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No doubt Reagan hadn’t stopped believing in God. If he visited her now, wouldn’t she expect him to become a part of the baby’s life? Her life, even? Luke stopped the stream of questions long enough to consider that.

The thought sent chills down his spine—but chills that were more good than bad. He’d never stopped loving her, missing her. But he could hardly pretend to share her faith. Freethinking meant he had the right to his own viewpoint, separate from hers. What if that made her turn away from him again? This time maybe forever? Would that be fair to him, fair to the baby?

Worst of all was a truth that stood like a fortress between this moment and his future: He was nothing like the young man he’d been when he was dating Reagan. They’d had everything in common before that awful Monday night, and now they had nothing but memories.

Memories and a baby boy.

He thought back to when he was five or six years old. Ashley had taken him by the hands and spun him in circles three feet off the ground until his feet flopped behind him. The sensation was like flying, exhilarating and dizzying, but eventually her hands grew tired, and she dropped him. Luke had hurt his head and bruised his knee.

He felt the same way now. Spinning high and out of control, but this time he was a hundred feet in the air—dizzy and afraid and breathless. With no way to tell what would happen when he hit the ground. At some point pain was bound to hit, pain that came with not knowing about Reagan’s pregnancy, not being there in New York to share the past year with her. Not seeing his son born. Not knowing whether he’d ever hold him, or watch him grow up, toss a ball with him, or teach him to drive. The kind of pain that would make his gut ache and place a mountain range along his shoulder blades.

“What’re you thinking?”

His sister’s voice broke through to him, and he lowered his head enough to see her. Answers to most of his questions would come in time. But his sister had to know the answer to at least this one: “What’s…what’s his name?”

Relief muted the concern in Ashley’s expression. “Thomas Luke.” Her voice was a gentle whisper. She searched his face. “Reagan’s calling him Tommy.”

Thomas Luke?
She’d named the baby after her father…and after him?

Luke could do nothing but stare at Ashley. He would somehow survive the coming days, months. Years. Because the moment he’d heard the boy’s name—heard his own name as part of it—the questions stopped, and his heart found its way back into his chest. He knew this because where there had been numbness, for the first time that afternoon he felt pain.

A massive, suffocating pain that made him doubt he could stand up under it. Pain bound to stay with him, holding him captive until something very special and amazing happened.

Until he held his son for the first time.

H
IS PLANS CAME TOGETHER
with amazing speed and clarity.

Ashley promised she wouldn’t tell anyone else in the family about the baby, and after that Luke went home and spent the night on the sofa, lost in thought.

By morning, the shock had worn off.

In the light of day he did what any freethinker would do: He charted a course of action with his head and believed that at some point his heart would follow. For the next four days he attended class and took his finals, just as he’d planned. Not once in that time did he sleep with Lori, and twice she asked him about it.

“I need space,” he told her. “Something I’m going through.”

Since his talk with Ashley he’d known that no matter how liberal-minded he planned on becoming, the idea of an open relationship, multiple partners, and sex as self-expression simply didn’t hold water.

The entire notion was insane. That he’d bought into it even for a time made him doubt his ability to think—freely or otherwise. Before they went their separate ways, Ashley told him about the man who was Cole’s father. By the sounds of it, he could’ve been a guest speaker for the Freethinkers Alliance—different partners every few weeks, sex for recreation. Whatever felt good.

But look where it got Ashley. Not enlightened and freed from society’s rules, but saddled with a virus that could kill her.

No, he couldn’t stay with Lori another day. He didn’t love her, and even after months of trying, he didn’t see life through the same, strange glass she did. Now, after four days of thinking things through, his heart had indeed followed. He was certain about his decision. Thursday night he called Ashley and asked if she would put him up until he found someplace else to live.

“That way I can see Cole more,” he told her. “And take a trip to New York. Whaddya think?”

Sweet relief filled her tone. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

On Friday, when Luke and Lori met back at the apartment for lunch, he knew what he had to do. He couldn’t even
call
Reagan, let alone run off to New York City, while he was still living with Lori Callahan.

She opened the refrigerator and grabbed a loaf of bread and a plastic container of some pasty thing. Hummus, maybe, or fresh-ground almonds. Something earthy. Lori had given up eating meat now and joined Vegan Outreach, another campus club. The food she was buying this month was all soy, texturized vegetable protein, and seaweed. Things Luke had never considered eating.

“Animal fat clogs the channels of cooperative thought,” she told him a few weeks back. “We need to free animals of that burden.”

Luke had stared at her and wondered why he’d ever moved in with her in the first place. Eating healthy was a good thing—his parents raised him that way. In fact most of the time his mother ate a vegetarian diet. But more and more, Lori saw every aspect of life as some sort of enlightenment opportunity.

He watched her now as anxiety gnawed at him. How would she take the news? Not that he was sad about it. Not at all. He also wasn’t hungry. A leftover cheeseburger sat in the fridge, but he would wait until later to microwave it. Better to avoid a lecture on freeing the cows.

She set her lunch plate on the table and sat down across from him. “Not hungry?”

“I’ll eat later.” He leaned his forearms on the oak finish. “Hey, Lori…” His mouth hung open, but the words got tangled up in his throat.

A small pile of the pasty stuff sat on the side of her plate, and she was dipping some strange-looking vegetable into it. She stilled for a moment and lifted her eyes to his. “Yeah?”

Luke hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. “I’m moving out this weekend.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Moving out?”

“Yeah.” He dug his fingers into the palms of his hand. “Taking my stuff.”

“On a trip?” Her tone was a mix of confusion and mild amusement. “Just bring a suitcase.”

Luke stroked his chin. “I’m not taking a trip, Lori.” He exhaled hard through his teeth. “I’m leaving. Moving out.”

Lori set her vegetable down and stared at him. “You mean for good?”

“Yes.” He pursed his lips and tried to read her reaction. “It’s over.”

“Oh.” She sat up a little straighter and lifted her chin. “What…did the almighty Baxter family get to you? Convince you I was a bad influence?”

Lori had spoken badly about his family before, and he’d always agreed. If she said they were controlling, he could think of a hundred times when he’d been controlled. When she called them ignorant, he found himself nodding along, remembering the times when they’d believed and prayed even when God—if there was a God—did nothing at all.

But now her remark wedged itself like a shard of glass between the newly softened crevasses of his heart. How dare she say that about them? The “almighty Baxter family”? He clenched his fists a bit tighter. “Look, Lori—” his voice sounded calmer than he felt—“this isn’t about them; it’s my call.”

“No!” Her indifference turned to anger. “It
is
about them.” She waved her hand in the air, as though she were searching for a hook to hang the blame on. “A freethinker would know that relationships have ups and downs.”

“This isn’t a down time, Lori.”

“Of course it is.” Luke heard something in her voice he hadn’t heard before: panic. Lori was nothing if not confident and collected, completely sure of who she was and where she was going. “You’re mad about my night with that guy, the abortion. The whole thing.”

As soon as she said the words, Luke knew she was wrong. All he felt about those events was relief. A sense of deep gratitude that he hadn’t been the father, and a strange sadness for the unborn baby. A sadness not in a moral sort of way but because the baby had never had a chance.

Sort of like Reagan’s father.

What he didn’t feel was jealousy or anger. Not even a bit. Luke cocked his head and willed her to make this simpler for both of them. “Those were your choices; I’m fine with that.” He reached out for her hands, but she jerked them onto her lap. “It’s just time.”

The anger in her eyes changed to a deep, almost childlike sadness. “What about—” she gave a light shrug—“what about freethinking, different partners, the perfect relationship?”

With each passing hour, the idea of such an arrangement sounded more ludicrous. Sickening, almost. “What are you saying, Lori?” His tone softened, and his voice fell a notch. “That you’d rather have me stay and date other people?”

“Yes.” Her answer was quick, and when her eyes met his he saw tears. Tears, where he’d never seen them before. “We’re made for each other, Luke.” Her eyes grew wider, as though she were searching for the perfect way to explain herself. “We’ll have hard times, of course, but we stay together because freedom is such an…an intrinsic part of our love. We have no reason to leave each other.”

Luke leaned back in his chair and studied her. So that was it? Love meant having no reason to leave each other? He inhaled slowly and narrowed his eyes. “We do, Lori. We have lots of reasons.”

“What?” She crossed her arms, her face gripped with disbelief. “Name one.”

“Well…” He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but it was too late to lie about the fact. “I’m in love with someone else.”

Three seconds passed, and Lori sniffed. “Okay, so date her. That doesn’t mean you have to move out.”

“Lori…” He shook his head and made a sound that was more moan than laugh. “Who are you kidding? This whole open-relationship garbage is wrong, and you know it.” He leaned forward and tried to speak straight to her heart, to a place he hoped hadn’t really bought into the worldview she claimed so strongly. “Love—the kind of love that keeps two people together through the years—was never meant to be shared casually.”

Her mouth hung open. “See?” She spread her fingers on the table between them. “This has Baxter morality written all over it.”

Luke worked the muscles in his jaw. He still didn’t believe in God, didn’t want to speak to his father, and couldn’t see himself in the Baxter family ever again. But here, now, he could say nothing to refute her. “Okay…maybe. And if it does, I’m okay with that. When I get married I don’t want to wonder whether my wife is out late because she’s sleeping with some other guy. I want it to be me and her. Just the two of us. Forever.” He studied her face. “Whatever you call it, that’s what I want.”

At first Lori looked like she might agree, maybe even beg Luke to think of her as that woman, the one he might marry and love exclusively forever. But then her eyes grew hard. “Fine.” She stood and cleared her plate. When she spoke again her back was to him. “Be gone by Saturday afternoon. I have plans that night.”

Her words were meant to hurt him, convince him that she wasn’t damaged by his decision. Luke gave a slow nod and said nothing. If she wanted to feel that way, he could let her. “I’ll be gone by this evening.” He lifted his hands and rubbed slow circles into his temples as he stood. He needed to find his suitcase and pack. If he was lucky, he’d be finished in less than an hour and on his way to Ashley’s.

Luke watched Lori, her back still to him. “Hey.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

She spun around, and her expression betrayed her sorrow. “It’s Reagan, isn’t it?”

Luke crossed the kitchen and stopped at the doorway to the living room. “Yeah.” He slipped his hands in his pockets and met her gaze. “Yeah, it is.”

“You’re going to be just like them, Luke.” She leaned against the counter. “Just like your father and your sisters, all the people you didn’t want to be like.”

“We’re supposed to
think
about everything, right?” He anchored himself against the wall. “Think outside the box and go with our feelings, isn’t that it?”

“Exactly.”

“So…” He hesitated. “That’s what I did. I thought outside this—” he drew an invisible square around himself—“this box I’m in, and you know what I found?”

She stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

“I don’t have to agree with my family.” He took a few steps backward. “But their kind of love isn’t so bad. Not if I think outside the box.”

The next hour went by quickly.

Luke found his suitcase. When it came down to it, he didn’t have much at the apartment. The furnishings all belonged to Lori or her parents. He’d merely thrown some clothes together when he moved in with her.

With each passing minute, his plans grew clearer. Ashley used priceline.com, didn’t she? She could help him book a ticket and maybe—maybe—he could leave tomorrow morning. Or at least by Sunday. Waiting around in Bloomington would do nothing to span the distance between him and Reagan. Him and his son.

Still, his doubts remained. The hardest part was trying to imagine what Reagan would say. She obviously knew about his decision to leave his family and move in with Lori. His mother had told her that much back when she called in April.

That was something else. Her phone call made sense now. Obviously she’d called to tell him about the baby. But when she found out how different he’d become, she begged his mother not to mention her phone call.

If that was how she felt then, why would she feel any different now? She could slam the door in his face, refuse to let him into her life or their baby’s life. After all, he was coming fresh from living with another girl. He couldn’t blame her if that’s how she reacted. Nothing about him was the same as it had been before that awful September evening. He grabbed a stack of blue jeans and set them in the bottom of his suitcase. Not even the way he looked.

He was about to take a handful of shirts from the closet when the idea hit him. There wasn’t much he could do about the way his beliefs had changed, his thoughts about humanity and his doubts about God. But at least she could recognize him.

His bathroom items were still in a cupboard near the sink, and he went to them. As he reached for the cupboard, he caught a glimpse of himself. Shoulder-length, thick hair, scruffy mustache and beard.

Why had he thought he needed to look like a sixties throwback to hold views that differed from those of his parents? He looked like a vagrant. Like one of those homeless guys who hung out near the freeway on-ramps on summer days in downtown Indianapolis. He scowled at himself. Then he stooped down, opened the cupboard, and found what he was looking for.

An old razor and his electric shaver.

He hadn’t shaved since moving in with Lori, but now he held the razor to his jaw and made a smooth, methodical stroke. He attacked his face until most of the longer hair was gone. Next, he plugged in the shaver. Five minutes later, not a trace of the beard and mustache remained. Before he took his things to Ashley’s house, he’d do something else—stop by the cheap hair salon near the university and get a cut.

As he cleaned up the chunks of beard that lay on the counter, he caught his look in the mirror once more and the image shocked him. For months he’d seen himself as someone entirely different than the boy he’d been the year before. Different address, different views, different feelings for his family. But now, as he studied his reflection, he saw the Luke he’d left behind. Not only along the clean-shaven lines of his chin and jaw and lips.

But in the soft light in his eyes as well.