AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Four weeks. I was late. I just left the health center…I was going to ask if we could meet up and then I saw you here…alone…without your shadow.” My eyes snap to hers, warning her when she puts her hands up. “Look, I’m not trying to wreck things with your precious Leighton.” Nope, I’m going to do that all on my own. My heart flips hearing her name fall from Alli’s lips. Leighton is going to hate me. She’s going to leave me…fuck. Fuck. fuck. “But—”
“Are you keeping it? I mean I support…but…you can’t be, right?” I stumble over my words, not wanting to sound like some patriarchal asshole who doesn’t believe in giving women choices. I shake my head, deciding to take a different approach. “You want to be cheer captain, and you do like a fuck ton of shit. You soak your liver in vodka three times a week. You want to be Beta Sig president, how are you going to do all of that with a fucking baby?”
She pulls at her ponytail and squeezes her eyes shut. “I don’t…I don’t know, Everett, but I don’t think I could do that. It’s…a baby.”
“One you want to raise with me?” This is bullshit and not how I imagined it would go the first time I was told I’d be a dad.
First off, this is the wrong mom.
“Listen, I’m in just as much shock as you are. I just wanted to clue you in, I’m pregnant and…it’s yours.”
“You’re a fucking liar.” The words are higher than mine, although I may or may not have been thinking that at least a dozen times during this conversation. Leighton moves towards us, her hands shaking despite the bag of two-liters in her hands. I go to remove them from her grasp and although she flinches, she lets me take the heavy bags from her.
“I am not, Leighton,” Alli spits out.
Leighton looks at me. The tears are there, but they haven’t started sliding down her sweet face. “Tell me…tell me she’s lying, Everett. Please,” she pleads with me. Actually pleads. I’ve never known Leighton Mills to plead with me for anything except an orgasm. Her bottom lip trembles and just as I’m about to speak, Alli interjects.
“He can’t. It’s his baby. I haven’t been with anyone since that night we slept together.”
I can see that her words affect Leighton, although no one else could probably tell. She looks away from us both and I grit my teeth together, pissed that Leighton is suffering the brunt of this. “Alli, thanks for…telling me. Can we continue this conversation…” I look over at Leighton who looks like she’s holding it together by a fucking thread, “later?”
“Of course. You have my number.” She shoots a glare at Leighton, trying to dig the knife in deeper, I’m sure, but Leighton doesn’t even seem to notice.
I have Leighton pinned against my car before she can decide that she doesn’t want me to touch her. “Baby, say something.”
“You’re…you’re going to have a baby?” She lets out a breath as the first of what I assume to be several tears start to fall. “With her? How? Why?” Her nostrils flare and she twists her lips into a pout that makes me believe she’s chewing the inside of her cheek to keep from completely breaking down. I’m not sure if she was asking me those questions or the universe, but I’m quiet because quite frankly, I don’t have the answers.
“It’s funny,” she continues. “I always…I always thought I’d be the mother when you decided to have a baby.” She blinks the tears from her eyes and looks around the parking lot. I wrap my arms around her and she must be in shock because she snuggles her face against my chest.
“I want that…you and me having babies. I want that, sweetheart.” I squeeze my eyes shut and curse every higher power for doing this to me. I just want Leighton. All I fucking care about is Leighton, and this is going to ruin everything.
“You slept with her…officially.” She pulls back and scrunches her nose. “I was holding onto hope that you didn’t.”
“I still don’t remember…I don’t remember touching her. I…”
“Does that matter? The proof is in the pudding. Or…her womb…I don’t know.” She looks at me and makes her way to the other side of the car. “Can we go home? I want to start drinking. I’m getting absolutely hammered tonight.”
“You did what?” Peyton’s eyes are wide and like they’re ready to kill. She slams her hand down on the counter next to the shots they’d poured and points at me. “I knew you were a shady fucking asshole,” she growls and Skyler’s eyes shoot to mine as if to say I was on your side. I was rooting for you, but now…
Leighton is sitting on the counter, eating pretzels directly out of a bag as she nurses what is quite possibly the largest glass of pure vodka, I’ve ever seen her ingest.
“Paternity…paternity tests. You can’t be that dense that you’re just taking her word for it. You guys have been apart for a month. And it’s only that one time in question, right?” Skyler says as she looks back and forth between me and Leighton. I nod emphatically. “Let’s just all relax.” Skyler’s eyes widen as she takes one of the shots Leighton poured. “She said that…like for real? A baby?”
I wasn’t thrilled that Skyler and Peyton both learned the news before I had a real chance to talk to Leighton, but they were home and Leighton broke down within about a minute of her first shot which she took about two seconds after we walked through the door. I couldn’t even blame her.
“Pregnant.” Leighton points at me. “Baby daddy.” She hiccups as she turns to me. “I really thought you didn’t fuck her. I thought…I thought we’d both only ever be with each other forever.” She looks down in her lap. “I guess that was just wishful thinking.”
“It’s not!” I urge as I move across the kitchen so that I’m standing in front of her. I lift her chin slightly to meet my gaze. “You’re the only person I’ve ever…” I turn around and look at Skyler and Peyton. “Do you guys mind?”
“So, you can brainwash our friend? Uh uh.” Peyton stamps her foot and I divert to Skyler hoping that she’ll opt to give us some privacy and force Peyton out of the room, but she just stares at me with a solemn expression.
“I… I’ve always been on your side, Everett, but…Leigh?” She looks at Leighton and then at me before tucking a hair behind her ear.
“I’m not the only person you’ve ever…” Leighton whispers. “And now she’s pregnant.”
“Please don’t run…please don’t leave me.”
“Oh, so this is all about you?” She narrows her gaze at me before snapping her eyes to her friends. “Out.”
