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“Nope,” I slurred, “this is just how I feel.”
“How do you think she feels, man?” I couldn’t answer him because I didn’t know how she felt. She wasn’t answering my calls. We fell so damn fast, and I thought we were impenetrable. I didn’t know I could ever hurt her; I didn’t see this coming. How could something so perfect just vanish like this?
“She doesn’t want anything to do with me,” I grumbled, avoiding Sean’s stare. His brows furrowed, green eyes narrowing at me without judgment. I knew because he slowly exhaled with a palm on my shoulder.
“Don’t you think you owe it to each other to know both sides of things? She’s a mess without you, Noah,” he confessed. A mess?But she left me. I was ready to fight for her. Hell, I had been…she didn’t give me a chance.
I looked at Sean, studying the worry in his eyes. “I am a mess without her.”
“Clearly.” Sean nodded to the bottle on my floor.
“Even if she answered my calls, I couldn’t face her. Not like this.” I looked away from him, trying to avoid him in my periphery. I was so damn ashamed, it was debilitating. I heard Sean stand, feeling his weight shift from my couch, but I kept my eyes on the bookshelf across from me. My blurry gaze stopped on Jade’s book, and I realized I wasn’t the hero I thought I was. I ruined everyone I loved.
I was reaching for the bottle when Sean ripped my hand away. “Noah! What is happening?” Sean took the bottle, carrying it into the kitchen where I heard the glurp, guzzle, slosh of excess pouring down my drain. The faucet turned on, Sean rattled through cabinets, and I considered how much me calling him would embarrass Lizzie. I was selfish. I didn’t think.
I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye, battling the brimming sobs threatening my eyelids. “Sean?”
“Yeah?” He returned to my living room carrying a glass of water, Muffin following Sean’s shadow.
“Tell me she’s okay,” I uttered, nodding appreciation when he handed me the water. “Tell me she’s—”
“Still hopelessly dedicated to you?” He chuckled while sitting next to me, but I wasn’t sure if it was annoyance or kindness. “If there’s one thing I know about those three girls,” his laughter was gentle now, “it’s that their hearts are open, deep, and the most fiercely loyal things we’re lucky to experience.” I could only grunt a reply, focused on blinking away the guilty tears that clung to the shame and worry I held inside of me.
“But,” he continued, “she’s falling apart. You two fools need to fall apart together, pick each other up, and move on.”
“Like you and Avery?” I caught his eyes mid-sip, noticing he shook his head with the hint of a smile.
“No, Noah. Like you and Lizzie.”
“How do I do this?” I wasn’t asking him, not even myself, but hoping the universe would give me some sort of sign. It didn’t, but Sean did.
“You need the grand gesture.” He laughed. “This is the part of the movie where you chase her to the airport or show up at her work with something so obnoxious she can’t miss it. She’ll have to kiss you just to make it stop.”
“I love her, Sean,” I affirmed, hoping those words would somehow flow out the window and into Lizzie’s condo just blocks away.
“I know,” he agreed. We both leaned back on the cushions, staring at the ceiling and saying nothing more. My head spun, but having Sean there made it seem a little more manageable. Maybe because he kept Lizzie real, keeping me full of hope. Muffin struggled to get onto his lap, so Sean helped him, letting the old man burrow and snore. I almost missed the soft alert tone on my phone through Muffin’s grunts and rumbles.
“Do you want me to get that?” Sean questioned, pointing to my phone on the floor. It wasn’t a phone call or text but an e-mail. I didn’t know who would send me an e-mail at whatever the hell ungodly hour it was, unless it was my mom in another time zone or spam about me winning millions. I shrugged it off, but the damn thing dinged once more, so I slipped from the couch to grab it.
I stopped breathing, my heart draining as it squeezed between my tight lungs and back onto my sleeve.
Subject: CONFIDENTIAL: Test Results [automated message]
The chart and medical jargon were things I knew how to read, but it was all a flurry of symbols in my mind. I needed text, concrete sentences that gave me a chance…a chance to do the right thing. Sean placed Muffin on the floor and went to the bathroom while I scoured the attachments. I held shaking hands to my mouth when he returned, staring at me like he was watching me die. That’s what it felt like, because I think something was dying in that moment.
“What is it?” He tentatively approached, my dog once more following him. “Are you okay?”
I wasn’t ashamed to cry, handing him the phone because I couldn’t even take a damn breath. I stared at the floor, waiting…
“In all analyzed DNA,” Sean read aloud, “there are no genetic markers linking Noah Donato Rossi to the paternity of the child, determining that the likelihood of Noah Donato Rossi being the biological father of this child is less than ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine…holy shit, Noah.” I rolled my teary eyes up to his, watching his mouth twist into a smile. “The grand gesture,” Sean playfully mocked.
A crackle of thunder rippled through the sky, vibrating the light fixture on my ceiling. Muffin scampered to Sean like a cheating bastard and cried for him. The three of us looked at each other while the clouds opened above us and the lights flickered before fading into darkness.
“Well,” Sean laughed, moving across the room to sit on the floor in front of the couch, “we can wait out this storm together.”
“You should get back to Avery.”
“I didn’t just mean the weather, Noah.” He nudged my knee with his shoulder, like the damn little brother he was turning out to be. “You’re going to need someone to resuscitate you in the morning. And I owe you that favor.”
