Free Full of Grace by Misty Provencher Page A

trying to convince this stranger to have our baby, my palms start to sweat. I get past the idea of I’m going to have a kid and turn down the dark path of I’ve got to be involved with this snoring girl and if she has the baby, we will be tied together the rest of our lives.  What the hell am I thinking?  We don’t know each other.  She’s gorgeous, but what if she’s actually a monster?  What if she stinks at being a mother?  What if the kid has problems? What if she moves away with it?  What if she finds her pants? 
    I decide that I can’t go to sleep until this baby is born.
    I send my boss an email, saying I need the next week off.  I never take time off, so I’m grateful when he pings me right back with permission to do it.  But I don’t know how I’m going to be able to keep an eye on Sher after that.  When a bead of sweat gathers on my forehead, I stop thinking.
    Sher begins to snore a little.  I listen to the whizzle of her nasal passages for a while, before I pick up the pen. 
    I uncap the pen and balance the pad of paper on my knee.  I’m not sure how to do this, but my mother did it for all of my sisters and me, and it seems like the only thing I can do right now.
     
Dear Baby,
Your mom and I met at our best friends’ wedding.  Yesterday, I found out your mom was pregnant with you.  I want you to know how happy I am…
     

CHAPTER NINE
     
     
    I FALL ASLEEP IN THE CHAIR and Sher wakes me early, by pummeling me with her shoe.
    “What…did…you…do…with…my…pants…”  Every word is a slap on my arms or legs, until I grab the shoe and toss it toward the door.  She stands there, stunned, in the same electric blue panties that I admired last night.  Her hair’s matted up in a fuzzy knot on the side of her head.
    “Where are my pants?” Her eyes condense down to slits.  It gives me another amusing glimpse of her harmless little version of her mother.
    “I gave them away,” I tell her with a shrug.  “They looked uncomfortable.”
    “Give them back, Landon!”  She stomps one foot.
    “Uh…nope.”
    “What do you mean, nope?   I’m calling…somebody.”  She rifles her gym bag, but her phone, just like her pants, is missing, and mine is tucked away too.  She finally gives up the hunt and drops back onto my couch, clutching her disbelieving face with one hand, while peering at me through her fingers.
    “Why do you keep stealing my pants?” she asks.
    “ If I stole your pants, it might have been because you mentioned last night that it might’ve made a difference if we’d gotten to know each other,”  I say.  “I didn’t want you to run off before we had a chance to do it.”
    “It might’ve made the difference before,” she says.  “Not now.”
    “Why not now?  Now seems as good a time as any.  You’re still pregnant.  You should know how awesome I am, before you make any decisions.  I’m a catch.”
    She groans.  “You don’t get it.”
    “Okay.  Help me to get it, then.”
    Another groan, accompanied by an eye-roll.  “This isn’t like speed-dating.  Having a kid is our whole lives.  Why are you so bent on this?  You don’t know me either.”
    “I don’t, but I think things happen for a reason.  And I think everybody deserves a chance.”
    She busts out in tears.  It’s not just a few cute, little trickling tears either.  No, she goes right for the big guns, bawling until her nose runs.  I grab her a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom.
    “Thanks.” She sniffles and forces out a limp giggle after she blows her nose.
    “Sure.”
    “Landon, there’s something I want to tell you.”
    “I’m listening.” I scoot to the edge of the chair.  She works over her nostrils with a gob of TP.  Her slow giggle dissolves as soon as I hear it.
    “Um,” she says, glancing up at me with a shaky smile.  Then the smile crumbles and she dives back into the TP again.  I wait.  Her face finally reappears, and she catches the