“Is he feeling sick? Was this too much too soon after the surgery?” Ma asks. “Is that why he missed the interview?”
“Maverick skipped his interview?” Ronan exclaims and the douchebag is actually smiling.
“If you’re here to eat food, then grab a booth and order some,” Logan growls. “Otherwise, door is over there.”
Mrs. Green gasps. Ma gives Logan a withering stare. “Logan, customers are customers. And you don’t work here anymore.”
“I’m sure he has a good reason,” I tell Ronan because that smirk on his face, like he’s going to benefit from this, is making my blood boil. Even though he probably will. “Maybe he came across an accident on the turnpike and stopped to help. Jake is that kind of guy. I’m literally living proof of that.” I smile.
Ronan’s smirk grows darker – meaner. “Terra, honey, Jake causes accidents nowadays he doesn’t fix them. Or didn’t you hear?”
“What does that mean?”
“Tell her what you know, mom.”
Mrs. Green nods at Ronan but then walks a few feet over to one of our booths by the window overlooking the sea, and I find myself following her. She shrugs out of her coat, a God awful orange and green patterned thing.
She looks at me with wide innocent eyes. Too innocent. “Oh Terra sweetheart, Ronan was just trying to be funny with a cute play on words. You know because of the accidental pregnancy Jake’s responsible for.”
Accidental what?
“Terra?” Ma gasps my name.
“Holy shit did he knock you up?” Finn blurts out, his voice loud and filled with fury.
“No! My God, of course not,” I say and blush as heat rushes my face. “Mrs. Green doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“I don’t mean you. I mean Aspen,” Mrs. Green says calmly. “I was at the hospital visiting a neighbor. Do you all remember Mrs. Turner? Well when she died, she left her house across the street from mine to her grandson but he died, and now his widow, a cute little girl from Hawaii of all places, is in there by herself fixing it up and anyway, she’s all by herself and—”
“Can you get to the point, Mom?” Ronan interrupts and Mrs. Green frowns.
“She had surgery and there’s no one in town to visit her so I was visiting her, and I saw Aspen and Jake coming out of the obstetrics department together, a couple days after your surgeries actually. You were both still patients I think,” she pauses to put her purse down in the booth. “And then the other day, when I was visiting my neighbor again, Aspen was walking across the parking lot alone and there was no denying the bump. It’s the cutest thing, so I stopped to tell her and pat it. She didn’t say Jake was the father. Was actually quite rude to me, but what else is new?”
“Aspen is not carrying Jake’s baby,” I let out a sharp, high-pitched laugh. I realize I have never made a sound like that before but no one has ever said something so completely ludicrous to me before. “There’s no way.”
“Why do you care?” Ronan asks, annoyed for some reason, like this has anything to do with him.
“Because he’s my boyfriend.”
Ronan blinks. “What? Since when? Anyway Aspen’s baby has to be his.”
“It isn’t,” I bark, fully aware I sound like River on the verge of a meltdown.
“Logan…” Finn says his twin’s name slowly, in a low voice.
It draws all our attentions because it’s ominous-sounding and as soon as I lock eyes with Logan, my heart starts to break. A fissure … like a windshield when a rock nails it just so. “Logan?”
“Terra, can I talk to you in the back. Alone?”
“Oh my God…” Ma never ever takes the lord’s name in vain. That is proof that this is as real and devastating as it feels.
Without a word, I walk slowly toward Logan because I feel unsteady and tears are blurring my vision. He’s holding open the door to the kitchen. I walk straight through it and into my office. I shut the door and continue walking to my desk. Finn and Declan have been in here more than me lately, so it’s a disaster. Invoices and unopened mail are piled on one corner. My framed pictures that were evenly spaced on the other corner of the desk are jumbled together. One is even tipped over. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.
Logan slips inside, closing the door firmly behind him. I can’t look at him. I can’t. “It’s true?”
“Not necessarily,” Logan replies. “I mean yes, she is pregnant and yes it might be Jake’s but last time I checked, he didn’t know. She wouldn’t do the paternity test.”
The tears spill down my cheeks. Logan walks toward me. I raise a hand, palm out, and finally look at him. “Don’t. You should have told me.”
