Disclaimer: I don't own MIOBI or these characters, and I'm not making any money off of this story.
Sasha had just dumped a stack of blankets and pillows on his couch when he heard a knock at the door. Payson had texted him earlier and asked if she could stay with him for the night, which could only mean that things had not gone well with her parents. He opened the door to reveal a relatively calm Payson Keeler standing on the other side with a bag slung over her shoulder.
"Hey."
"Hey."
The lack of any real words should have been awkward, but it wasn't. Everything had always been so easy with Payson, with the small exception of the uncomfortable days after she kissed him. Payson just brushed past him into the apartment and headed toward the couch. She dropped her bag beside her, sat down cross-legged on the cushions, and dropped her head into her hands. She was a strange mixture of defiance and dejection, too proud to let her walls down but too hurt to act like nothing was the matter.
He moved next to her and sat down, offering his support without words. She spoke first, as he knew she would. Her voice was muffled by her hands, but he understood her words anyway. "Dad kicked me out."
Sasha was stunned. Mark Keeler was the most supportive father he had ever met; it didn't make sense that he would throw his daughter out of the house just because she made a mistake. "I'm sure he didn't mean it, Payson. He'll calm down."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure he did mean it," she said, lifting her head from her hands and looking up at him. "He didn't say this out of anger. He told me he was glad that I was taking responsibility and then very calmly told me to get out."
"Why would he do that?" he asked, rubbing soothing circles between Payson's shoulder blades. "That doesn't fit with what I know of your father at all."
She slouched so that she was leaning against his bicep, and he could feel her sigh. "He thinks I need to act like an adult, learn to take care of myself. His dad did the same thing to him when Mom got pregnant, and I can't really disagree with the philosophy. I can't raise the baby in my parent's house. I'll have to move out in a few months anyway, so it's not that big of a deal to do it now instead."
"It is a pretty big deal, Payson. There are problems with this that neither you nor your father have realized, the first one being that you are seventeen. No place, or at least no safe place, will let you live alone as a minor."
He felt her ribcage rise and fall again as she took a deep breath. "Fine. I'll be eighteen in a few weeks. I can stay in a hotel until then. I have more than enough money."
"You'll have the same problem at a hotel as you would at an apartment," he pointed out. "You're a minor. Even when we go to competitions we are required to have a certain number of adults stay in the hotel to supervise you. So unless you want to tell one of your friends about the pregnancy and stay with them, you have three options. You can go home, you can stay with Austin, or you can stay with me. I'm going to assume, considering what happened today, that staying with Austin is off the table, so that leaves you with two options."
Payson sent him a withering look. "That leaves me with no options, Sasha. Dad isn't going to let me come home and I can't stay with you on a long term basis. You have a one bedroom apartment."
"I can sleep on the couch for a month or two if I have to. That's it. Those are your choices. If you aren't comfortable staying with me then you have to work things out with your dad." He hated that she was even in this position, but there was no way out now.
The look she gave him was earnestly confused. "Why wouldn't I be comfortable staying with you? You're the one who would be inconvenienced by it, not me." It was clear in her eyes that Payson didn't understand why she might reasonably be uncomfortable living alone with a man who was thirteen years older than her and with whom she was constantly linked in rumors and innuendos. For perhaps the hundredth time that day, Sasha wondered how such a sweet and innocent young woman could end up in a situation like this. Probably from being too sweet and innocent, he thought.
"I don't mind being inconvenienced, Pay. I'll talk to your mum tomorrow, see how things are with your dad. I think it would be better for you to go home, but if that's not an option then you'll stay here." It wasn't the best plan, considering how many people already assumed they were having an affair, but it was the best plan that they had. "There is still a problem after you turn eighteen, though. You can't live alone while you're pregnant."
Payson shifted away from him and leaned back into the sofa. Her eyes were drifting shut with exhaustion, even though it was only mid-evening. "People do it all the time, Sasha. I'm pregnant, not handicapped."
"I realize that, Payson. I know that women often live alone while they're pregnant, but that doesn't mean it's a good option for you or that either you mother or I would be comfortable with that arrangement. You need someone there with you in case of an emergency. And what about when you go into labor? How are you going to get to the hospital if you're alone?"
"Fine, you've made your point," she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "If everything is…okay…after the Olympics, I'm going to tell the girls anyway. I'll ask Emily to move in with me. Happy?"
He frowned at her. "No, I'm not. I'm not happy about anything in this situation. I'm glad that you're sorting out a plan, but I'm not sure if you realize how hard this is going to be. Raising a child is difficult enough under ideal circumstances. As a single teenage mother, it's going to be a million times harder."
She pulled herself upright again and leveled a serious gaze at him. "I know, Sasha. I know it's going to be hard. But I'm trying to take this one day at a time right now, and that means putting off some of the tough questions until I'm more equipped to handle them. Right now I'm trying to deal with the fact that I might—" her voice broke with emotion "—that I might not stay pregnant. I need to wait until I know for sure before I can start planning for the future."
Shit. Even though he knew how uncertain the pregnancy was, he had been thinking of it in terms of fact instead of possibility ever since she told him that she wanted to keep the baby. "You're right. I'm sorry, I was being insensitive. I can't imagine what it feels like to have that hanging over your head. I shouldn't have pushed you."
"You were just trying to help," she said. "I get that. It's just… it feels like my entire life is up in the air right now. I meant what I said this morning; I'm going to the Olympics. But I'm terrified that I'm going to lose the baby in the process. I know that I'm seventeen, and I'm not ready, and Austin's definitely not ready, but I can't just give this up. Now that I know I'm pregnant I can't go back to the way things were before."
Sasha drew her into a hug and she sank against him almost immediately. It had been a long, hard day for her and she was barely holding it together. "I wish I could tell you it will all be okay." He sat holding her for a long time, giving her the opportunity to relax, at least as much as possible, and wishing he could protect her from all the hardships she was about to face. An hour passed without speaking before he broke the silence. "You should go to bed. If you want the baby to be healthy you need to get plenty of sleep."
"I need you to tell me something first," she said, her eyes managing to be defiant despite the fact that she was nearly asleep. "I need you to tell me what Austin said. Word for word. No shielding me."
He didn't want to, but he told her. He cringed as he repeated some of the worst things that Austin said, but he didn't leave anything out. She listened without interrupting until he was finished, and then said, "I'm sorry he dragged you into this. I don't blame him for flipping out, really, because he did get two really big bombs dropped on him at once, but I just wish he'd left you out of it."
"I brought it on myself. I honestly don't think I could have stopped him from making a scene, but I did basically accuse him of raping you." He'd been angry at the time and the words had left his mouth before he could even fully consider them. "I'd go pretty ballistic if someone accused me of rape, too."
"You weren't wrong, though." He stiffened and she backtracked quickly. "I mean, you were wrong about what actually happened, but what you said was true. I was too drunk to say no, even if I had wanted to, and Austin was encouraging the use of alcohol in a minor. If I wanted to press charges, he could go to jail."
"Just so we're clear, you don't want to press charges, right? Because if you do I'll support you one hundred percent."
She shook her head. "No, I don't. It wasn't just him. We both made mistakes that night." She paused and bit her lip. "He said earlier that he couldn't compete with you, that he couldn't ever get my attention because I was too focused on you. I think that's why he said that stuff about you, because he was jealous. But, honestly, Sasha, I didn't even know he was interested in me. Was I blind to have missed that?"
"Maybe, but I was blind, too. Kaylie said he was obsessed with you. I should have noticed that, but I never did. I saw the way he looked at you sometimes, but I didn't think anything of it because all of the boys look at you that way. Now I keep thinking, what if I'm missing something about one of these other boys, too?" He'd been worried about it all day. If Austin had an unhealthy attraction to Payson, he might not be the only one. She would never notice until something bad happened, because she didn't have a clue how the opposite sex reacted to her.
Payson didn't seem as worried. "Kaylie exaggerates, Sasha. I don't think Austin is obsessed with me. Everyone is making him out to be a monster and he's not. He's an asshole sometimes, but he's not a monster. I think maybe I just pushed him too far, because he apparently really liked me and I pretty much ignored him."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"No, it doesn't," she agreed. "But it makes it understandable. I think Austin and I have both gone way past the edge of 'okay,' so there's no point in using that as a standard."
"Okay," he said, and then they both chuckled at his choice of word. "Alright. We will give him the benefit of the doubt for now, but I think you should stay away from him for a little while anyway. He needs to calm down before you see him again. Now let's get you to bed."
He pulled her up from the couch and grabbed her bag from the floor beside him. The action was eerily similar to the way they left the women's bathroom this morning. He gave her a quick tour of the bedroom and then left her alone to sleep. When he came back into the living room he had the strong urge for a beer, but he had to remind himself that binge drinking was not the best way to help Payson right now. Instead he just laid down on the couch and tried (unsuccessfully) to go to sleep.
A/N: I know I'm a dork for even mentioning this, but I can't help it :) The past tense of 'lie' is 'lay,' but I have always thought that sounded stupid. He just lay down on the couch doesn't sound good to me, so I intentionally used 'laid' even though it's the wrong word, and I'll keep doing it all through this fic. (They lie down a lot in this story :D)
Let me know what you think of the chapter! Or even just weigh in on the pointless grammar issue, because I always find it fun to hear if other people are bothered by things like that, too.