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She exhales sharply. “Turns out, I have a kidnapper, too. They’re like Pokémon: gotta catch ‘em all.”
“And a baby on the way. The trifecta.”
For all my hesitation, in the end, it’s surprisingly easy to say. I don’t choke on a single word or stutter at all.
“Oh.” Her face is so white it’s almost translucent.
“Yeah, I was surprised, too.”
If she was emotionless with her “Oh,” then her next response is the exact opposite. Her skin goes from pale to rosy and her eyes churn dark. “‘Surprised’? Are you trying to say this baby isn’t yours? Because I’ll happily give you a DNA test, asshole.”
I turn my entire body to look at her. The day is catching up with me and in lieu of putting my fist through the windshield, I need a couple of deep breaths before I start talking to her. “I don’t need a DNA test. I know where you’ve been and who you’ve been here with. I believe you, Sloan.” I reach out and touch her and this time, she lets me. “You’re not dishonest. And you’ve been with me every minute.”
She softens and the tiniest whimper escapes her lips. The trauma of the past few hours is hitting her like a blizzard. Now that thehistrionics of this shit is over, the weight of it all settles into my gut, too.
“A baby,” I whisper.
“A baby,” she echoes.
We aren’t together. She’s made that clear. Still…
“I don’t want to tell anyone,” she blurts. She is staring out the window as if she can’t meet my eyes. “I’m just not ready to tell my friends or… or anyone else yet.”
I nod. “I’ll have to tell Coach. In case something happens.”
She swallows. “Alright.”
“And some of the staff.” Just like that, my mind is racing. “They can help. There will be things you need that they’ll know about. Healthier food. Supplies of some kind, I’m sure. A room that needs to be cleaned out and transformed into a baby’s nursery.”
Every word sinks Sloan deeper into her seat. She looks frail and miserable. The blood on her face wounds me.
I grab her hand in mine. “Sloan, we’re in this together, okay? I’m not going to leave you hanging. I’ll… I’ll take care of you. Both of you.”
She nods at me and forces a smile that doesn’t last long. “I know.”
For a few seconds, I almost believe that she has the same faith in me that I have in her. But then I see it—a flicker of doubt. A split second where her mind is questioning everything I’ve told her and everything she knows.
I love that she wears her emotions on her sleeve. That she shows me her hurts and her fears in every blink of her eyelashes. She’s so pure, so worth protecting.
So I’m going to do whatever I have to do to keep her and my baby safe. If that means I have to end my old man, I will.
And he’ll damned sure know who did it and why.
5
SLOAN
Beck wants to talk.
I just want to cringe.
Talking, at this point, is my worst nightmare. I want a thousand years of silence and solitude. Because the sooner we talk, the sooner everything will go up in flames.
I don’t know how long it’s going to be before he realizes that I’ve lied to him about… well, about so many things.
But I have to be prepared. I have to remind myself of what I’ve known for so long now: that any minute could be the last minute.
I will not let losing him break me, and the only way to do that is stay aloof. To stop letting him protect me, to stop relying on him.
