“Don’t!” she yelled, louder than I thought necessary.
“Am I hurting you?” Immediately, remorse coursed through my veins. What did I do? I’d never been forceful or rough when it wasn’t welcome.
“Just don’t, King. Don’t.” She shrugged the bag off her wrist and onto the floorboard, slamming the door when she was done. “Please, let me go.”
Her words rang in my ears, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my reflection. There I was in the window, the floodlight illuminating my sharp features, my short hair, the bump in my nose where it had been broken decades ago, and on the other side of the glass was ... a child’s car seat?
I blinked, certain my mind was playing tricks on me. Surely, she wasn’t married? I hadn’t seen a ring, and I was pretty sure I looked. Besides, what kind of schmuck would let someone as beautiful as Jules wait tables for a living on a Saturday night? She should be on an evening out, on a date with me.
“Leave it,” she said.
My hand pressed against the glass. “No. I won’t leave it. What the hell is going on with you waitressing? What, do you nanny during the day?” It was the only plausible explanation I could come up with.
“Something like that,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
I tipped her chin toward me. “What about your degree?”
“I didn’t stay at school after you left.”
“What? That’s why I left.”
A tear formed in the corner of her left eye. When it fell in slow motion onto her cheek and slid toward her lip, I reached out and swiped it off with my thumb.
“Please tell me why you would do that. I’ve always dreamed you became successful, went on to do something amazing. I looked for you everywhere. Google, the news, Facebook, always praying you made good on your life. Why are you crying?”
“I had to leave,” she said in a hushed voice. “I couldn’t play anymore.”
“Because of me?” I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, then kissed the top of her head. “Please say it wasn’t because of me.”
“I had a baby,” she whispered.
“A baby?” Rocked to my very core, I shook my head, unable to believe what I’d just heard. “When?”
Jules
One brush of his lips on my forehead, and I caved. Gave in, offered everything up. Every last ounce of protection burst from my body and my hardened shell cracked, allowing my mouth to utter the word I hadn’t meant to share.
Baby.
It’s why I left. I knew if I didn’t run away, I’d confess it all. Drew was too powerful a force, and deep down in my heart, I knew if I’d told him, he’d have done right by me. But if he had, I never would have known if it was for me, or for the child.
His breath, his lips, his words all ghosting over me, rippling over my skin and setting my heart afire—it was all too much, a rush like no other.
“I had a baby.”
Silence blanketed the parking lot, the only noise our combined erratic heartbeats. Together, our hearts were like a salsa band playing in a street festival.
“A baby? When?”
I told myself to lie, to make something up, but the truth bubbled in my gut. I tried to tamp it down, but I wasn’t going to win this battle.
It was as if God was punishing me for telling Darla the truth. I should have told her a lie, that she didn’t have a dad or some other bullshit. Then she wouldn’t have wished to see him so badly.
It’s like she’d conjured him up—the man who’d knocked me up was standing in front of me, asking about my baby. He seemed to have magically appeared out of thin air.
“I have a little girl. She just turned six in July.”
I figured he could do the math, and make what he wanted out of the date.
