don't care about baseball in the slightest, but I think Kyle does and I also think I might care about what he's into. Plus an evening at a ballpark eating hotdogs sounds pretty good. "Yes, that sounds perfect."

"Great. Luke called with the results, by the way."

"I assumed, based on this outlandish ring on my finger. Why would you give this to me? I could run off, pawn it and live on the proceeds for years."

"You could. I hope you won't, but you could."

"Quite the gambler you are, Kyle Kingston."

"Not really."

"No?"

"If you ran, I'd find you eventually." He pulls into a spot at the stadium and kills the engine, turning to look at me with an impish smile.

Hmm.

"There hasn't been anyone else in... a long while," I tell him. "Just so you know."

"Yeah." He's still got his sunglasses on but I see him blink behind the lenses. "Okay."

Okay? I wait. And then I wait some more. "Not okay. This is where you tell me there hasn't been anyone else since you slept with me. The first time." God. Is that unreasonable? Of course it's unreasonable. I haven't seen him in ten weeks and he had no idea I was coming back. When did I become possessive? Am I having some kind of hormonal reaction to the idea of Kyle spreading his seed elsewhere? Like I need to tie him up in my nest and keep all his jizz to myself? Jesus, I need to get a grip. "Never mind. Forget it."

"Luke sent my test results to you, right?"

"He did. Forget it." I start to open the door, desperate to get out of this car, but Kyle places his hand on my arm, stopping me.

"There hasn't been anyone for me since I met you. Is that what you wanted to hear?" He looks... guarded? I'm not sure how to read him right now.

"I guess." I shrug. I really hope this sudden-onset bitch phase I'm having passes with the first trimester.

We head inside, stopping to get hot dogs and Rita's Italian ice before heading to our seats.

When I yell, “Go, team!” once the national anthem has played and the first batter heads to the plate Kyle turns to look at me in amusement.

"You don't know anything about baseball, do you?"