Chapter 7
O h my God. Asher. Asher Reyes is the guy from the bathroom. The father of my son. He’s Mason’s father, and he has no idea he has a son. I have a son with Asher Reyes. How is this happening? How could it be Asher of all people?
Everything is about to change.
My entire life will now be linked with his—if he even wants anything to do with Mason.
Tears continue to spill from my eyes as I stare at this man. This man who orchestrated a party just so he could tell me this. He’s crazy. I mean, who does something like that? He could have called me up on the freaking phone and told me or asked to meet me for coffee or something. But this?
I’m sitting in a bathroom, wearing the dress I wore to my medical school graduation, an apartment full of work colleagues just beyond the door, and now I have to tell him he has a son.
My heart is pounding in a way it never has before as anxiety rattles through me like a runaway train.
A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead and the back of my neck, and I’m shaking so badly my teeth are chattering.
“Asher.” I start only to stop. How do I say this to him?
“What is it?” he questions calmly, gently, still trying to wipe my tears. Is he a good man? Joe said he was, but Joe’s not exactly someone I take my character references from.
I don’t know Asher, and it’s terrifying. A football player. Of course it had to be a football player. Fate and irony really have a thing for messing with me.
I open my mouth to tell him. To push the words past my lips. But a wave of nausea hits me, and I can’t breathe in here. I can’t think in here. It’s too closed in, and I think I’m having a panic attack. “I need air. Where can I find air?”
I shove him back without waiting on his response and fly for the door. It opens, and then I’m in the hallway, and there is noise in the great room. Laughter. People talking. Holy shit, I’m in the middle of a fucking party, and this is happening.
I shake my head and start to run in the opposite direction when Asher grabs my hand and pulls me toward a large staircase that winds up and up, my heels clanging on the metal steps, all the way until he opens a door, and then we’re on the roof of the building and I’m looking at…
a pool? Who has a rooftop pool in their house? Well, apartment, I guess, but still.
“This is insane.” Because it is. Beautiful. Super cool. But also insane. The outdoor area takes up the entire rooftop. There are loungers, seating areas, a full bar, and televisions everywhere you look. It’s a sports bar that met a bachelor pad and together they made a resort.
The pool area is glassed in, showing off sweeping views of Boston everywhere you look. The pool itself is stunning and sparkling blue, lit up by underwater lights.
I realize he’s still holding my hand as he walks me over in that direction.
He presses a button on the wall, and the glass roof slowly retracts like a sunroof causing a gust of warm wind to hit me right in the face.
I suck in a rushed breath, and then another, and collapse onto a cushioned chaise on the edge of the pool.
“How do you have this kind of money?” Then I shake my head. “Sorry, that was rude, and it’s totally none of my business. My mind is too frazzled to think logically right now, and that just slipped out.”
He chuckles, and the sound eases some of the knots twisting in my stomach.
He sits on the lounge across from me and retakes my hand.
“It’s fine. I was part of the band Central Square for four years.
We made more money than we ever knew what to do with, and after college and I was drafted back home to Boston, so I bought this place from one of the doctors downstairs. ”
“It’s nice up here.”
“It’s why I bought it from him.” He gives my hand a gentle squeeze and then shifts so he’s closer to me, so our knees are touching. “What happened downstairs? Why did you panic like that after I told you what happened that night?”
My chest falls forward, my forehead resting on my knees.
His hands find my hair, combing through the strands, and I don’t know why I haven’t stopped him from continuing to touch me like this, but I haven’t, and I already know I won’t.
It’s comforting somehow, and right now I need that. It’s soothing my soul.
“Are you a good man, Asher Reyes?” I swallow and sit up, looking directly into his eyes that do in fact change color, because right now, they appear blue again as they reflect off the water.
“A good man?” He squints at me, taking both of my hands in his. “Yes,” he answers easily, full of sincerity. “I’m a good man. At least I always strive to be. What is this about, Wynter?”
I look down at our linked hands, watching as mine shake in his. “Asher, that night in the bathroom…” I blow out an uneven breath and force myself to meet his gaze. “I got pregnant.”
He freezes. Grows preternaturally still. He’s not even blinking. Finally, he utters, “Pregnant?”
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “Yes.” More tears start to spill. “I have a son. He’s ten months old. He was born on October fourteenth. His name is Mason.”
“Mason.” With that, he explodes off the chaise and starts to pace away from me.
For a moment, I think he’s going to leave and head back downstairs, but he doesn’t.
He pauses when he reaches the bar, grips the thick, wood edge of it, and lowers his head between his outstretched arms, where he stands like that for a few minutes.
Not making a sound. Just breathing heavily.
I don’t dare say anything. He needs this time, and I need to let him have it because I need this time too. I don’t know what I want from him. To what extent I want him in Mason’s life.
Before I can come up with any answers, he shoots away from the bar and races back to me, dropping to his knees on the hardscape in front of me.
I hold my breath, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t.
For the longest time, he does nothing but look up at me, his expression wrecked with turmoil, but there’s something else there too.
Something I can’t figure out because I don’t know him, and I don’t know his looks or how his mind operates.
He wipes another tear from my cheek and then whispers in a hoarse voice, “Can I see a picture of him?”
I break apart. Right here. Cracking in half and collapsing forward again.
He wraps himself around me, his cheek resting against the side of my head as he whispers things in my ear.
He’s telling me it’s okay, that it’s going to be fine, that he has me, and that I don’t have to cry.
But I do have to cry. How can I not cry?
“I hate football players,” I croak, and he laughs, which makes me laugh. I sit up and wipe my face, which is likely smeared with dripping mascara.
“But do you hate me?”
“I’m not sure.” I give him a sly grin.
“I can change your mind about football players,” he assures me. “I can make you love me.”
A scoff climbs past my throat. “I doubt that, player.”
“Don’t doubt me, sweetheart. It only makes me want to prove myself more. I am the perpetual underdog in a family of football royalty.”
“And what if I hate you?”
He smirks, giving me a long once-over. “You don’t. You only wish you did.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“One hundred percent. But if that’s the game you want to play, I’ll have to pull out all the stops to win you over. Not all football players are bad,” he promises. “One day you’ll have to tell me about your aversion to my kind.”
“Maybe, but not today. I’m sorry this fell on you this way.”
He shakes his head, dismissing that. “ I’m sorry. I’m the one who didn’t put on the condom. But… can I see him? Because, and I know this is going to sound really fucking weird because we don’t know each other and I don’t know him yet, but I’m not sure how sorry I actually am.”
I blow out a breath. “You mean that?”
He bites into his lip and gives me a jerky nod. “That’s weird, right? Like, how can I feel that way when I haven’t met him yet?”
Holy hell. My chest clenches like someone is squeezing it in a vise.
I reach into my purse and pull out my phone. My hands fumble with it and finally, I manage to unlock it with my face. I pull up my photos app and start to scroll through. Asher is still on the ground, but now he’s the one shaking.
“He has your hair,” I murmur, my voice cracking, and then I pull up a video I took of him yesterday evening and hand him my phone. Asher collapses, his back against the chaise and his knees up as he holds my phone in his hand, his gaze glued to the screen.
“Fuck. Jesus fuck.” He pants out a breath, his eyes immediately glassing over as he watches his son play in the bath and chew on his favorite giraffe teething toy.
Once that video is done, he starts to scroll through picture after picture, video after video.
“He’s really beautiful, Wynter,” he says as he hands me back my phone after he’s gone through nearly every picture and video I have.
“My mind is spinning, and I can’t think all that clearly, but he’s seriously fucking beautiful. ”
“Thank you.”
He gives me a wry smirk. “Worst sex of your life, and we made that. I feel like I should ask you to marry me or something.”
A laugh hits the air. “Um. No.”
“That’s what my dad did with my mom.”
I raise an eyebrow. “How’d that turn out for them?”
He rubs at his smirking bottom lip. “They’re happily divorced. I grew up in Cambridge with my mom, who now lives in Sarasota.”
I shoot him with my finger. “Point proven. Thank you.”
“Fine. I won’t marry you until you beg me to.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Don’t hold your breath.”
“But you’ll give me mouth-to-mouth if I do. There’s incentive enough.”
I sigh. “Such a player.”