I have my arsenal of ice cream, wine, beer, and plenty of chocolate to get through the night. I changed into my black and pink tie-dye matching sweat set, too, because I wanted to be comfortable tonight.
Now that I’ve had a piece of Declan, and now that I’ve nixed the benefits part of our friendship deal, I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to be around him and not jump his bones. The fact that I told myself I couldn’t have him makes me want him even more. But I’ve had to remind myself we were always going to end the benefits part of this anyway, going back to being friends once everything was over.
“What’s all that?” Declan asks, pointing to the bag slung over my shoulder as I enter his apartment.
“Goodies. But I need to put the ice cream in the freezer.” The apartment smells amazing, and I clock the candle that’s lit in the living room with a bunch of pillows and blankets set up on the floor.
“You didn’t need to bring anything, I got a bunch of stuff,” he tells me as he presses the light button on the oven and checks what’s inside of it.
I pull open his freezer, and front and center sits cookies and cream ice cream. The good kind, too. My heart does thatthing it does when I’m around him, but I ignore it and stuff my cheap ice cream next to his.
“Here, let me,” he says as he pulls the rest of the stuff out. He grabs a wine bottle opener from a drawer and two wine glasses from the cupboard.
“You drink wine?” I ask.
“I do. Not often, but with certain foods, I like a glass.”
“I didn’t know you liked country music either,” I say as I recognize a familiar slow tune coming through the speaker on the counter.
He pours us each a glass of wine and hands one to me, his fingers brushing mine. Goosebumps instantly rise on my skin, and I’m glad I’m covered from head to toe, so he doesn’t notice.
“It’s my guilty pleasure. Ever since I was a teenager.”
“I love country music too,” I tell him honestly. “It’s the one genre that tells the best love stories.”
He takes a sip of wine, staring me in the eyes, and I look away from his gaze. I knew it was going to be hard, being alone with him, and I’m already regretting coming over here.
“Why don’t you cue up a movie? I have almost all the streaming services. And the steaks should be done in two minutes.”
I moan around every bite of food once we get seated in front of the coffee table. You’ve Got Mail plays in the background as we eat and idly chat, and I don’t think I’ve had a dinner this nice… ever.
“Can I ask you a serious question?” Declan asks as he sets his fork and knife down after finishing his meal.
I turn my head towards him. “Yeah. Shoot.”
“Why aren’t you with Autumn’s dad.”
I pause my next bite mid-air. That’s not what I thought he was going to ask. But frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t ask me sooner. On his first encounter with Autumn, she told him she didn’t have a dad. And it’s true. She doesn’t. She has a sperm donor.
I set my fork down and bite my lip, trying to think about how much information I want to divulge to him. I told him how I was basically a virgin, but he doesn’t know much else besides that. I lean my head against the couch and roll it in his direction. “Because he’s not a good person and was just a one-night stand.”
His eyes search mine before saying, “You don’t seem like the type of person just to give your virginity to someone random, so what happened?”
I take a deep breath and turn to look at the TV. “He pursued me. Hard. And he was charming and charismatic. Objectively handsome. You name it, I thought he had it. But I also knew he was a player. And the night that Autumn was conceived, he finally broke me down enough to convince me to have sex with him. My gut knew something was wrong, but I went through with it anyway. Once it was all said and done, he brought me back down to the party and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night. I left as soon as I overheard one of his fratbrothers talking about losing a bet.” I look to Declan and say, “I was the bet. All twenty-six of the guys in his fraternity took a bet on how fast Autumn’s father could fuck me.”
Declan’s nostrils flare and his jaw tenses, but I continue, “I didn’t find out I was pregnant with Autumn until I was at the ten-week mark. And when I went to confront him about it, he told me I was a whore and that I would be hearing from his lawyer. Two days later, a man showed up at my door and gave me one option: take a paternity test and if the paternity was proven, sign an NDA. I signed the piece of paper, not even a week later, saying I would never breathe a word about who the father was. I was cut a check too but never cashed it. Looking back, I probably should have talked to my parents or a lawyer, but I was too scared.”
Declan’s hand reaches out, and he pulls me into a hug. I soak his shoulder with tears because that’s the first time I’ve ever told the story out loud. My parents don’t know, Jordan doesn’t know, nobody knows any of it. As far as they’re all concerned, I had a one-night stand with a stranger and never saw the guy again.
I have no idea why I just told Declan all of this, why he was the one I chose to divulge this information to, but it feels good getting it out. Really good in fact.
One of his hands cradles the back of my head, and the other rubs circles on my upper back, just like how he did with Autumn when she had her night terror. My body relaxes into his touch, and he holds me until I calm down.
When I finally pull away to wipe my nose with my sweatshirt sleeve, Declan is looking at me with a stone-cold sober expression. “If you signed an NDA, that means his dad, or mom, must have been someone powerful.” I don’t confirm or deny, I just look down and fiddle with my sweatshirt sleeves. “Has anyone contacted you about it since?”
I shake my head. “No.” And I hope they never do. It will be a cold day in hell if I ever see Autumn’s father again, or if his family ever tries to come for me.
“I almost got rid of her,” I whisper to Declan. “The day after I told him, I went to a clinic. I sat in the waiting room, thinking about how it could have happened with such an awful human being. I was on birth control at the time, and he used a condom. It shouldn’t have been possible. But when the nurse called my name, I just stared at her, thinking about how, on God’s green Earth, could this tiny little thing make it through two forms of birth control? I walked out of the clinic with tears running down my face, but with my mind made up. It wouldn’t have mattered if anyone came knocking at my door to make me sign an NDA because I was never going to tell a soul whose baby it was. It might not have been my dream to be a teenage mom, but I was willing to sacrifice for the tiny little human growing inside of me.”
