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“Yes, honey, we’re going bye-bye,” I say, my throat knotted up. “But we’re gonna be okay, I promise.”
“Bye-bye!” he cheers, as if we’re about to go on a road trip.
Lucas is always excited when a car ride is involved. The fact that they are both too young to understand what’s happening makes the whole process easier for me, since I don’t have to convince my children that we don’t belong here. I know we don’t belong here, and that’s enough. We’ve got an open road ahead of us. We’ll be in Portland soon.
Leaving the Elizabeth behind, I catch glimpses of it getting smaller in the rearview mirror.
I can’t even cry about it yet. I need my eyes clear and focused on the road.
On the inside, however, I’m howling.
23
Beau
Stella wasn’t at the hospital. The nurses said she’d already left.
The four of us are back at the Elizabeth, out of our minds with worry.
“She’s gone,” Isaac gasps as soon as we get to her room.
The closet is empty. The dresser drawers are all empty. She left the cot and the crib behind. I’m guessing she had nowhere to put them since she left with her car. This place looks so grim and colorless without Stella and the kids. All of a sudden, the whole of the place feels barren. My stomach drops, my heart collapses in on itself as I realize she literally walked out of our lives.
Noah checks the bathroom, while Levi sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees as he tries to process everything that has happened since last night. I’m still reeling from the news of her pregnancy, but it doesn’t fill me with any kind of dread.
“Why would she leave like this?” Levi wonders aloud. “We could’ve talked about it.”
“I may be to blame,” Isaac sighs as he finds a note on the dresser. He frowns upon recognizing her handwriting. “Hold on. She left this.” The more he reads, the deeper the shadow between his eyebrows and the tighter the line of his lips. “Fuck me sideways, she’s really gone.”
He passes the note around for each of us to read. By the time I’m done consuming her carefully written words and notice the smudge of a dried tear, I understand how short we’ve fallen where Stella is concerned. Noah curses under his breath, stopping by the window and gazing outside, though I’m not sure what he’s hoping to see. Perhaps he’s just searching for clarity.
“What do you mean you’re to blame?” Levi asks Isaac, a muscle furiously twitching in his jaw.
“This whole talk about my future, my political career,” Isaac says. “My parents’ conversations while Stella was waiting our table, the conversation I had with her about it. The truth is, we all knew this wasn’t going to last.” He pauses. “She wanted to know if I would ever consider her for a long-term relationship.”
“And you fucking flaked,” Noah snaps. “We could’ve been there for her instead of letting her torment herself like this. We all know she was falling, and we’ve been falling for her since day one!”
“Stella is terrified,” Levi says. “She’s got two kids and a deadbeat ex-husband hounding her. She’s pregnant with a third child, for which, by the way, we are absolutely responsible, and we couldn’t even reassure her it’s going to be okay. We didn’t get to tell her that we’re going to take care of her, one way or another.”
“How?” Isaac asks. “You read her note. She doesn’t want a baby daddy, she doesn’t want a payoff, she doesn’t want to live in some kind of anonymity while we go on with our lives and careers. If it’s not the five of us together, Stella doesn’t see the point. It’s all or nothing, and we can’t give her all.”
Noah curses again, running a hand through his blond hair, his blue eyes twinkling with anger. “It’s your stupid political prospects, Isaac. That’s the only thing keeping us from giving this a real try. Because I would gladly make room for Stella in my life.”
“Levi’s going away for his TV show,” Isaac reminds us with a sigh.
Levi shakes his head. “We all fucked up. It’s not just Isaac’s political career here. It’s both your parents, first and foremost. The Kendricks would never accept a polyamorous arrangement like ours, especially when the woman involved already has two children from a previous marriage.” He frowns before continuing. “Then there’s my career, yeah. Hollywood be damned. I thought I’d be happy to take this step and see my books made into a TV series, but I can’t enjoy that anymore. I dread moving to Los Angeles, even if it’s for a few months in the year. And Beau—”
“Leave me out of this,” I cut in sternly. “I bought hotels. That’s it. I can have someone manage the renovations. I love Lucas and Ava like they’re my own. And dammit, I love Stella. More than I have loved anyone ever before. But I flaked, too. I flaked because I didn’t think she’d… Fucking hell, we let her down. And now she’s out there, somewhere, with two kids in tow, alone and heartbroken.” I turn to look at my best friends and business partners. “Are we going to do something about it or what?”
“And what do you expect us to do?” Noah replies, pointing at his phone. “I’ve been calling her since we got to the hospital, and all I’m getting is her voicemail.”
Isaac takes a deep breath, checking his phone again. “Theo doesn’t know where she went, either. She also didn’t know about the pregnancy. I guess Stella has been keeping that to herself.”
“Can you blame her?” I scoff. “We need to find her.”
Levi gets up. “We’ve been too busy finding reasons not to be together instead of building something strong and durable,” he says. “We’ve been lying to ourselves the whole time, saying it’s just fun and strictly physical and whatever. Yet here we are, moping like idiots while the woman of our dreams is all alone and terrified and unsure what to do next. And she’s carrying our child!”
“Our child?” Isaac raises an eyebrow.
