9. Logan
I really liked lists.
They helped keep my anxiety under control. Mom was the one who taught me to write everything down when I was overwhelmed and everything was spiraling out of my control.
“A list you can control. Once you’ve done the task, you can check it off and move to the next one,” she had told me, and I held onto that advice.
I made lists in high school of my homework every night. I made a list of all the colleges I wanted to apply to. I made a list of where I wanted to work.
But most importantly, I made a list of how I wanted my life to go. I needed to have some control after Mom died.
Find love.
Get married.
Buy a house, preferably on the water, with lots of land for all the kids and dogs I want.
Rescue a dog.
Fall pregnant with the man of my dreams.
Raise a beautiful family.
The list was on a crumpled piece of paper in my wallet, the first one I hadn’t been able to achieve, and it burned every time I thought about it.
I made a list for tonight, and as I reached for it in my jeans pocket, I wondered what Jaxon would think. We’d been silently walking this trail for the last thirty minutes while I tried and failed to get my thoughts in order.
Pulling out the piece of paper Scarlett helped me write, I squinted through the darkness at the bright red letters.
Get in car. Check.
Get past lobby security if there is any. Check.
Knock on his door. Check.
Tell Jaxon about our baby.
Instead of telling him the real reason I’d found him, I chickened out, ate his pizza, flirted like my life depended on it, and then nearly had an anxiety attack in his kitchen. Way to fucking go, Logan.
Jaxon easily kept my pace as my mind ran rampant with intrusive thoughts that I wished more than anything would shut the hell up.
I wished again for the hundredth time since I found out about this baby that my mom was here. She would know what to do; she always did. Wasn’t that the job of a mom? Would I be like her? Would I just know what to do with this baby?
Panic clawed at my throat, and I fought with every breath I had to not let the sob bubble out, but it was no use. My knees buckled, and I hit the dirt, my body failing me.
Jaxon was there, crouching in front of me, his eyes wide and alert with worry for me. A complete stranger that was pregnant with his child. God, if he knew, he’d run. Surely, he’d run far away.
“Logan, it’s goin’ to be okay, sweetheart.” His warm hand latched onto my wrist, rubbing a soft circle into my boiling skin. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but it will be okay.”
I had to tell him.
He was so kind.
I couldn’t keep crying and distracting him with silly things.
I had to stop flirting.
He didn’t ask any questions. He stayed at my side, surveilling the surrounding area every few minutes, his body hyperaware as I cried like a pathetic child.
I couldn’t make the tears stop, and the uselessness I felt made them fall faster. I hated having no control.
It triggered old memories, moments in my life when I hit rock bottom and had to pull myself out of the darkness alone.
If I could do it when my dad died, and again when mom was taken from me by cancer, surely, I could pull my shit together now.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wiping the tears from my cheeks, hoping some of my makeup remained intact. I wasn’t ready for him to see me without it. I wasn’t ready to lose another piece of my armor.
“It’s okay. Sometimes, life just kicks us down.” He was so fucking sweet, it made my heart ache. “Are you ready to walk back to my place?”
I nodded, and he helped me stand. We walked back down the trail in silence. The only sound was the loud chirp of crickets and frogs surrounding us. It gave me time to rein in my emotions, to take back control.
At the door of his lobby, he paused, eyes flickering between me and the door. “You don’t want me to come back up?” I could see the hesitation in his dark eyes, from his furrowed brows to his frown.
“It’s not that. I just want to know what your expectations are. If you want to go back up there and repeat the other night, I can’t. I’m not that guy.” He crossed his arms over his chest, muscles rippling with the movement.
He was that guy a few months ago. I had the proof growing in my stomach right now, but I heard the sincerity in his tone, so I kept my lips shut.
“But if you came here for another reason,” he hesitated, grimacing, “to try and be the girl to tame me or some shit, I’m not that guy either. I’m not ready for a relationship. I’m not ready to settle down. I want to focus on baseball. I want to give my all to this season. I can’t do that if I have a girlfriend.”
I am officially screwed.
He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want our baby. I’m alone. I’m going to be a single parent. I can’t do this alone. I can’t be a mother. I’m not ready. I don’t want this.
My mind is exploding with intrusive thoughts as we stand there at the door of his lobby, the bright, white lights shining down on us.
What should I do? How was I supposed to salvage this? What would my mom do? What would Scarlett do?
“I wanted a friend,” I stuttered and wanted to shoot myself for saying something so pathetically foolish.
“I don’t follow.” His posture relaxed. He was no longer on high alert, trying to ward off someone trying to look for a relationship.
“I just got out of a bad relationship. What makes you think I want to dive into another—and with you?” He took a step back, not expecting my comment. Hell, neither was I.
“What’s wrong with me?” He jabbed a finger into his chest, all of a sudden defensive.
“Nothing, but I’m not interested in any more baseball players.” He chuckled, shaking his head.
“Why me, then, sweetheart? I’m sure you’ve got some friends.”
Why him, Logan? What did you just get yourself into? Tell him the truth.
“Because you need me.” A cocky grin took over his beautiful lips, and I fought every bit of desire that rose inside of me.
“And why do I need you?”
Think, Logan! Why does he, the new pitcher of the Atlanta Braves, need you?
“Because my ex is Richard Balmer, and I hear you want to replace him on the Braves, and I want revenge.” I mentally high-fived myself.
“So, he’s the asshole who hurt you, huh? Makes sense. He’s a lowlife. Funny that you slept with me that night. Seems like fate wanted us to meet, sweetheart.”
If only he knew what fate had in store for us. It wanted more than for us to meet. It wanted us to raise a child.
“Do you want to be friends or not?” I didn’t have the patience to play this game anymore. I was exhausted, bone tired from crying, and high-strung from anxiety.
“What exactly is your plan?” I didn’t have one, but from the gleam in his eye, something told me he had one.
“What do you have in mind?” I stepped closer to him.
“I want him off the team.” Seemed fair to me after he used me to stay on it.
“Sounds good for me. Friends?” I extended my hand, hoping he didn’t see the tremble in my fingers.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, sweetheart.” His warm hand closed around mine, and we shook on the grounds of a fake friendship to hurt my ex.
Like a true gentleman, the type you only read about in books, Jaxon walked me to my car, held open the driver’s door for me, and then closed it once I was in my seat. I only wished my heart would stop fluttering because as he said…
He wasn’t ready for a relationship. Which meant he was certainly not ready for me or this baby.
* * *
“Let me get this straight—youchickened out and told your baby daddy you want to be friends?” Scarlett asked, sipping on a glass of red wine. I was back at her place, and we were sitting on the couch, snuggling into a blanket while commercials played on the television.
“I’ll admit it didn’t go as planned.” I cringed at her giggle.
“You don’t say. Is he hot, even when you’re sober?” Matt turned away from his computer to glare at his wife.
“You do know I’m sitting right here.”
“Hush. You know I love you, just like I know you like to watch the cheerleaders at the games.” He shook his head, returning his focus to the video game he was playing. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how hot are we talking?”
I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I was pregnant with his baby or that the last time I had seen him it was dark, but he was definitely hot.
“Ten—totally a ten. So, naturally, I’m not sure how we ended up having sex that night. He must have been smashed.” Scarlett scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“Right. I hate when you pretend that you’re ugly. You’re a ten, right, Matt?” He sighed and agreed without really listening to our conversation.
“It doesn’t matter. None of that does. He doesn’t want a relationship. He wants to get Richard off that team, and I promised to help him.” The latest episode of The Bachelor replaced the commercials, and Scarlett quickly paused it.
“Okay, let’s pretend like you two aren’t going to have hot sex in a few weeks or fall madly in love by the end of this stupid arrangement. You’re really going to sell out Richard’s secrets and get him kicked from the team? I know he hurt you, but that’s not you, Logan.” She took a gulp of her wine rather than a sip, and I wished I could the same.
“Don’t get involved, Scar,” Matt uttered from the corner, shooting his wife a glare.
“Don’t tell me what to do with my best friend.” She didn’t spare him a glance.
“He’s not a good guy, so hurting him the way he did to me is deserved. Is it what I had in mind when I went to see Jaxon tonight? Absolutely not, but I have to get close to him somehow.” She nodded and then downed the rest of her wine.
“What happens when you start showing? You aren’t a few weeks pregnant, Logan. You’ll have a noticeable bump soon. What are you going to tell him?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Pulling the crumpled list from my back pocket, I glared at the last line. I hated that I wasn’t able to tell him.
“I’ll tell him I’m pregnant,” I uttered, crumpling the paper into a ball and tossing it on the coffee table. Scarlett watched me quietly.
“And when he asks about the father?”
“If he asks, Scarlett. Maybe he won’t care, and I’ll just have to raise this baby on my own.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I fought another wave of fucking tears.
She rested her soft hand on my arm. “You’ll never have to do this alone. You have me; you always have me, Logan. And something tells me you’ll have that very sexy man, too.”
“And if I don’t have him? If I never work up the courage to tell him that I’m pregnant with his baby?” Fear crept into my tone because as much as I loved my best friend, I never wanted to raise a child alone.
“Don’t worry about the what-ifs. Get to know him, let him help you get closure for Richard, and when the time is right, you’ll tell him about the little bun in your oven. And if you don’t, I will. That’s what best friends are for.”
I didn’t want to worry.
If I had stuck to my ten-year plan, I’d be married right now. I would have a husband. I wouldn’t be doing anything alone.
But my plan had gone to hell, and I had to just deal with it.