She was the only person I could ever really talk to about motherhood without the fear of feeling shamed.
The only one who knew what it meant to build something out of chaos because of stupid choices made when life was easier living it recklessly.
But even with her I’d never been entirely forthcoming. I’d never told her the full story about that weekend, about my dad’s three best friends.
I’d never lied to her like I had my dad and said that Eli was the result of some anonymous hookup.
At least that part I’d been truthful: that it was a mistake tangled up in loyalty, friendship, and too many lines crossed.
Still, Lila’s no fool.
She’s pieced enough together over the years to know my “wild weekend” was the turning point of everything.
To her credit, she’s never once judged me for it.
That fact alone is what has made her my best friend.
I pace the back of the store with my heart in my throat and whisper, “They’re here, Lila, in town.All three of them.”
There’s a sharp inhale on the other end. “What?”
“Yeah. They came back for Dad’s birthday. One of them stopped by the shop and saw me. I didn’t know what the hell to do. And he knows about Eli—well, doesn’tknowknow—but he knows Eli exists. What the hell do I do?”
“Your dad’s birthday?”
I wince, realizing what I’ve just said. I can already hear her connecting the dots, filling in the blanks she’s had circled for years with no context clues to point her in the right direction.
Now I’ve just given her the damn key to the cipher.
“I—”
She cuts me off. “You know what? We’re going to unpack that later. Right now, deep breaths. We’renotpanicking yet.”
“I’m alreadypastpanicking!” I hiss. “If any of them put two and two together?—”
“They won’t,” she says quickly, though she doesn’t sound entirely convinced either. “Just breathe, Noelle. You’ve kept this secret for six years. You can survive one weekend.”
I groan. “I don’t know.”
“Look at it this way, if any of them say anything, you’ve already got plausible deniability. Especially with your dad. He’dneveraccuse you of lying about Eli’s father being from some one-night hookup in college. Just run with that. If the guys are stupidenough to say something”—she pauses for dramatic effect—“I don’t know, kick them in the balls? Yell at them for harassing you? You’re good at that.”
I laugh weakly. “Yeah…okay.”
“I’m serious!” she insists.
I can picture her now pacing around her kitchen, phone balanced between shoulder and ear as one hand waves a spoon in the air still coated with peanut butter from adding it to her morning shake. “If it comes down to it, the worst that’ll happen is them making fools out of themselves. From what you’ve told me, they don’t seem like that type, but men getsoweird about kids sometimes. I swear, it’s that whole bogus legacy thing. They get it in their heads that?—”
Her words start to blur, fading into the background hum of my thoughts.
Lila continues to rant about men and their fragile egos, the myth of fatherhood as ownership and the whole nine yards but I’m not really hearing her anymore.
Because my situation isn’t that simple.
Dean, Grant, and Callum aren’t deadbeats.
They wouldn’t be the kind of men who would have run if I’d told them.
If anything, they would’ve done the opposite.
