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That's not fair, though. If I want this to really work, if I want to be the man she deserves, I need to stand the hell up on my own.
Chapter Eight
Juliet
Noaseemedtosensemy reluctance to go back to my empty apartment, and before I knew it, I'd been persuaded to spend a few days with her, Cash, and Bennett. It's hard not to feel like I'm imposing, considering my mother threw me out when I was eighteen, and I have no other close friends to speak of, but the Lowells seem to have absorbed me into their happy little bubble.
"You can't go home today," Noa argues when I mention heading home on the third day over breakfast. "We have facials this afternoon, and then Cash is meeting a friend for drinks, so it would beso helpfulif you were around to help with Ben."
I look over at her husband, who is spooning mashed squash into a reluctant Bennett's mouth, and see Cash biting back a smile. "If you're waiting for me to kick you out, it's not going to happen, Juliet." He chuckles. "You're family now."
Right. Family. I keep forgetting that the little bean I'm carrying is Cash's niece or nephew. Despite the positive pregnancy test and now-constant nausea, the fact that I'm carrying Phillip's baby hasn't quite sunk in yet. I don't have my first doctor's appointment in a few weeks, and I'm trying not to think about the pregnancy too much until it's absolutely, indisputably real.
Even though I spent an hour last night scrolling through my phone, bookmarking all the cutest, tie-dye baby clothes.
I still don't know what I'm going to do, where I'm going to live, or if I should even stay in LA. I've been Phillip's assistant my entire adult life, and now that my life isn't determined by his, I have no idea what to do with myself. I know I'll have to tell him about the pregnancy at some point, which feels like an enormous ax hanging over my neck at all times. I won't force him to be involved or ask for money or anything if he doesn't want to be. My mom did it on her own, and so can I, though I won't make the same mistakes she did.
"Hey." Noa catches my attention and reached over the table to give my hand an encouraging squeeze. "It's going to be okay, Juliet. I know Phillip has his head up his ass," Cash snorts at this, "But you're not going to be alone. You can stay as long as you want. We're going to be so obnoxiously involved with this baby that you're going to beg us to leave you alone."
My eyes burn, and I nod, giving her a grateful smile. I'm about to go back to picking at my dry english muffin, the only thing I can keep down these days, when the doorbell rings, and Noa gets to her feet. "I bet that's Miles with those scripts."
She vanishes, and I sink back into my seat, watching Bennett spit squash back at an amused Cash, who shakes his head and chuckles, "I can't say I blame him."
"I think you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that carrots are better than a boob."
Cash snorts, reaching for another packet of baby food. "What about bananas? How does that sound, bud?"
"Uh, Juliet?" We both look up to see that Noa has reentered the kitchen, looking hesitant. "So, I told him you don't have to talk to him if you don't want to, but if you do." She steps aside, and my heart leaps, even as the bottom of my stomach falls right through the floor because Phillip is standing there.
I look helplessly to Noa and then to Cash, who has gone silent. Did they tell him? Does he know? Is that why he's here, to tell me he doesn't want me to keep it? Beneath the table, my hand flattens instinctively over my stomach. There's no bump there, but there will be, and I won't let anyone hurt my little bean the way I've been hurt.
"Juliet." Phillip's big shoulders sag, and he looks so exhausted, so genuinely wrecked by the sight of me. "Can I, I mean," He shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. "Can we talk?" He sounds so resigned, so tired, like he's fully expecting me to say no.
A part of me wants to, but the other part, the part still desperately in love with Phillip Lowell, has other plans.
"Okay." I agree quietly. "I'm, uh, staying in the poolhouse. We can talk there."
Cash and Noa are silent, watching us as I lead the way out of the kitchen. Phillip follows me across the backyard, past the pool, and into the little house, which is way nicer and larger than my apartment.
I'm steeling myself all the way. No matter how hard the last few weeks have been, I know I made the right decision leaving tour. Phillip could never love me as much as he hated himself, and in that awful moment in his bedroom, I knew that if I didn't get out now, I never would. I'd have spent the rest of my days loving him, fucking him, being there for his every need, and he would never be there for me in return.
I hear the door to the poolhouse close quietly behind him, but I don't look at him right away, busying myself with starting a pot of coffee. I'm trying to cut down on the caffeine since that little plus sign appeared on the pregnancy test, but I'm dying for a little bit of energy to get me through whatever this will be. I feel the weight of Phillip's eyes on me all the while. I wish he would just speak and break this silence so I don't have to.
Finally, when coffee is dripping into the pot, and the bag has been put away, and there's literally nothing else to do, I have no choice but to look up.
Phillip is standing behind one of the armchairs in the living room, his hands gripping the top of it, jaw clenched.
"You asked if we could talk." I remind him, crossing my arms tightly over my chest.
He nods jerkily. "I don't know where to start."
"The beginning should work."
So Phillip starts at the beginning. He tells me about his parents, both of whom were blue-blooded, Philadelphia royalty, far more preoccupied with hating each other to do much in the way of parenting him or Cash. He tells me about feeling desperate for their approval for so long and how he could never quite live up to who they wanted him to be. He tells me about how ill-prepared he was to parent Daisy and how he fed off the negative media attention for his drinking and drug use because it validated his self-view.
"Being a piece of shit made sense to me. I thought I was. The whole goddamn world thought I was. It was comfortable. Easy. Easier than holding myself accountable for my own shit." He shakes his head, voice strained after talking so long. Somewhere during his story, I took the armchair across from his, curling myself around a throw pillow to listen with tears burning in my eyes.
"You're not a piece of shit," I whisper, my voice breaking.
