We walk in, and seeing all of Tanner’s things scattered around the room breaks me.
How could she?She had to know what she was doing when she slept with Easton that night.There is no chance she didn’t know who he was.
“Why?”I ask, picking up Tanner’s blanket and hugging it to my body.“I told her so much about you, Easton.This entire time, I’ve told her everything about us.My feelings… and that Tanner called me Mama.”I feel dizzy, so I sit on the couch.“Oh god, Easton.I told her that her son called me his mom.”
My head falls into my hands, tears streaking down my face.
I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to make this about me, but everything feels so heavy.
I have no idea what to think.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
Easton sits on the couch.“Why did she leave him?There’re a lot of questions that we’re not going to know the answer to until we talk to her.”
“Which I want to right now.”
Easton gives me a look.
“Why can’t we?”I ask.
“She’s grieving her grandma,” he says, so in control, sounbothered.
“Aren’t you mad?”I stand and stalk to the window, staring at the street.
“Of course I’m mad.”
“Well, could you act like it?”My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to.“Because I’m standing here feeling like the world just fell out from under me, and you’re just—” I gesture at him.“Sitting there.”
He doesn’t react to my attitude, and somehow that makes it worse.
I bring my hands up and massage my forehead.“I’m sorry.That wasn’t fair.”
“It’s okay.”
I shake my head.“It’s not.”
And that’s when more tears prick my eyes.Not from what he said or what I said, but from the fact that I almost said something cruel to the one person who doesn’t deserve it, and I still can’t stop the ground from moving under my feet.
“I slept with the best friend of the woman I love and conceived a baby with her that I wish was my wife’s.Believe me, I’m more than pissed.”
My shoulders fall, and we stare at one another from across the room.
I want to go to Easton.I want to crawl into his lap.I want to feel the safety I always do in his arms and have him whisper how it will all be okay.But how can it be?We can’t turn back time.
For just a second, my brain goes somewhere I don’t want it to go.It asks a question I’m desperate for an answer to—does this change what we are?
I shut it down immediately.
It doesn’t.I know it doesn’t.
But the fact that I asked it at all frightens me.
“We should get Tanner.”I make a break for it across the room.
“We shouldn’t.”He cuts me off, standing in my way.“Callie is fine.Said he’s good.Sleeping on the floor with Ellis right next to him.She sent me a picture.”He goes to pull out his phone.
