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“I’ll follow you outside,” Danny urged the guy out.
“Why are you wearing his clothes?” Zach’s stern voice never worked on Mia, it was a wonder he still used it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I knew playing dumb with her wasn’t gonna work, but I needed some time to deal with the force she was.
She scoffed, “You better not think you can stupid your way out of the mess you created.”
“Look, I don’t know what you want from me,” I snapped, unable to keep up with my aloof facade. “I was drunk, you spent the night at my place, and Isabella showed up unannounced. There’s not much I can do about it.” Then I added slyly, like the jerk I was, “Unless you want another night, maybe we can actually have fun next time.” I knew it was the wrong thing to say just as I was saying it. I was deliberately antagonizing Mia and trying to get a rise out of her. Maybe out of Zach as well.
Why? Who knew?
“What?” Zach asked, ready to jump on me, at the same time Mia mumbled, more to herself than to the rest of us, “I wanna punch you so hard right now.”
“What did you say you did?” Zach asked, trying to keep his calm but instinctively stepping inside my office a little more, yet respecting that Mia could more than take care of herself. All the while, Haley and Danny, who had come back for the show, watched everything without moving so much as a blink.
“What do you want me to say, huh? That I bedded your little sister?” I couldn’t control myself.
“I’ve known you for more than twenty years, but this is the first time I truly feel like hitting you,” Mia contemplated, almost in wonder, while placing an outstretched hand on Zach’s chest to keep him from coming at me.
“Look, this is none of anyone’s business.”
“You made it my business when you let Isabella, then mybrother, believe anything at all happened between us,” Mia countered, her fists tight while she tried to keep her calm for my sake. As if I deserved it.
“Then why are you wearing his clothes?”
“Oh my God, Zachary.Chill,” Mia snapped, then returned her frustration at me. “Why don’t you enlighten them?” Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on me.
Silence.
Mia was too angry to talk. I was too ashamed to respond. Anyone else was too busy trying to understand the shit I was pulling.
“What happened?” Haley asked quietly.
“It’s complicated—”
“Don’t even think about coming with this bullshit. You’ve made your bed, quite literally,” Mia snorted, “so man up and lie in it.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Are you sure? Because I can think of a couple interesting things to fill them in.” At my cowardly wordless stance, she went on, being done with my pussyness. “Let’s see, you found a girl you like.” She raised one finger in counting. “And don’t try to deny it, we all know you like her. You impregnated her.” She lifted another finger, utterly ignoring the commotion behind her. “I can only assume you reacted poorly at the news, so I’ll just go ahead and count that one as another mistake.” New finger. “Then you get drunk like a skunk,” Fourth finger. “And you stank like one, too. You created a scene at Hank’s.” Fifth finger. “I drove your drunk ass home, only so you couldthrow upon me,” she sneered.Good, I unlocked the second hand of mistakes. “It was disgusting.
“If that wasn’t enough, when Isabella showed up, instead of begging for forgiveness for whatever you’d done, you led her to believe we slept together.Then,” she continued before I could interrupt, “you drove here inmycar, leaving me to get a lift from Mrs. Robinson. The lady is great, but do you have any idea how scary it is to ride with her? Someone should take her license.” She hissed. “And here I am, in your clothes, because mine were still too damp for me to wear. By the way,” she snapped her fingers and lost all her venom, “you need a new drier. Yours has only one destination: garbage.”
She sighed in contemplation. “I guess that summarizes it.”
As our spectators tried to wrap their minds around what they’d learned, I exhaled in defeat, still trying to weasel my way out of it. “It’s not as easy as it appears to be—"
“It seems pretty easy to me,” Mia interrupted. “All you have to do is admit you have feelings for the girl who’s about to bring your child into the world and do something about it.”
“I don’t have feelings for her,” I rebutted, way too quickly.
Baring her sarcasm, Mia turned to Haley and asked saccharinely, “Hay, could you bring Benjamin’s Denial File? We have a ton of information to add.”
Danny snickered behind his hand, and Haley’s lips twinkled, but Zach was still studying me and waiting for the truth to come out.
“She’s just a woman having my child. That doesn’t change anything,” I argued weakly.
“Why are you so intent on ruining this?” Mia asked urgently, and she seemed truly bewildered about the whole situation. Which was bad for me, because I couldn’t understand it myself, and it’d be great if someone enlightened me.
