Penny blinks at me, until she belts out a laugh that I swear ricochets against the indoor pool walls. She gets glares from the mommy group, but she just rolls her eyes.
“Well. It’s official. You and Gavin are the most twisted of all of us.”
“Hey now. Don’t go that far. Aiden married his dead best friend’s estranged daughter, who calls him daddy. Don’t even get me started on your situation,” I say, glaring at her and her nostrils flare.
“At least Lincoln and I weren’t lying to each other. It was circumstantial how we started. Fate if you will.”
I cover Brynn’s ears again.
“Did you really just say that fucking your adopted cousin in a glory hole was fate?”
“Okay, you know what? We’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking about you and your freak of a twin, and how you’re going to get yourselves out of this mess. I mean, you guys go through women like socks, is it really that big of a deal?”
I can feel my cheeks heat and Penny gapes at me. “No? No?” she repeats it twice like the fact that I care so much is unbelievable. “There must be something in the Carlson genes, maybe your frontal lobes don’t develop until you’re thirty-five instead of twenty-five.”
I glare at her. “It’s just. I mean, of course, I don’t want anything outside of the physical. But she’s perfect for me and Gavin. I want to keep seeing her at Avalon, but I’m not sure if that will be on the table when she knows the truth.”
She moves the baby around and I realize she knows too much, considering she isn’t questioning what that means.
“What did Lincoln tell you?” I ask, and she shrugs, kissing the baby on the cheeks, and he grins.
“Don’t use your baby as a shield. What did that grumpy fuck tell you?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Brynn says, almost like she’s a motor engine.
“Look what you did,” Penny says, grabbing Brynn and handing me Hudson, who’s far more content to just be held and splash in the water.
This part of the pool is dedicated to swimming. The spot next to us has an aerobics class where geriatrics are using pool noodles for exercise and then the rest are lanes dedicated for swimmers.
I take Hudson in my hands and pretend he’s a shark as we swim over to the edge where Penny is obviously hiding from me and trying to get Brynn to hold the edge and kick her feet.
“Tell your mommy to spill the beans,” I tell Hudson, who splashes his fat little hands against the water.
Oh, to be an infant again, with not a single fucking care in the world. Hudson just worries about playing, eating, and sleeping. He’s truly living the dream.
A flash of black catches my attention, and I put Hudson on my hip as I look over to my right.
It’s a wide-eyed Kate in a black bathing suit, slipping over the edge, staring at me like she’d like to blow my head off with a laser.
“Kate?”
She looks at me, the baby I’m holding, and then Penny.
“You’re her?” Penny says in a shocked tone, which just has Kate scooting the hell out of the pool even faster, not even looking in my direction.
“Fuck,” I hiss, keeping my hold of Hudson as I make my way over to the stairs and chase her.
She’s nearly at the women’s locker room when I grab her arm.
When she turns around, she looks pissed as hell.
14
YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER
I’m regretting my ‘new me’mindset around my tenth lap in the pool. I swam in high school; I loved it, but it’s clear my body isn’t the same as it used to be. I’m going to need to keep coming back if I want my muscles to not ache every time I get out of the pool.
Even though my arms feel like they might fall off, I feel accomplished as I grab the edge of the pool and toss off my swimming cap. The ache feels good, granted, not as good as the remnants of the giant bruise on my ass from the other night. I’m contemplating going back to Avalon tonight, but wonder if that would make me seem too needy.
