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As always, upstate New York had a few weeks of Indian Summer mixed in with our fall and we were right in the middle of a warm stretch. I grabbed a clean red rag from the laundry pile and slipped out of the single open bay door. I scrubbed the worst of the water out of my hair and slicked the spikes back.
I lifted my face up to the sun. I’d been under so many cars today, I didn’t even realize a headache was sitting behind my eyes. Part of me wanted to ask my mom to keep Wes tonight so I could just drink until I finally passed out and slept, but it wouldn’t help.
Drunk sleep never did.
“Who’s the sweetest baby ever?”
My gut instantly clenched and every muscle locked in my shoulders. I knew that voice. Had been hearing it in my hazy dreams for the last few weeks since our pizza night hookup. Sometimes boner-inducing, sometimes just a soft tease.
I turned my head and everything inside me stilled. Kelsey was crouched in front of a stroller. A skirt exploding with sunflowers pooled around her. Her freckled shoulders were bare and all that golden sunset hair twisted in the breeze.
Christ, she was beautiful.
Her wide mouth split with a delighted smile did nothing to help my current situation. And seeing her with the kid…fuck.
She was pregnant.
That could be her next year, crouched in front of her own stroller. Assuming she wanted to keep my kid—the kid. Maybe not even mine.
I wasn’t sure what killed me more, that it might be mine—or might not. The fact that she’d blurted out that it might be some other dude’s kid was the worst part. In front of everyone. I couldn’t get that moment out of my head. Was it worse to be the guy who knocked up the new teacher? Or to be the idiot who was the rebound guy?
If I wanted to, I could be off the hook. I could literally leave her to deal with it and let me know after a test or some shit. I didn’t know the particulars of how paternity worked. Hell, I hadn’t even thought to ask when Katherine told me she was pregnant. Add in the fact that Wes had come out looking like me down to the squinty eyes, and hell, I’d already known.
I’d loved him way before he was born.
Was I just an asshole because I was already getting the possessive vibe after a few days with Kelsey? That everything about her made me want to grab her and tell everyone she was mine?
“Fucking idiot,” I muttered to myself.
Suddenly, she looked up from the baby and our gazes locked.
My grip on the rag tightened and I felt my cuts rip open again. The slow, warm drip of blood distracted me enough to look down. When I glanced up again, she was disappearing into Brewed Awakening, the coffee shop below her apartment.
Obviously, she didn’t want to talk to me.
I had to make myself turn around and go back into the garage.
Not my problem. Not my girl.
I wrapped the rag tighter around my hand. Not my problem.
Maybe if I told myself that enough times it would sink in.
Thirteen
“Are you okay, Kelsey?”
I held the door open for Ally and the stroller. “I’m good. I’m fine.” She gave me a narrow-eyed glare. “Well, except for the part about no coffee. How did you do it?” I knew my voice was too bright, but I didn’t want to talk about Dare. Or the gestating elephant in the room right then. Or hallway, or whatever.
I just didn’t want to go there.
It was too confusing.
Ally blew out a breath. “That whole one cup of coffee a day was the worst. Not even a real cup of coffee. Like, literally, eight ounces. Who can live on that?”
“I’m not even a huge coffee drinker and I’m literally dying at my desk.” I pushed my hair out of my face.
“And yet you’re bringing us here?” Sage squinted at me. “I still can’t have coffee until I pop out this bowling ball. And even then, not when I’m nursing. That was not in the fine print.”
