Page 22 of Turning Back

“You don’t know.”

“Sometimes you know, and this is one of those times. I just know.”

“Well, let’s take one step at a time, OK?”

“Ready?” Smith says, walking up to us. Bric looks nervous, which surprises me. But Smith looks… angry.

Why is he pissed off?

“Ready,” I say, sighing.

We walk towards the elevator and wait until the doors open. The ride up to the twenty-first floor seems to take forever, but then when the doors open, it’s all going too fast as we walk down the hall. She’s at the very end. A suite, from the looks of the door.

Smith knocks, no hesitation. I hear a baby fussing inside and look over at Bric. He still looks very nervous. Chella grabs my hand just as the lock disengages and the door swings in.

Rochelle. My beautiful, beautiful Rochelle. She doesn’t look anything like the girl I lost. She looks… so much better.

“I should’ve known,” she says, no hello or greeting.

“I’m sorry,” Chella says, letting go of my hand and stepping forward. “He needed to know. We’ll leave if you want, but I think you owe them a conversation.”

“Fine,” Rochelle says, waving her hand for us to enter. “I probably do deserve this.”

Deserve this. That’s all she has to say? Just, Fine, I deserve this?

Chella enters first, then Smith, then Bric and I’m last. I hesitate for a second, but then the heavy door begins to swing closed and Bric stops it, last second, pulling it open for me again. “Come on,” he says. “Give it five minutes. Then you can leave.”

I enter into a hallway—master bedroom off to the right, large bathroom right in front of me with one of those huge soaking tubs—and then go left and follow Chella into the living room. There’s a couch, three chairs, a small office table, and, once I get fully into the suite, a dining room off to the left that seats one, two, three… eight. Eight fucking people. Sweeping mountain and city views from the two windows that flank the corner fireplace draw my attention back to what’s happening.

I wonder who’s paying for this? This room has got to cost two thousand a night, easy.

“Might as well sit down,” Rochelle says, picking up the baby from a seat sitting on the floor.

God, they are so beautiful.

Smith takes a seat in a chair, propping a foot on his knee and leaning back like he’s making himself comfortable. Chella sits in the chair closest to him, Bric takes the couch and I… I just stare at them.

Not them. Rochelle and the baby.

Rochelle is wearing light-colored jeans, a pale-blue t-shirt that says Pagosa Springs in faded white letters, and nothing on her feet. Her hair is even longer than the last time I saw her, and it was halfway down her back then. It’s golden in the light that pours into the room from the windows. Her stunning blue-green hazel eyes are trained on me, waiting to see what I’ll say.

I say nothing. Just take my gaze to the baby in her arms. A girl. She’s wearing a pink and white dress with eyelet lace trim. Downy tufts of blonde hair end in soft curls right at the top of her shoulders. She has a red plastic block in her mouth and she looks like she’s about to cry.

“Adley,” Rochelle says, still staring at me.

“Adley,” I repeat back. “How old is she?”

“Six months.”

I nod and look over at Smith. Help me out, man, my look says. Because I have no idea what to do.

Chella starts. “We just want to—”

“We want to know what the fuck, Rochelle,” Smith finishes for her.

“Don’t say fuck in front of the baby,” Bric says.

We all turn to look at him. Since when does he have baby rules?