Chapter 10 – Molly
I had finally come to terms with the fact that Liam wasn’t going to come around.
I had called and texted him relentlessly for weeks, hoping he’d finally accept what was happening.
I’d even considered showing up at his house, but in the end, I didn’t.
If he didn’t want to be part of this, that was his loss.
He was the one who would have to live with the fact that he had a son walking around this town—a son he’d never cared enough about to know. That was on him, not me.
My biggest obstacle now was figuring out how to tell my brothers. Over the past week, a faint curve had begun to form on my stomach. It was subtle enough that I could pass it off as bloating or eating too much—but not for much longer.
“Have you thought any more about how you’re going to tell everyone you’re pregnant?” Clara asked, standing next to me behind the cash register.
“I think my plan is to just rip it off like a Band-Aid. What do you think?” I asked, glancing at her with a hopeful smile.
“I don’t think everyone’s reactions are going to be as negative as you expect,” she said, still trying to be her normal optimistic self.
“Yeah, the only one I’m worried about is Jace. According to Liam, one time he mentioned liking me in high school, and Jace went ballistic. Told him I was off-limits. Made him promise to never come near me. Said he’d kill him if he ever tried. So…”
She raised her eyebrows. “I see the dilemma.”
“Yup,” I said, popping the p.
“Here comes your next dilemma,” she said, pointing out the window at someone walking up to the bakery.
Liam.
He walked through the front door, sliding his hands down into his pockets as he approached the counter.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I said. My pulse raced like a thoroughbred chasing the finish line, and my head swirled with a mix of anxiety and irritation. After all this time, he just showed up at my bakery. His audacity pissed me off.
And yet, the man whose baby I was carrying was standing right in front of me. We had created a life together—something rare and special—even if I currently hated his guts.
The side of his face told me I wasn’t the only person who Liam had managed to piss off recently. A jagged cut ran across his right cheek, purple bruises shining on each side of the gash.
Clara glanced between us. “I’ll give you guys some space. But listen to me, Liam—if I come back up here and she’s crying, I’ll give you a shiner on the left side to match the one on the right. Got it?”
He looked down, shame flooding his expression. “Yes, ma’am,” he said quietly.
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, you know?”
“Yeah… sorry I didn’t call back.”
“Why are you here, Liam?” I asked, making sure every ounce of annoyance in my voice landed.
“I came to apologize. I made a mistake, Molly. What I said—I didn’t mean it.”
“You made more than a mistake. You broke my heart while making it painfully clear where you stand. So leave me the hell alone,” I said, instinctively holding my stomach.
Liam looked down. I could tell my gesture hit him in a way no words ever could.
He met my gaze again. “As I see it, we’re tied together for at least eighteen years now, Molly.”
“Then sucks to be you, huh?” I shot back.
“Because I’ll never forgive you for the way you treated me these past few weeks.
I’ll never forget watching you walk out my front door that afternoon.
It felt like someone ripped my heart right out of my chest, and I will never put my heart on the line like that again. ”
I stepped out from behind the counter, standing toe-to-toe with him. I jabbed a finger into his chest. “Last night was the first night I didn’t cry myself to sleep in weeks. I finally realized I can’t make you be a good dad, but I sure as hell can be a good mom. With or without you.”
Before Liam could say anything back, the bell above the door chimed, pulling both of us out of the argument.
It was Jace.
Oh no. I tried sucking in my stomach as much as possible, hoping Jace wouldn’t notice. I loosened my apron, hoping it would cover our secret.
Jace lit up the moment he spotted Liam. “Dude, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all week.”
Liam shifted his attention away from me and toward Jace.
Jace’s expression changed almost instantly when he noticed the cut on Liam’s face. “What the hell happened to your face?”
I’d been wondering the same thing, but we didn’t exactly have time for small talk.
“I got into a fight with my dad.”
Why would Liam want to fight his own father?
“You finally lay that piece of shit on his ass?” Jace joked, clearly in on something I wasn’t.
“Something like that,” Liam said. “I don’t think I’ll be seeing him anymore. I told him everything I’ve always felt about him. He didn’t take it well. We threw a few punches, and I left. Told him it’d be the last time he ever saw me.”
“Damn,” Jace said. “What finally made you do it?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell it at the next guys’ night.”
Jace snorted. “You’d actually have to show up to one, you know. You ditched the last one to work a double shift, and the one before that you bailed on us for…”
He glanced around like he was trying to jog his memory.
Liam had never told Jace what had really come up the night he canceled on my brothers—the night he stayed at my house and everything changed between us forever.
“Why are you here?” I asked, cutting into their conversation. Jace wasn’t exactly a regular customer.
“Nice to see you too, sis,” he said with a grin. “I’m actually here because of Cassie. She wants to throw a big shindig out at our place Friday night. Everyone’s invited”—his eyes slid to Liam—“even you, Carson.”
Liam suddenly looked like a shame-filled puppy.
Pull it together, dude.
“You know,” Jace went on, totally oblivious, “food, music, all the usual stuff. I’m breaking out the grill for the first time this year. Mom and Dad will be there too.”
Great. I had exactly forty-eight hours to glue my shattered life together—enough to survive a party with my two best friends, who knew I was secretly pregnant, and my brother’s best friend, who was secretly my baby daddy.
Add everyone else I knew on top of that, including my own parents, and things were going just wonderfully.
Maybe I’d get lucky and Liam would bail on this, like he had on everything else so far.
“Wanna grab a bite and tell me more about that shiner?” Jace asked.
I caught the hesitation flicker across Liam’s face, but he nodded anyway.
As Jace headed for the door, Liam lingered behind.
“Can we talk tonight?” he whispered. “I can come over after work.”
“Not a chance,” I whispered back. “Have a great day, Sheriff.”
I gave him a sarcastic wave before disappearing into the back, leaving him standing there alone.
When I entered the kitchen, I found Clara standing in the corner, quietly mixing cake batter, probably eavesdropping on the entire conversation.
The moment I saw her, my eyes widened—like it was the first time I’d actually allowed myself to express how I was feeling.
She caught my expression immediately and gave me a knowing look.
“I heard,” she said, watching me closely, waiting for me to say something.
“Perfect, so you already know that I’m completely and astronomically screwed,” I said, throwing my hands in the air with a sarcastic laugh. “A party—with literally everyone I know walking around—half of them knowing my big secret and the other half totally oblivious.”
“Do you think Liam will actually go?”
“I don’t know. If he’s smart, he will, because Jace will get suspicious if he doesn’t. Then again, up until today, he’s been completely avoiding me, so maybe he’ll go back to his old ways and not show up.”
“Which one do you think is the better option?” she asked, nervously stirring the batter that was more than ready.
“Liam not coming—obviously. It’ll hurt, but it guarantees nothing happens between us that makes anyone suspicious. People will start asking why I’m looking at him like I want to murder him all night long.”
I was go-with-the-flow Molly McKinley. The girl who never let anything trip her up. And I had absolutely no idea what to do. My brain felt like it was short-circuiting.
“I think if Liam doesn’t show, you have to tell them what’s going on. Maybe not who the father is yet, but at least let them know you’re pregnant.”
I thought about her advice for a moment.
It was a surprisingly solid plan. At the very least, it would eliminate half of the problem weighing on me right now.
Maybe my parents would be disappointed that I was having a baby and the dad wasn’t in the picture, but I knew that eventually it would be okay. They loved me no matter what.
“I think I could make that plan work.”
“Maybe bake a lot of desserts to hand out before you break it to them,” she suggested. “If nothing else, they’ll be too busy chewing to yell.”
One could only hope.