I laugh to myself because if my father knew everything. If he knew that it was a one-night stand. If he knew that I knew literally nothing about this man when I slept with him and created Ryan, he would not have said that. I didn’t pick Eli. Not in the slightest. My hormones did.
ELI
Leaving the hotel, I am feeling about a million different emotions. What the fuck just happened tonight? Like, what the actual fuck? I walk to my truck and climb into the driver’s seat, but I don’t go anywhere.
I’m not sure where to go or what to do. I’m completely confused. Just as I’m about to start the truck engine, my phone rings. Reaching into the cup holder, where I tossed it as I climbed inside, I slide my thumb across the screen and lift it to my ear.
“Daniel,” I state.
“I’m at your house, and you aren’t here,” he announces.
“I’m sitting outside of a hotel across from the arena trying to figure out what the actual fuck,” I state.
He snorts, although I can tell it’s not truly humor-filled. “We’re all waiting for you here. Come on home, and then we can talk about everything.”
My friends. They mean well, but I’m not sure I want to talk to anyone about this. I’m thinking that I need to call my stepdad. My mother would be too emotional. My stepdad would give me solid advice without tapping into just emotions.
That being said, he would be pissed if I called him at this hour and wasn’t in the hospital. So, instead of calling him, I do what Daniel tells me to, and I drive home. The entire drive is nothing but a blur.
I’m not sure what to expect at two o’clock in the morning when I pull into my driveway, but it’s not the whole fucking crew.
Not only is Daniel standing on my front porch, but so are Luke, Pavel, and Henry. “What the fuck,” I whisper to myself.
Shifting the truck intoPark, I open the door and inhale a deep breath as I climb out of the front seat, then let it out the moment my feet touch the concrete. I don’t know what the fuck is going to happen here, but I am glad they’re all here.
I thought it would be good to come home and crash after at least getting the basics of what happened with Wrenly, with the baby. But as I started driving, I realized that I had no fucking clue of what to do, and I’ve never felt so alone in my whole fucking life.
Luke takes a step toward me. Everyone here has likely heard from Daniel that I now have a kid. He appears the most concerned, which is likely because his daughter, Sloane, is almost the exact same age as Ryan.
Fuck me.
“Daniel told me you have a kid. What the hell is going on?” he asks.
It’s beyond comical. Flat out. I jerk my chin toward the front door, a silent signal to go inside, mainly because my neighbors can be nosy as fuck, and I don’t want to deal with any questions.
I walk toward the front door, unlock it, walk inside, and flip on the living room light as the other men follow. Everyone follows behind me, taking their usual seats in the living room. They’ve all been here enough over the years that everyone has unassigned assigned seating.
Instead of making anyone ask me again, I just start to spill it all. They don’t know about Wrenly, not really. Sure, a few of them know I met someone, and she ghosted me. But that’s about all because, honestly, that’s all it was until now.
When I’ve finished telling them everything, Daniel whistles, but it’s Pavel who speaks. “You are going to let her walk away?” he asks, but it sounds more accusatory.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confess, and I know it makes me seem weak as fuck. Because I really don’t know what to do. I can say that this is, without a doubt, a situation I’ve never been in or ever considered before.
Pavel stands to his feet. “That is your child,” he announces, his accented voice booming. “And you have wanted the girl for two years. Now you do not know?”
I almost laugh, except nothing about this is very funny. “He wanted her for some fun,” Henry chuckles. “He wasn’t sure he wanted to marry her. He doesn’t know her. I get that.”
“And are you sure you’re the father?” Daniel asks, not for the first time.
Shrugging a shoulder, I clear my throat. “I’m pretty fucking certain, and she said she would do whatever I needed as far as that stuff goes.”
Luke has been fairly quiet during this explanation, but his chin jerks toward me, and he stands to his feet.
“I’m not going to give you any advice that you don’t want,” he announces, and I know that means he’s about to give me advice. I almost laugh, but instead, I bite the inside of my cheek as he continues. “You have thought about her for years. She is the mother of your kid. I think you should at least get to know one another.”
I don’t tell him that all I wanted to do tonight, even as confused as I was, was to fuck her. That’s all I wanted, to be inside of her again. She fucking walked away from me. No, she ran scared, thought that I had ditched her that night, and didn’t know how to tell me she was pregnant.
And I can’t blame her.
