A text from Stick. I was just getting out of class, checking my phone.
Are you okay?I texted back, while walking quicker, my heart starting to beat quicker. If something was really wrong with Stick he would have called an ambulance, right? Not waited for me to get out of class and then text.
Yes. Just want you to see the world’s cutest baby.
Oh, so Shelly had had her baby. I knew it would be any day now. My pace slowed down; I was no longer in such a hurry. I would love to get out of this, say I was busy and for him to go to the hospital without me. But Stick knew my schedule. I couldn’t even claim to be heading to class. And I had told him I’d be supportive of him having a baby.
It had been three weeks since the night the interview aired, the night I went after Stick and told him I was going to be there for him—whether he wanted it or not.
Three weeks of figuring out how to circumnavigate this new world of ours, which would include me going on the road for my father this summer and Stick dealing with fatherhood, and starting school in the fall.
And three weeks of being loved by Patrick Dooley. That alone was worth all the other crap.
He had taken the money Caro left him—from the sales of the cars—and put a deposit on a second apartment in the same building as he lived. Even the same floor. That was where Shelly and the baby would come home to, not his second bedroom.
I knew it was mainly for my benefit, and felt bad about the money spent, but was happy about the choice he made. Lucas had even moved back into Stick’s apartment now that Lucas’s mother was doing well enough on her own. It helped with the rent, gave Lucas some space (though he still helped out a lot with his little brother), gave Shelly some privacy, but would allow Stick easy access to be able to help out with feedings and such.
The rest of the money he would use to go to school, looking at getting in somewhere within driving distance. He wouldn’t let me use my negotiated chit with Grayson.
It just made me love him more.
I’d met Shelly Hopkins a few times over the past three weeks, and she seemed cool with me being with Stick. Even said another pair of hands for diaper duty would be great. Yeah, right. I mean, I loved Stick and everything, but there was no way I was going to do diapers.
Yes, it was all very civilized.
So why did I not want to go and see Stick’s baby?
Would they name him Dooley? God, I didn’t even ask if it was a boy or girl.
Hopefully I would fall in love with this kid right away and it would all work out.
“Hey, Jane. Got a minute?” Billy Montrose’s voice pulled me out of my baby-induced haze. He was standing in the hallway of the building of my last class, in front of what I knew from my Montrose-hunting days was his office.
“Sure,” I said, and made my way across the hall and into the office, him holding the door open for me.
It was a small room with just a desk, a bookshelf and an old leather couch, the kind that looked like you’d sink down when you sat in it, so that your knees would be at chin level. There were books all over the place, even some stacked on the floor beside the desk and couch. Stacks of papers were on his desk.
“The ‘Who I am Right Now’ papers?” I asked, pointing to a stack. It was the paper we’d had to write for our final for his class. The paper that had prompted him to give me the “Find Her” talk.
“What? Oh, yeah. Not as entertaining as last semester’s batch, I’m afraid.” He motioned to the couch, and I moved to sit down. His leather jacket was on the arm, and I moved it out of the way. Something dropped from underneath it and pooled at my feet. I bent over and picked up a beautiful, brightly colored scarf. A very unique scarf that I’d seen only one place before.
I held it to my nose. Yep, even smelled of her perfume. I handed it to Montrose, not saying a word, only raising a brow at him.
“It’s, um…”
“Complicated? I’m sure it is,” I said. He stood in front of me, looking down at the scarf in his hands like it held the secrets to the universe. Maybe, for him, it did.
Who was I to judge? I was on my way to meet my ex-car-thief boyfriend to see his baby with another woman. “Don’t worry about it,” I said to Montrose. “I won’t mention that I was here…to anyone.”
He nodded, still looking at the scarf. After a couple of seconds he gently placed the scarf on his desk, watching it, like it might slide off and away from him. Finally his attention turned back to me.
Funny, last semester I would have loved to have been given private attention in Montrose’s office. Now, I just wanted to hear what he had to say and get out of there. And get to Stick.
“I saw the interview you did with the Strattons,” he said. “And I was sorry I couldn’t make it to Caroline’s funeral.”
That’s right—he was college friends with Betsy. “It was a nice service,” I said.
“I’m sure it was.” He leaned against the front of his desk, crossing his ankles, and ran a hand through his wavy hair. Damn, but he was good looking in a tortured-artist kind of way.
