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I fiddled with the grass underneath my fingers. “Do you know who told Mama about the baby?”
“Dawn Linley.”
“How the hell did Dawn find out about it?” I demanded.
“Direct from Lori.”
“Ah.” I nodded, appreciating the genius move by Will’s mother. “Smart. Get in first and control the narrative. So what’s the story doing the rounds?”
“Minimal details. A previousacquaintance—”
“Smooth.”
“—knocked on Will’s door early yesterday morning and left him with a little boy.”
“And how do I figure into all of this?”
“Burst pipe. Flooded apartment. Moving in with Will on the same day he found out he’s a father was pure coincidence.”
“Oh. Good.” I scraped my teeth across my bottom lip as I worked around a flutter of disappointment at the generic description of my role in Will’s life. “I shouldn’t get too much grief about it then.”
“Abigail.”
“Adam.”
A sigh sounded through the speaker on my phone. “You’re almost thirty—”
“Rude.”
“Isn’t it time you stopped worrying about what other people say about you?”
I closed my eyes and tried to extinguish the flash of ancient mortification roaring in my ears. That helpless, hopeless flush of shame as the people who loved me and barely knew me judged me and laughed at me whenever my back was turned. Adam was a man. Nobody had ever called him easy or asked him to justify the number of women he’d been with. No one had labelled him a slut because he’d been pressured into giving his virginity to an arsehole with a big mouth at an age where that kind of thing could make or break a girl.
He hadn’t seen Mama crying in the kitchen while she peeled potatoes over the sink or found Dad hiding in the garage while everyone whispered about his daughter andwhat she’d done. Adam never had to pick himself up and own his pain like he chose it.
“Idon’tcare what other people say,” I mumbled. “I’ve made it my life’s purpose to not give a shit about rumours.”
Adam was silent for a beat too long, which meant there was something he wanted to say, and I wasn’t going to like it. I rolled my eyes. He probably had his doctor’s face on.
“I say this with love, Little Bug.”
“Okay?”
“Nobody knows you like I do.”
“I know.”
“And I get why it was important for you to control the narrative after high school. It was about self-esteem and self-respect and girl power and all that.”
He was such a dork. I smirked with affection but said nothing. I’d let him finish his case before I started arguing.
“But you don’t have to keep pretending that the things you wanted ten years ago are the same things you want today.”
Pfft. Adam had zero idea what he was talking about. I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t pretending anything, but no words would come out, and I closed it again.
“Nobody’s going to think less of you if you storm onto Main Street tomorrow and declare you want to spend the rest of your life with one man.”
I pictured it. For a split second, I imagined announcing to Valentine Bay that I was ready to give up my bedhopping ways and settle down. The idea of admitting I wasn’t who everyone thought I was made my stomach twist.
