Page 79 of Pick Me This Time

While I was really happy that Jake and Rachel had finally decided to bury the hatchet for good, it just felt like they were all moving on as the same tight-knit, happy group they’d always been, while I was stuck on the outside. Again.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t look to the future with him. Because he and I didn’t have one of those.

Trying to push past the hurt, I forced another smile at her. “Jake must be happy that they finally talked, huh?”

“Yeah, he is,” she said quietly, swaying from side to side a little bit when Elizabeth started squirming. “We’re going to miss him when he goes back to New York. That’s for sure. Did you know he came and dropped off a whole mountain of baby stuff for us? I think he had it special ordered from the city because the brands are all fancy and stuff.”

“That’s cool,” I said, but I felt like I’d just received a blow to the chest, confirming what I’d been suspecting all along.

Despite my best efforts not to let my heart get involved with whatever was going on between us, I’d failed. I’d been trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but the truth was that I had been looking at this thing we were having through a haze.

A haze of hopes and what-ifs.No matter the amount of times I’d reminded myself that it could never be serious, hearing Rachel talk about him going back to New York as if it was a matter of fact and bringing up how he’d bought them baby stuff hurt so much that I knew my reminders hadn’t worked.

That night of Lizzy’s birth, he and I had talked about having babies. I’d imagined buying baby stuff for our kids, even if neither of us had actually said out loud that we thought the other might be the right person.

The baby stuff was minor in comparison to him leaving again, though. While I had been daydreaming about us maybe one day buying baby stuff together, we didn’t have a baby to shop for right then. Obviously, he would be shopping for the baby that was already here. I’d shopped pretty extensively for this baby myself.

It was more that hearing that he’d shopped for them had knocked me out of that idle fantasy pretty hard. Because we weren’t ever going to be shopping for baby stuff together. Maybe if he wasn’t leaving, but that had been the part that had really torn me up.

To Rachel’s mind, and to Jake’s, and to Eric’s, there was no possibility of Sterling staying. Probably because he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to choose to move back to Allisburg to be with me. He was going back to New York and they’d miss him, but I’d be heartbroken because I hadn’t freaking listened to myself.

How could I have been so damn stupid?

“Daph?” Rachel asked, her voice breaking me out of my spiraling thoughts. “You’re not okay. What’s going on with you, honey? You look like you’re about to burst into tears.”

That’s exactly how I feel.

Swallowing them down, I cleared my throat and screwed my eyes shut for just a moment. “No. I’m good. Really. I’ve just been working super hard. Actually, I’m pretty beat. I think I’m going to head out. Will that be okay?”

“Of course,” she said, worry shining like a beacon in her eyes. “Jake went to grab a drink with Sterling and Eric. He’s bringing us back some food when he comes home. Are you sure you don’t want to stay? We could always just watch a movie or something? Just us girls. You can eat with us when he gets back and go home after?”

“Thanks, but maybe another time.” I pushed away from the counter, feeling guilty that I hadn’t even stayed long enough for a cup of tea, but I needed to get out of here. “I’ll pop in again later this week. Once I’m a bit more used to the pace of work for the festival.”

“Okay, babe.” She shot me a worried smile and walked me out.

When we reached the door, I turned to give her another quick hug. “Don’t come out. It’s too cold. I’ll see you guys soon.”

I dropped a kiss on baby Lizzy’s head too. Then I took off, deciding to blow off my friends and go home instead of heading over to the festival. I just wasn’t up to it.

I’d lied to my best friend, I’d realized that I had feelings for a guy who would never be my boyfriend, and the future I’d been conjuring up in my mind whenever Sterling made comments about marriage or babies was completely out of the question.

Thinking that this was about as bad as things could get, I headed out to go home—only to run into someone I hoped I would never see again, and then I realized that with him back in town now too, everything was about to get much, much worse.