No Time Left To Regret

Chapter 9

A few hours later I turned to Joe. "It's getting late, are you gonna head home?"

"I thought I was home?" he looked at me with a hurt puppy dog expression.

"Well you are in a sense but you don't live here." I reminded him.

Joe perked up and leaned forward towards me, grasping my hand.

"Can I move in? I don't really want to go back home without you and my son, not to mention the tension between me and my Father..." Joe paused looking at me pleadingly with his enchanting brown puppy dog eyes.

"I don't know Joe, I mean...." I began to say but trailed off unsure of what I should say.

He was quick to cut me off with a sly smile and a squeeze of his hand in mine.

"Please wifey?"

I looked at him strangely.

"Wifey? Since when?"

"You will be soon enough. Maybe before the weeks out." Joe replied, now giving me a sly grin.

I shook my head in disbelief.

"Aren't you rushing things?" I asked, feeling slightly uneasy about this entire conversation.

"No, it's just the next step for us." Joe affirmed, not breaking eye contact with me.

"Well I know that but we still haven't fixed our problems yet." I reasoned, beginning to get unnerved at his constant stares.

"What problems do we have? I thought we worked those out? We have no regrets about having Jonathan and I told my parents. What else could there be?" Joe asked getting a bit agitated.

"Joey, you haven't even been back in my life 12 hours yet and you already have us moving in together and our wedding planned for the end of this week, never mind the fact that you've been out of my life for 8 months!" I shouted, getting upset.

Joe looked to the ground in thought. He couldn't believe what had just been said. Joe gave himself a mental pep talk.

'Joey, I can't believe she called me Joey! She only calls me that when she wants to upset me and I'm not gonna let her push me away. Two wrongs don't make a right. Gotta fight for your family Joe. Don't give up on your son, he needs his Father! You love this girl or you wouldn't have insisted on giving up your virginity to her and conceiving your son at the same time. Don't let her get to you, stand up for what you want! Fight! Fight! Fight!'

Joe turned and looked deeply into Beth's eyes as he tried to make his point.

"I'm not going anywhere. I am not leaving the woman I love again or my son! As soon as you gave birth to him and I signed that birth certificate as his Father we entered into parenthood together! We're gonna make this work out for the sake of our son! I won't let him grow up without a Father!" Joe shouted back.

"Wow, what? Who are you to just decide the way things are going to be around here? Had you stuck around before this than maybe we wouldn't be sitting here arguing about it and we would already be married and we would have been a normal family for Jonathan like you want so badly!" I shouted back at Joe even louder than he had been speaking to me.

"I am trying to do right by you now! Why can't you see that? Stop shooting me down when I am trying to make that extra effort to be the best friend, partner, lover, Father and husband I can be! God damn it!" Joe shouted an octave higher than my previous tone, while motioning with his hands at the same time.

Right in the middle of our argument, Jonathan started crying. Joe and I turned our heads quickly towards the baby. Just then we both made an even faster move to tend to him at the same time. Thankfully, I reached him first. I quickly bent down and picked him up from the baby swing, putting him over my left shoulder, I began rocking and shushing Jonathan gently. Trying to calm him down.

"Joe, this arguing isn't good for the baby. I think you need to leave now." I said, gesturing towards the door.

Joe walked over to me, putting one hand on my cheek. He cocked his head to the side then leaned in giving me a sweet kiss on my lips.

"I love you... and I'm not giving up until I get my family back..." he whispered, breathing heavily in my face as his lips were just barely touching mine as he spoke.

"Joe... I can't... not now. Just... Please leave." I turned away. I couldn't bear to look him in the eyes just then. I knew I was hurting him and pushing him away but I just couldn't deal with all the emotions that came with our current relationship. Well, what little we had left of it anyways.

He stood there silently, I knew he was waiting for me to look back at him. When I didn't he guided my face towards his.

"You don't mean that... do you?" Joe choked out the words, fighting to hold back his tears.

"Yes. I just can't deal with all of this right now, it's too much, too fast and to be honest I am having a really hard time dealing with it all." I explained, trying my best not to also cry along with Joe as I saw a few tears fall from his eyes.

Joe backed away slightly, hurt evident in his eyes. He looked from me to Jonathan. He leaned down giving Jonathan a kiss on the forehead. He walked to the door and before leaving he turned back and said;

"This isn't over... We are going to make it work out. No regrets - remember that."

"Goodbye Joe..." I said with slight hesitation in my voice as I watched Joe angrily slam the door, possibly for the last time.

***Chapter end notes*** - Oh no does this mean the end of Beth and Joe? would like to hear your thoughts and comments. Thanks for reading!