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The thought shocked me a little and I stopped emptying the dryer. I stared down at the clothes in my hands and took a deep breath. Enough was enough. I’d been playing around with all of this too long and I was going to find a way to end it once and for all—for better or worse.
I nodded to myself before finishing the task at hand and beginning to fold everything in separate piles of ‘Jayden’s clothes’ and ‘Rylee’s clothes’. Just as I was folding up one of Jayden’s blue pajama bottoms, the doorbell rung and my head snapped up. I wasn’t sure who that could be. It wouldn’t be my mom since she would just walk in and I wasn’t expecting company.
Perhaps, Mom has a delivery she forgot about? I told myself with a shrug. Believing it to be something pretty harmless, I put Jayden’s clothes down and headed for the door. My mom has a peep hole installed in the door, but I never use it and oh God, I wish I’d used it then.
I swung the door open and revealed that none other than Spencer freaking Reid was behind it. My eyes widened in surprise and I looked him up and down, searching for a clue as to why he turned up at my house. I found nothing except his grim expression which didn’t bode well.
“Um, my mom isn’t here if you’re looking for her,” I told him in a quiet voice.
“That’s good because I need to talk to you about something in private,” he barked back and I recoiled a little at his serious tone. Mom had told me that dinner with Spencer last night went well. What on Earth did he have to be angry about?
Before I could formulate a response, Spencer was already pushing his way inside and I had to back away from the door to accommodate him. As soon as his huge, muscular frame was inside, he closed the door behind him and stared at me…head to toe.
My heart started beating faster and faster and I tried to understand what was going on. For the first time ever, Spencer was looking at me with a deep frown and his eyes were hard and piercing as they watched me. I knew he had to be upset about something, but I had no idea what it could be!
I just stood there in silence for a moment and eventually, Spencer decided to speak. “You don’t have anything to tell me, Rylee?” he asked in a harsh voice.
I gulped and shook my head. I was too shocked to connect the obvious dots right in front of me.
“Well, I’ll tell you about some interesting news I learned from your mother on our date last night!” he said with a pointed glare. “It seems like I was right. You have been hiding something from me. Or should I say, someone?”
“Oh…” I managed and then sighed. I looked down at the floor, ashamed that Spencer had found out about Jayden from my mom instead of me. I knew I should have said something sooner, I chastised myself, but it was too late now. The cat was already out of the bag. It did cross my mind that my mom might say something and Dahlia did warn me, but I had been too paralyzed by my own indecision to do anything and now, I was paying the price.
“Why don’t you come sit down?” I asked him with a gentle smile. I offered him my hand, but he didn’t take it.
“No, I don’t think I will, Rylee,” he snapped. “I don’t really feel much like sitting right now. I want to know why you didn’t just tell me that you have a child?”
My hand fell away back to my side and reached up to twist a strand of hair around one finger, watching that instead of maintaining eye contact with a frustrated Spencer. “I did think about it,” I admitted, “I thought about it too much actually. I guess that’s my fault. I tried to think of the best way to go about telling you and I fully intended to tell you myself, but no matter what angle I looked at it from, it seemed like there wasn’t a right way to drop that kind of news on you.”
“Well, the way that I found out – from your mother of all people – was a pretty shitty way of doing it,” Spencer pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest. “You didn’t even have the decency to tell me yourself, instead you let someone else do it for you!”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” I told him honestly. My eyes finally returned to meet his gaze. I hoped he could see how genuine and apologetic I felt. “I never even expected to see you again, you have to believe me! I never thought I’d be put in such a difficult situation where you’re back in my life, but you’re actually supposed to be fake-dating my mother!”
