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Prologue
Quinn- 27
Eli- 29
Thick, corded forearms hold me close. I feel Eli’s heart—the organ I now know beats for me the same way mine does for him—pounding against his chest. Exhaustion wants to take over my body, but my soul is fighting to stay awake, wanting to soak in every second… needing to make sure it's all real.
The sex is always out of the world when it comes to me and Eli, but… these are the moments I cherish the most. The ones I’ve always dreaded coming to an end. Over the years, we have done this song and dance thousands of times, but tonight’s different.
This time, I get to keep him.
On the surface level, we’ve been stuck somewhere between lovers and friends for so long now. But when you dig in a little deeper, we have always been so much more. Eli Barton is my person… the other half to my whole. We’re always just that one phone call away, ready to drop everything to be with each other. The person who knows what you are thinking before you even do and has your back when what you're thinking may not suit the majority. The shoulder to lean on during the fun times and the one to cry on during the hard ones.
And above everything else…best friends.
Tonight, the love yous turned into I’m in love with yous.Hearing him confirm something I have felt for quite some time was one of the best moments of my life.
A phone ringing somewhere in his bedroom has me stirring from my dreamlike state. Eli grumbles something and squeezes me tighter. When I hear it go off for the third time, I nudge him. “Check it, E. What if something's wrong?”
Eli begrudgingly gets out of bed and finds his phone in his pants pocket right as it begins ringing again.
“Hello.” The sleepiness is evident in his voice.
“Wait, what? Slow the fuck down.” The tone in his voice quickly turns defensive, and my heart beats a little faster at seeing his brows furrowing and head shaking. “Who is this, and how did you get this number?”
When I hear a woman’s frantic voice coming through the line, trepidation runs through me, making my stomach clench. He takes the phone away from his ear to glance at something on the screen. The look on his face has me shooting up in the bed.
“What is it, Eli?” I ask, my voice coming out shaky.
After several moments of Eli standing there silently listening to the voice on the other end, his phone falls from his grip, onto the floor. In that very second, I feel it deep in my bones… whatever he is about to tell me is going to change both of our lives forever.
“No fucking way… she’s lying,” he yells and crashes to his knees on the floor beside the bed. “There’s no fucking way… no way,” he almost whispers as his forehead drops to the mattress.
Rushing to his side, I rub his back in soft circles, asking quietly, “Eli, you are scaring the shit out of me… What’s wrong, is someone hurt?”
My mind is spinning with all the possibilities, but his next words make me realize someoneishurt… and it's me.
“She’s claiming to be pregnant with my baby and says there’s no chance it's anyone else’s… but she has to be fucking lying. There’s no possible way.” But the pain I see in his eyes as he looks at me… he’s not so sure it's a lie after all. And at that, my heart stops.
“I’m so sorry, so fucking sorry,” he says, full of remorse, his glassy eyes searing into mine.
A sledgehammer to the face would hurt less right now. I feel completelysplit open, broken into tiny pieces. My ass collapses to the floor beside him, and numbness takes over my body. But that doesn’t last more than a minute. The image of another woman carrying Eli’s child, holding his hand as she gives birth to his baby, and creating a family together, has me jumping back to my feet. On autopilot, I run into his bathroom, emptying every bit of my dinner and dessert into the toilet.
Eli follows in behind me, holding my hair back.
This can’t be happening… we finally have what I’ve wanted for so long.
“Baby, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay... I’m demanding a paternity test to be done as soon as possible,” he tries to soothe me as we both fall to the floor, holding each other.
Maybe I should be the one soothing him, but I don’t have the energy to put anyone before myself in this moment.The pain is too much.My gut tells me this woman isn’t lying and the paternity test is only going to show that the love of my life is, in fact, going to have a baby with another woman.
“I love you, Queenie, nothing’s going to change that,” he whispers in my ear as he runs his fingers through my hair. I just nod my head, unable to speak, but desperately wanting to believe the words he’s saying.
I love you too much, and that’s part of the problem,is what I should say.
I don’t know if I’m strong enough to watch another woman give Eli a family.
One
