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The bartender huffs off, and Cayden takes his words as gospel, opening the bottle and topping himself off. “Anyway, as I was saying, I came here for you, but I happen to like Boston. It’s my kind of city.”
Of course it is. Boston fits him better than Minnesota ever did, and if he can mess with me, he will. “How did you find me?”
“We have tracking on our phones that you never shut off.”
Well, shit. No wonder Liz always knows when I’m at the hospital or home. I go into my phone and shut that feature off, blocking her—and him—out.
“Why am I happy that you fucked Liz for two years?”
“Because you’re in love with the woman carrying your kid. You just said that.”
I lift my glass of tequila and down it in one large, over-the-top gulp that has me wincing and wheezing ever so slightly despite its smooth flavor and expense. The bartender pours me more, but if I keep this up, I’ll be crawling home instead of walking.
“Her friends and family are at my place right now. She has about a thousand of them, but she’s only telling her closest people. At least for now. I have my mom, and we’re going to tell her tomorrow at dinner because Katy wants to cook for her. Katy can’t cook to save her life, but she wants to cook for my mom.” I turn to him. “Do you feel me on that? Katy, who has a thousand people and can’t cook, wants to cook for my mom so we can tell her we’re pregnant.”
“I feel you on that.”
I’m not sure he does. “I don’t have a thousand people. I only had you and maybe a couple of others because I was never good at being social or opening myself up. But then you stabbed me in the back, and I lost you, and now I have no one.”
He stares remorsefully at the bar. “I know.”
There’s something in his tone that I’m missing, but I’m starting to get too drunk to care. I shake my head. “My mom is fucking sick. I’m in love with someone I shouldn’t be. We’re having a baby I’ve wanted for years. I’ve needed you.” I stare down at the glass of clear liquid and sigh. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you loved Liz?”
He lifts his glass to his lips and polishes off most of it before taking it upon himself to refill his glass. “Would it have stopped you?”
Would it have?
“It might have,” I admit. “I liked her, but it took me months and months to fall in love even when she told me she loved me. So yeah, for you, it might have stopped me.”
“You’re a better man than I am. You always have been. And much like you and Katy, she didn’t love me back ,so what difference would it have made?”
I swallow that for a moment. I get his heartache. In a way, I understand unrequited love. The bitterness and agony it can cause. Hell, I’m here drinking myself under the bar because the woman I got pregnant called me her friend tonight.
Love can be tormenting and unkind and doesn’t give two shits if it makes you the happiest person on the planet or the most miserable.
There isn’t much I wouldn’t do to be with Katy, but I don’t think I would have ever betrayed him. Not the way he did to me.
“Liz isn’t who I thought she was,” he says, pulling me away from that, and I raise my glass.
“Same.”
He clinks his glass to mine and we both drink.
“But I’m so glad she’s not.”
“Not me,” he laments. “I was hoping she was everything I always thought she was.”
“You should have told me. Then you could have married her, and I could have… I don’t know. I like to think I always would have found my way back to Katy.”
“Does Katy truly not feel the same way back? That seems impossible. Women always love you.”
“You think so, but you’re wrong. My life isn’t the perfection you make it out to be and it never was. Katy called me her friend tonight. After we showered together and while she was wearing my clothes. My actions today were not those of merely a friend, but that’s exactly what she called me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” I finish off my drink and slide the glass away.
“So what will you do?”
