Chapter 21 #2
“Damn, what a shame,” he says playfully, knocking twice on the table. Though he’s a terrible flirt with all the ladies, if he ever did have true feelings for me, he never let on during all our hours of studying together.
I sigh and set my tea down, then reach into my purse. “Sorry to disappoint.” I find the sonogram photos, slightly wrinkled beneath my can of bear spray, and I smooth them out before I slide them across the table. “But I am having someone’s baby.”
“Well, butter my biscuit, Sunshine is having a baby,” he says, surprised, studying the photos closely. “Can’t say I saw this coming any time soon, after all your talk of playing the field once we graduated.”
“Neither did I.” I fold the photos more carefully when I store them back in my purse.
“Who’s the lucky man?”
I grimace. “My boss.”
Several emotions play out on his handsome face, ending with his brows lifted to his hairline. “One of your dad’s co-founders?”
“No, no, none of them.” I slouch in my chair, spreading cinnamon butter on my steamy dinner roll, suddenly starving. “He’s our new Senior Advisor and my direct supervisor.”
Bryce’s brow darkens. “Is this one of those coercion-type cases that I need to get my brother to help me confront?”
I reach across the table to grip his hand. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
Bryce lets go of a long breath, his broad shoulders relaxing.
I know he would have gone through with it.
When I told him what Tobias had done, he had called his older brother, who works for a sketchy trucking company closer to Dallas.
His brother got some of his coworkers together and showed up in Austin to confront Tobias, who transferred to a different school shortly thereafter.
It was sweet, if not more than a little terrifying.
When the server comes by to ask if we’re ready to place our order, we tell her we need a few more minutes, and she moves on to another table.
Bryce asks me, “So, what then? He none too happy about the baby?”
“He doesn’t know yet. I only just found out right before I called you.”
Bryce clicks his tongue and scratches his strong jawline. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you telling me and not him?”
I finish my dinner roll and butter a second. “I need some advice. Say you were having a fling—”
“I don’t do flings. If I’m in, I’m all in.”
“Okay…” I say slowly. “Then pretend you’re in an alternate universe and were having a fling. How would you want someone to tell you that they accidentally got pregnant with your baby?”
“Well, I’d want them to come right out and say it straight to my face. If we’re having a baby, then there needs to be total and complete honesty and trust between us.”
“Even if you were already overwhelmed with three kids as a single dad?”
“Damn, Sunshine.” Bryce leans back in his chair and whistles. “You’ve really gone and done it now. Out of all the men who’d jump at the chance to be with you, you pick your boss, who’s already three kids deep?”
“I know,” I say with a groan, dropping my head on my arm. “He’s just…so annoyingly hot and smart and successful and good with his kids. And he gives as good as he takes with me—never a dull moment. And he has abs, Bryce. Abs. And a huge—”
Bryce chuckles and lays a hand atop mine, giving it a gentle pat. “I don’t need all the details.”
I look up. “I was going to say ‘a huge heart’, though he’s got a big dick to match.”
Bryce lets out a loud laugh that has several people at the central bar, taking advantage of cheap happy hour drinks, craning their necks toward us.
“He took custody of his ex’s kids when she passed,” I tell him.
“Sounds like he’s a good one. Not many men would have done that.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the problem?” Bryce asks.
“Exactly that. He told me several times that he wasn’t sure he wanted more kids.
I mean, he said he changed his mind, but I’m starting to think he only said that because I was ending things, since he barely talks to me now.
And if he was telling the truth, even if he doesn’t end up wanting to be with me, then I don’t know if I can trust that he won’t change his mind again.
I’d take him to court, of course, for child support, but what if he decides he wants nothing to do with us, and our child grows up with an absentee father who just so happens to live across the street. ”
“Jesus, that’s rough.” Turning his palm up to clasp my hand, Bryce says, “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many kids he has or whether or not he wants more.
Pregnancy is always a risk when it comes to sex, no matter how careful you are.
It would be hard raising the baby on your own if he turns out to be a jackass and a deadbeat, but you can do it and do it well.
You’re strong and smart and successful all on your own.
Any child would be lucky to have you for a mother.
” Bryce shrugs. “Whatever you decide, he’ll have to accept it, and that’s all there is to it. ”
“Autumn!” Josephine calls from over my shoulder, making me jerk back my hand. I’d know her voice anywhere. “I didn’t know you were gonna be here!” I automatically open my arms when she bends to hug me. “Daddy, look! Autumn’s here!”
She doesn’t need to shout because Forest is standing just behind her with Benjamin and Sebastian. Forest works his jaw, pinning Bryce with an icy look that spells trouble. He saw Bryce and me holding hands. He must have. And it’s crystal clear he’s not happy about it, to put it lightly.
Josephine drags one of the empty chairs to sit on my side of the table and grabs my menu to look over it.
“This him?” Bryce asks of my seriously hot and seriously pissed off boss, tipping his head toward Forest. When I give him a small nod, Bryce stands with the click of his tongue and holds his hand out to Forest. “Bryce Paladino. And you are?”
Forest sets Sebastian on the floor, and the little boy immediately climbs onto my lap, snagging a dinner roll that he stuffs in his mouth.
“Forest Woods.” He pinches his lips when Bryce snorts, and the men crush each other’s hands in a show of aggression.
Good lord, this is a mess. “How do you know Autumn?”
“Oh, we go way back, ain’t that right, sunshine?” Bryce answers, winking at me.
“Sunshine?” Forest questions loudly. He’s not too happy about that, either.
Bryce shakes out his arms like he’s readying himself for a fight as he sizes Forest up, who’s taller but much leaner. “Yeah. Sunshine. You got a problem with that?”
As sexy as it would be to see Forest get all rough and rugged, this is so not the time or place. I stand up so fast that I almost knock my chair back, and I shift Sebastian to Josephine’s lap. Her shoulders are curled up to her ears as she watches the men.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, slipping my hand through her slightly tangled hair, having just been picked up from school. I step between the two men. Facing Bryce, I whisper the same to him. He holds his hands up and backs off. Turning to face Forest, I tell him quietly, “Bryce is just a friend.”
Forest’s voice is equally low when he asks, “So you’re not on a date?”
I almost place a hand on his chest to further reassure him when I tell him, “No.”
Forest closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and eventually nods.
Without being invited to, he pulls out the chair on my left and sits heavily into it.
Bryce and I hold eye contact as we both retake our seats, and Bryce hooks his right elbow over his chair back, drumming his left hand fingers on the tabletop.
“Have you ordered yet?” Forest asks me.
“No,” Bryce answers when I don’t.
Other than Sebastian and Benjamin playing with a few packets of sugar, the table is unbearably awkward and silent. Bryce waves to the server to let her know we’re finally ready to place our order.
After a brief perusal of the menu, Forest wags a finger between him and me when he tells the busy but patient server, “We’re going to split the sirloin and grilled shrimp.” Having spent nearly every day together, he knows exactly what I like.
“That sounds good. I’ll have the same,” Bryce tells the server with a grin.
Forest puckers his lips as if put out. Bryce could probably put away half a cow by himself and still have room leftover, whereas Forest struggles to eat enough to maintain his weight, never mind pack on any pounds.
Not that he needs to, considering he’s the most attractive man I’ve ever met, exactly as he is now. It’s irritating.
Forest orders for the kids, and we’re back to sitting awkwardly as we wait for another basket of fresh rolls to be delivered.
“So, you work with Autumn, huh?” Bryce finally asks.
“Uh huh,” Josephine answers. “My daddy’s her boss and boyfriend.”
“Oh geez,” I say under my breath. Surprisingly, confusingly, Forest doesn’t correct her. I have no idea what to think of that, given all the emotional distance between us.
“Funny,” Bryce says to Forest after flashing Josephine a quick smile. “I heard differently.”
“And I haven’t heard a thing about you,” Forest says.
Bryce pokes his tongue in his cheek and shrugs. “Guess y’all don’t know each other all that well, then.”
Forest moves his hand to my knee to steady my leg, which I’ve been bouncing on the floor. This anxiety can’t be good for the baby. “Oh, we know each other, all right,” he says with meaning.
“Stop, or I’m going to leave,” I hiss at them both.
I bite the inside of my cheek and look away when Forest removes his hand.
“Sorry,” the men say simultaneously.
“Jinx,” Josephine says quietly.