“Who’s Meghan?” Laney, my sister’s best friend, asks.
“Shit,” Fletcher mutters beside me. “Meghan is a woman Henley slept with last year, and she’s been calling him for months.” Even though I could have answered for myself, I’m grateful to my friend for explaining the circumstances with words I probably couldn’t form easily right now.
“Oooookay…” Dilynne drags out, not putting two and two together yet.
“Your brother thought she just wanted a repeat with him, but looks like that wasn’t the reason she was calling.” Fletcher jerks his chin in the direction of the baby.
Dilynne gasps as everything clicks. “You have a daughter?”
My brain starts to catch up with the conversation happening around me, even as I come to the conclusion that condoms really aren’t one hundred percent effective because I’ve used one every time I’ve had sex in my life.
Now I know how Ross felt when Rachel told him she was pregnant onFriends.
“I—I guess I do.”
Dilynne leans in to assess the baby. “How old is she?”
Clearing my throat, I reply, “She’s three months old.”
“And where’s Meghan?” Fletcher asks, his arm slung around Laney’s shoulders. They finally admitted their feelings for one anotherabout a month ago, much to everyone’s surprise. Now they’re inseparable. I’m still trying to get used to it, among other things.
I take a deep breath. “She’s gone. She said she never wanted kids but thought she might feel differently once the baby was born. Clearly that didn’t happen and I had been blowing her off, so it’s not like she had help. It took her awhile to make a final decision and for me to pick up the phone, but once I did, she felt confident in her decision, and just left the baby with me.”
My friends glance around at each other, completely shocked and clearly at a loss for words—because the reality is, I’m the last person any of them expected to have a kid.
Laney’s older brother, Rhonan, comes over to the table now, followed by my other friend, Elliot. Rhonan is our town’s sheriff, a single dad, and the one who had the hardest time accepting that Fletcher was in love with his sister. He seems to be warming up to the idea now, though. Either that, or he puts on a good show.
“Um, is that a baby?” he asks, his brows drawn tightly together.
Elliot snorts around the rim of his beer glass. “I love how everyone is asking that question like you all don’t have eyes. Yes, we’ve established that it’s a fucking baby.”
Elliot Thorne is the last of my three best friends and a lawyer at his father’s firm in town. Normally, I’d comment on his piss-poor mood and sarcastic reply, but it’s only been a little over a month since his fiancée left him at the altar and ran off with her boss. So, he gets a pass for a while.
Dilynne glares at Elliot across the table. “Look, Grumpzilla. There’s no need for you to speak if you’re going to act like even more of an asshole than usual.”
Those two can’t be in the same room without biting each other’s heads off. Before Elliot can spit something nasty back, Laney asks, “How do you even know she’s yours, Henley?”
I push the canopy of the carrier back. “Those are Clark ears. Come on, Dil, back me up.”
My sister peers into the carrier and sighs. “Shit.”
“I still think you should get a paternity test,” Elliot grumbles as he lifts his drink again.
Rhonan clears his throat. “He’s right because then you’re not legally responsible for—”
“And what if she’s not mine?” I say, cutting him off. I know my friends don’t want me to be taken advantage of, but the only thing I’m feeling right now is guilt. “She ends up in the system?” I turn and look at my sister because she and I both know what that life is like, and hell if I’m going to put another human being in that same situation. “Not on my fucking watch.”
I should have answered the damn phone the first time she called. Maybe then, Meghan wouldn’t have been so desperate to leave the baby behind. Maybe we could have co-parented or figured something else out that would be best for this little girl. Because I’m the last thing she needs—a single parent with no knowledge of how to care for a baby. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this innocent baby end up in foster care like me.
“I can’t abandon her,” I continue, staring down at the little bundle of pink, sleeping peacefully and blissfully unaware that her entire life just changed. “Even if she’s not mine, she’s—”
“Achild, Henley,” Dilynne cuts in. “A baby. And the last I checked, you don’t have any experience with that. Hell, none of us do.”
Rhonan clears his throat and raises his hand. “Uh, pretty sure I have a daughter.”
Dilynne smacks her forehead. “Shit, that’s right.”
Elliot chuckles. “Forgetting about Ellis? I didn’t think you werethatself-centered, Dilynne.”
