It Happened to Us (It Happened #5)

Chapter 1 Babies and Blueprints

BABIES AND BLUEPRINTS

Archer

Archer Bellamy: Man of the world.

Bank Account: Millions.

Heart: Broken.

Click my profile if you dare.

I’ll break yours too.

“He’s lighter than I expected.” I kept my voice down, afraid the baby would wake and go off like a live grenade. My forearms shook with seven pounds and three ounces of baby love in them. He couldn’t be any more pink and perfect.

Maisy smiled from the hospital bed, cheeks flushed. Motherhood looked good on her. “That’s because you’ve been lifting heavy rolls of blueprints for the last decade, Archer.”

“I’ll have you know we design digitally now.” I stared down at the little face swaddled in a white blanket patterned with tiny blue footprints. He slept, totally unfazed by me.

“Brooks still teaches his students to design with blueprints,” she countered.

“Because my brother is old school.”

“Who are you calling old? I simply respect classic architecture and think my students should, too.” Brooks stood at the foot of the bed, so protective of his loved ones.

That face of his I’d only seen twice before—on the day he married Maisy and the day their first child came squalling into the world. The look said he would fight any enemy for his growing family.

It also said: I haven’t slept in nineteen hours and I would kill for an espresso.

The babe made a fist the size of my thumb knuckle and punched the air. “Whoa. Violent. Clearly, he takes after his Uncle Tucker. Speaking of, is he coming out to visit our nephew soon?”

“He and Whitney called to congratulate. He’ll be in town next week when the Vipers play New York,” Maisy supplied. Our hockey playing brother already had four kids of his own with Whitney in L.A., so to him seeing a newborn was nothing new. To me, a wonder.

“So I’m the first uncle to see him, which means we’ve imprinted. I’ll be the greatest hero to both your kids.”

“Careful of the baby’s head, Arch.” The overprotective father warned.

“Don’t worry. I babysat Wren countless times, and look how she turned out, the smartest toddler ever.” I ticked my chin toward the baby. “So are we going to keep calling him ‘the baby’ or have you chosen to make my life complete by naming him after me?”

Maisy’s eyes watered. “We did think about you.”

“We were thinking Everett.” Brooks’ mouth pulled to one side.

I only teased, but the fact they were considering my middle name thrummed in my chest like someone plucked a string. “Everett.”

Maisy repeated quietly, “Everett Oliver Bellamy.”

Oliver, for her dad, no doubt. Dr. Oliver Calhoun had passed long before she met Brooks. As for Everett… My throat worked, and I stared hard at the sleeping infant so my eyes wouldn’t give me away.

“The name sounds like an extremely smart geek who’ll spend way too much time in the library instead of playing sports, and hold dangerous opinions about the future of technology.”

“Archer!” Maisy laughed and then winced and pressed a hand low on her stomach.

“Are you okay?” Brooks moved instantly, a palm to her shoulder, the other reaching for the nurse’s call button. That was my brother—always ready to push buttons for the woman he loved.

“I’m fine. Everything’s shifting back into place.” With her hand still on her torso, she tilted her head for him to kiss it. “Everett seems to like you, Arch. No crying so far.”

“Excellent taste runs in the family.” A strange feeling braided behind my ribs. “He’s going to get beaten up in the eighth grade, you know.”

“What?” Maisy blinked.

“The bullies of middle school will shove him into a locker, call him Grandpa, and demand he recite Shakespeare. It happened to me.”

“Because of your name?”

“Because I spent lunch periods correcting geometry quizzes for the teacher.” I glanced up. “But yes, also the name Archer. On the upside, kids named Mike and Brad asked me for investment advice by senior year.”

“And where were you, not defending your brother?” She grinned at her husband.

“I was probably stuffed into my locker by the same kids. We were among the smaller guys back then, hadn’t hit our growth spurt.” Brooks fluffed the pillow behind her. “Don’t worry. We’ll enroll Everett in a school with no lockers and teach him to throw a punch.”

“Look at you two—already solving problems he doesn’t know he has.” My voice came out lighter than the weight in my chest. It was the Bellamy way. Banter as a flotation device.

A knock sounded before the door opened and Lila popped her head in. “Hello. Ready for us?” She whispered. Their twenty-something nanny slipped inside, holding the hand of a tiny girl in pink and white polka-dot leggings and dress, with lopsided pigtails.

“Come here, Wren.” Brooks’ grin broke out wide on his face. He’d been a total girl-dad until now.

Wren barreled toward the bed on legs that hadn’t yet learned to be careful. “Mama,” she breathed, eyes huge as planets. “Baby?”

Maisy held out her arms, and I reluctantly handed Everett back, every cell in my body protesting like I’d just given up the winning hand.

“Come closer and meet your brother Everett, sweetie,” she urged.

Brooks swooped Wren up and lathered her with kisses, then placed her carefully next to Maisy. She peered at the bundle. “Huggie?”

“No, Huggie is our cat,” Brooks said.

“Does she think a kitten was in Maisy’s tummy this whole time?” I chuckled.

Wren gently touched the edge of the blanket, then leaned over right into his face and shouted, “Baby.”

The baby woke up and farted, startling Wren almost off the bed. The room swelled with laughter and family sweetness and the invisible cords that tie one heartbeat to another.

It was suddenly too much. Their joy was like a mirror held up to my life, reflecting the empty side of my bed, the years of wasted chances and wrong turns and women who wanted my Bellamy penthouse more than the man in it.

I made a show of checking my watch. “Oh, look at the time. I should go. The office will crumble without me.”

Brooks squinted. “It’s Friday night.”

“So?” I lifted a shoulder, bright and breezy and fake, like it was totally natural for a man like me to be married to his business. “What? Don’t look at me like that.”

Maisy’s brows shot up. “We just want to see you happy, Archer.”

“I am happy. I have a business that wouldn’t survive without me, all the money in the world, and, as a bonus, I don’t have to change diapers or chase a toddler around the house who hides the remote control.” I made a show of rolling my eyes at them.

“We mean, happy with someone by your side. Maybe try that millionaire matching service again?” Maisy had been itching to see me settle down. But the last time I trusted a woman, it hit me both in the heart and the pocketbook in equal measure.

Brianne—the ghost of girlfriends past—and everything she did to me still haunted me to this day.

I looked to Brooks, who offered me no help in getting out of this conversation.

“And on that note, I’m out of here. Congratulations.” I leaned in, and pressed a kiss to the top of Maisy’s head, ignoring her suggestion to use the app. Then I gave Wren’s nose a boop, and clapped my palm to Brooks’ shoulder. “You did good, big guy.”

“We sure did,” he said with an approving eye to his wife. I made a quick escape before what was in his voice sent me into a total breakdown.

The hallway smelled like disinfecting dream-killer. I walked it fast, suddenly all elbows and angles, a man too tall for his own life. The elevator doors stayed open long enough for me to slide in, and I took the car down to the parking garage.

Fuck my life.

I unlocked my car—a new sleek black Stingray that I bought for no reason other than I could, and far from a family transport. It had confirmed bachelor written all over it.

The black leather creaked as I slid in. I let my head fall back against the headrest and stared at the dim reflection of myself in the rearview mirror.

“Look at you. Thirty-something. Successful. A jawline rumored to make models envious. And all alone.” I huffed out a laugh.

My phone vibrated against my thigh. I took it out and swiped through.

The Bellamy family thread lit up with Wren’s first official photo as a big sister, and Everett’s various sleeping grumpy baby faces.

There was one of Maisy with Brooks’ arms around her.

And one of the four of them together, probably taken by Lila.

That one looked like home.

I typed a string of heart and dinosaur emojis, based on Wren’s current obsession with archeology. I liked to think I had a hand in it, having taken her to the natural history museum last week, which gave her parents a night off together. Because I was The Greatest Uncle.

Nothing wrong with being an uncle instead of a father—the lie I told myself.

I expelled all the air in my lungs. Who was I kidding? I’d trade my life with Brooks to have what he had.

In lieu of that, in the middle of my longest dry spell ever, I should call one of my buddies to meet me somewhere and be my wingman while I attempted to pick up any woman who would talk to me.

Oh yeah. Most of my friends were married now.

I could go home and watch something where people baked bread over an open fire and camped by the ocean in RVs. My latest obsession when doomscrolling.

Either option ended the same: me, alone, in a city with eight million people and not one of them mine.

“Fine,” I muttered, irritated, digging my phone out of my pocket and doing what Maisy suggested. I tapped open Minted & Matched. Dax rebuilt this millionaire matching service and had been after me to give it another try after the latest round of updates.

The sleek and golden Art Deco letters interlocked like a promise on the opening screen. The branding was good. I’d helped pay for that brand as one of his investors.

I quickly updated my profile. In my moody state, I couldn’t care less about the details. Dax had already fed the algorithm everything about me anyway, so let’s see what magic it would produce.

Women slid past my cynical view, each a glossy square of their curated life.

Mia, an art director, loved design and pasta. Swipe left. I loved pasta, too, but not a woman with red hair.

Candace, entrepreneur, showed three photos of her posing in front of jets. Probably a travel writer. Swipe left, nothing against a vagabond lifestyle, but my life was firmly here in the city, chained to my architecture firm.

My thumb found a rhythm, left, left, the occasional curious right, like my heart kept tempo and the app was a song I didn’t know the words to. None of the profiles were worthy of a click.

Until a photo hit me that wasn’t fake or calculated.

Penelope Fair.

Brianne’s little stepsister.

“What the hell?”

I noticed all the details at once. She sat on the steps of a New York brownstone I’d visited many times in my distant past. With adoring eyes, a golden retriever’s head rested on her knee. I couldn’t blame the animal because she was always a sweetheart.

Complete opposite of my ex.

My hands itched to pull out the pencil she’d stuck through a bun to keep her chestnut hair in place. Her eyes crinkled on a laugh. She always smiled brightly with her entire face—that I remembered well.

“Penny?” I stared at her and reread her profile too many times.

My thumb hovered above the Match Us button. Did I dare?

Of course… only casually, so I could say hello and see how she was doing for old times’ sake. Nothing more. Not really.

I clicked, momentarily forgetting myself. A hopeful kick in my stomach said maybe her, maybe this time. Only a second later, my breath caught in my throat, and everything that Brianne did to me came flooding back like the heartbreak was just yesterday.

My frame sagged in my seat. Jesus. How could I forget how wrecked I was when she’d left me?

Given the years since I last saw Penny, what if she’d grown up just like Brianne, a woman who deceived and manipulated for her own benefit?

“No, no, no.” Casual or not, I scanned the screen and checked for any way to undo my click, when suddenly the message flashed on Penny’s profile. You’re a Match!