“Sorry, I know it’s not funny,” I said. “I think I’m in shock.”
“Right,” Ellie said. “Well, I tried to warn you. I could have told you I’d moved to Quince Valley, except I had no idea you were living here. Sarah told me you left town. If she hadn’t, I would have never come.”
I don’t know why that hurt so much.
“I would have said something,” she continued. “You know, about the baby. Except, I couldn’t, because you fuckingblockedme.”
I turned back to Ellie, my mind still reeling. I was so confused. And this time it wasn’t just because of this life-altering revelation that was sitting before me though. It was because of what she’d just said.
“Blocked you?”
Her face went hard. “Don’t pretend, Sam. It’s not becoming of a man who’s so good at acting like a decent human being.” She closed her eyes, then plastered on a fake smile. “You know what? We have to go.”
She turned, gripping the stroller with white knuckles and angling it back down the river path. She was about ten paces away when I got the wherewithal to run after her.
“Ellie,” I said, this idiot part of my brain still insisting this wasn’t possible.
Ellie whipped her face toward me. She waslivid.Some part of me—a large part of me—felt like shit for making her feel this way, but I was still too confused to understand how or what was going on. And I was starting to get frustrated. I feltlike I was two steps behind. Like I was running through mud trying to understand.
“I’m sorry, okay? This just doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand.”
Ellie jerked herself and the stroller to a stop. The baby giggled. It would be a really cute sound if I could hear it through the blood rushing in my ears.
“Let me help you out,” Ellie said, her eyes fiery on mine. “We made a baby. We didn’t mean to make a baby, but sometimes, it just happens.”
“But we didn’t have sex!” I exclaimed. I hadn’t watched my voice, and the closest people to us, over by the railing twenty feet away, turned to stare, their eyebrows up.
Ellie’s cheeks flooded with color.
She started walking again. “Were you that drunk? Do you not remember?”
Heat crawled up my chest. “I had a couple of drinks, but that was earlier…” I struggled to keep up with her. “I wasn’t drunk, Ellie. Goddammit, would you stop for a minute?”
She wheeled on me, her raging eyes dropping to where I was leaning over, pushing the heel of my hand down on my hip. It wasn’t hurting, but it might if I kept running.
I watched as confusion seemed to blow the tiniest bit of cool air over her anger.
“I remember every minute of our time together, Ellie. Every second, actually. I could probably do a play-by-play if I thought that’s what either of us needed.” I’d replayed our night together approximately eight thousand times over the past year and a half. It brought me great comfort over a very fucking uncomfortable year plus. Ellie had been so disappointed when we’d discovered neither of us had a condom. I’d almost come right there seeing how badly she’d wanted to be with me. I told her there were lots of other ways I could makeher happy. I promised. Then I showed her. Multiple times. It was the hottest night of my life.
Ellie took a breath. “Sam. Just because we didn’t… ‘p in v’, doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
Under any normal circumstances, I would have laughed at a grown woman saying ‘p in v’. But there was nothing funny about this.
Plus, she was still going. “All that other stuff we did is still sex. And I guess you have super-sperm or something, because at least one of those little mini-yous managed to hit a home run. And here we are.”
I thought back to what we’d done. How it could have been possible to get to where we were now.
And then I saw it. I rewound to the precise moment. The way she’d bent over so beautifully for me. How I’d leaned over her, my hand tangled in the hair at the back of her head as she arched her back for me, and me, coming just the way she asked for it. Heat, splattering her backside. The way I slicked her with it with my hand, reaching for?—
Ellie bumped onto the sidewalk, bringing me back to the present. She was heading for the crosswalk without even looking at the road.
“Hey!” I said. She dropped the stroller over the curb and I panicked, reaching out my hand.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she snapped, shaking off my grip.
Thank Christ there were no cars nearby, because she barreled into the road, lip quivering. I chased after her, nearly skipping to keep up. I could feel the beginning pricks of pain in my hip.
How had I been so stupid?
