I fully understand why he requested it, and I was hardly surprised when an appointment came through the day after the game. He has every right to have the truth confirmed. While I might be frustrated that he doesn’t believe me, really…why should he?
He doesn’t know me. Hell, he didn’t even remember my name.
“Yes,”Sienna states confidently. “I think he’s going to come.”
“If he does, it’s only because Hailee makes him,” I reason.
“Does that matter? He’ll be here. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I’d just rather it not be under duress.”
“Give him time. Everything will work out.”
Unfortunately, I don’t share her positivity, and my stomach continues to churn with the reality that I’m alone in this. And it only gets worse when I glance at the clock and discover we’re only two minutes away from our appointment time.
If he was coming, he’d be here by now, surely.
I blow out a slow breath, but it does little to calm me down.
Fire shoots through my veins and I jump to my feet. My need to fight for my baby is uncontrollable, and without anything else to do, I begin pacing back and forth across the room.
The eyes of the other people in here burn into me, but I don’t look at them. Even if I did, I wouldn’t see them. I’m too lost in my head.
Movement where the staff has been coming from to call patients catches my eye, and my heart drops into my feet.
This is it. This is the moment where I have to tell them that I no longer need a DNA test because the other half of my child decided not to turn up.
I guess, in a way, it’s good. It’s better to find out now than a few months down the line, once I’m confident that he’s going to be a present father. At least I can come to terms with it all before the little one arrives.
“Beatrice Walsh,” the guy with the clipboard says.
I take a deep breath and glance at Sienna. She agreed to hold my hand through all of this should Everett not show, and it looks like that’s the case.
“We’ve got this,” she says the second she steps up to my side, her hand slipping into mine.
“Uh…yeah, that’s me. But I don’t think I’m going to need?—”
There’s movement at the entrance to the waiting room, and when I spin around, my breath catches in my throat.
He might have his ball cap pulled low, but I don’t need to see his face to know it’s him. If his sheer size doesn’t give him away, then the angry aura coming from him sure does.
“Shit,” Sienna hisses, making me wonder if she was lying earlier when she confidently said that he’d be here.
He walks right up to us, and I swear I stop breathing.
“I can take it from here,” he rasps before pressing his hand into the small of my back and gently pushing me forward.
With little choice but to start walking, I move down the hallway in front of us.
The warmth of his giant palm burns through me. I want to say his presence settles some of the unease I was feeling before, but that would be a lie. If anything, it’s made it worse.
“Just down here on the left,” the guy with the clipboard says as he races ahead of us and opens a door.
Just before I step through, I look over my shoulder at my best friend, who’s standing exactly where I left her, anxiously chewing on her nail.
‘I’m okay,’ I mouth before walking into the room with Everett right behind me.
I jump as if I’ve been shot when the door clicks closed behind us.
