20
TRAVIS
After we make sure Elias is okay, forcing him to drink two glasses of water and eat two slices of bread, Dornan decides to walk home for the fresh air, and I drive Celine back to her dorm.
I say goodbye and yawn halfway through, and she insists that I sleep at hers rather than drive home. It's sweet that she's worried for my safety and even sweeter that she wants me to snuggle up in her bed and fall asleep.
I lay awake with her in my arms, wondering what the hell I'm doing when I made so many mistakes the last time I got into a situationship . I touch her face, marveling at the red of her eyelashes that cast pretty arcs of shadow over her cheekbones. Her lips are pouty when she sleeps.
Tonight was good for many reasons.
Hearing Celine and Dornan's concern when I pointed out that Elias had left dispelled some of my concerns about this complicated situation. The sex is epic, not only when it's me and Celine but when the others are involved, too. We laugh a lot together like I used to with my best mates.
I'm still friends with Dalton, Kain, and Blake, but since they fell in love with my sister, they have less time for me. I'm happy for them, but it's an adjustment.
If I was a sensible man, I'd walk away from this four-way confusion.
What good can come from catching feelings for a woman who quite obviously has feelings for other men? They might be willing to share her while we play games, but how long until they want her for themselves? And what kind of friendship could I develop with two men who've shared a woman with me? This would make the world's weirdest friendship origin story.
The pipework in the dorms makes strange clunking and gurgling noises. Someone, somewhere in the building, is showering or flushing a toilet. My feet hang off the end of Celine's bed, and I feel like Daddy Bear in Baby Bear's bed, an imposter in a life not meant for me.
I'm supposed to be past this.
I'm supposed to have my shit together, but I obviously don't.
Allowing myself to get drawn into this situation is another sign that the boundaries I try to set aren't firm enough.
I'm in danger of digging another hole of misery for myself.
I resist waking Celine and sinking into her sweet body again. Somehow, I've gotten used to the fact that Elias and Dornan need to be around for that. Eventually, I drift off to sleep.
In the morning, Celine wakes me with a soft kiss on my lips and scrambles from beneath the comforter to use the bathroom. The shower starts up and Celine hums as I turn over in bed and breathe in her scent. When she emerges, she's freshly scrubbed, with pink cheeks and damp tendrils curling around her face.
She dresses in front of me, pulling on a sports bra and tight leggings. I have to wait a few minutes, channeling images of my ex-boss, who had a mustache and body odor, before I can get out of bed without morning wood.
I don't shower because I don't have any clean things with me, but I do rinse my mouth out with mouthwash and quickly scrub my face with one of Celine's face products.
My hair is messy, but wet hands and finger combing do the trick.
When I emerge from the bathroom, I only have to pull on my jeans and shirt. Celine watches me dress with what can only be described as a wicked smile on her face.
"Seriously," she says. "Your body is just…" she makes a gesture with her hand and a sound with her mouth, "...chefs kiss."
I cock a brow and run my hand over my beard. It needs a trim, but I'll have to deal with that later.
"It's all yours, baby."
"Seriously."
Celine slowly sways across the room and lets her fingers trail down the center of my chest, her eyes opening wider with each ab she passes over. "Insane," she mutters.
I grab her wrist and bring her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles softly; then I pull out the center of her gym bra, getting a good look at her perfect cleavage. "Now, that's insane."
She laughs and swats me away. "Keep doing that, and we'll get absolutely nowhere today."
"That sounds like an awesome plan." I pull her top again, this time pushing my finger between her tits. She squeals and jumps back, but not before I snag her wrist and twist her arms behind her back, holding them in one of my hands at the base of her spine. I loom over her shoulder, pressing my mouth close to her ear. "If I want to touch you, Celine, I will."
"Yes," she whispers. Her nipples tighten, poking the fabric of her sports bra, and she presses her thighs together. I shouldn't work us both up this way, but I can't resist it. She brings out the wickedness in me so perfectly.
Dropping her hands, I adjust my hard-on.
Celine is red-faced and flustered, just the way I like her.
"I have to go," I tell her.
"Can I come with you? I told Gab we can go to the gym together this morning."
That explains the outfit. "Sure."
Mom has a day off. It should feel weird to rock up at home with a girl, but Celine's different. She's already part of the family, in a way.
We make the drive with the windows down. The wind whips at Celine's hair, and she smiles into the breeze like a happy dog leaning its head out of the window. She finds music she likes on my phone, and we blast it, singing loudly and not caring who can hear us when we stop at the lights.
I laugh and feel a wave of happiness surge inside me, unfamiliar and brilliant. Before Germany, this was my constant state of being. I'd hang out with Kain, Blake, and Dalton, and somehow, we'd always be able to find a way to turn even the most boring of situations into something hilarious.
I felt comfortable in my own skin and in my surroundings.
The build-up to going to Germany had been mixed. The job opportunity was too good to turn down, but I was filled with regret at leaving my family and friends behind. I told myself that it wouldn't be for long. Just a year, maybe two. Enough time to get some experience under my belt. Enough time to work out who I am when I'm not surrounded by everything that's familiar.
It had been much shorter than that and returning felt like failure.
I didn't have a chance to settle into my new life or go through any of the self-discovery I had hoped for. I fell into the trap of a new relationship and let all my goals fall by the wayside. And when it all went wrong, I returned with my tail between my legs.
But Celine, Elias, and Dornan have brought some joy back to my life. I feel rooted again, as weird as it sounds. And happy.
We pull up outside my house, and I look at the place that has been my family home since before I can remember. The familiarity of walking up the front path and putting my key in the lock is like a balm. Celine bounds behind me on her bubble trainers. In the hallway, she looks around, her eyes trailing the family pictures with a new interest. "You were such a cute kid." She points at a photo of Gab and me when I was around nine and Gab was around four. With our summer tans and white-blond hair, we look like a pair of cherubs.
"Cute adult, too." I grin and wink, and Celine smiles before her eyes drift to a point over my shoulder, and her face falls a little.
"Travis?"
I turn at my Mom's voice, detecting a strangeness to the way she said my name. "Mom, you know Celine."
"Of course. Gabriella's upstairs." She glances back into the den. "Travis, there is someone here to see you."
If it was someone Mom knew, she wouldn't say it that way. She'd say Blake is here. So it must be someone she doesn't know, and I have no idea who that might be.
Celine's still standing next to me, and it's as if she can sense something's off, too.
"Who, Mom?"
"Lina from Germany?"
She says it like a question, and my heart seems to thud in one big, weird pulse and drop to the floor. All the darkness I felt when I got on the plane from Berlin and managed to push into the recesses of my mind barrels forward.
Celine's hand rests on my arm, and I turn to her like she's my safety in a warzone. "Are you okay?" she asks.
My head moves from side to side of its own volition, and Celine, picking up on my sudden change in mood, still makes no move to climb the stairs. Instead, she lets her fingers slide into mine.
Mom's gaze drops to where we're now joined, and her lips part like she wants to say something, but we're all trapped in a vortex of the silence that swirls around when things remain unsaid.
"I'll make coffee," Mom says eventually. "And I have blueberry muffins. Would you like one, Celine?"
"Sure."
My feet won't propel me forward even though I know I need to follow Mom and face the woman I flew over an ocean to escape.
"I'll come with you," Celine whispers. Never letting go of my hand. It's her presence that propels me forward.
In the den, Lina is relaxing on my family couch like it's the most normal thing in the world. Her arms are draped across the back, her legs are crossed, and her pointed shoe bounces up and down as she swings her leg. She always was an impatient person, so finding that I was not home when she arrived must have pissed her off. Her eyes brighten when she sees me, but her expression shifts into something darker when she sees Celine and follows my arm down until she notices our hands are linked.
"What are you doing here?" She doesn't deserve any pleasantries. She doesn't deserve to feel comfortable on my home ground when she made my life so difficult on hers.
"I'm here to see you, Travis."
Celine shifts closer to me until her shoulder is pressed against my upper arm. She squeezes my hand just enough to let me feel her reassurance. "Why?"
"This isn't the greeting I thought I'd receive after flying so far to see you."
"You shouldn't have bothered." I turn to where Mom's stirring the coffee so vigorously it sounds as though she will wear a hole in the mug.
Lina rests her hand on her belly and smiles in a way that doesn't meet her eyes. Smile is too nice a word for it. Smirk more accurately reflects the situation. I stare at her as my brain glitches. Why the fuck is she in my house? How the fuck did she find me?
"I have good news," she gushes, her eyes lifting from Celine's hand in mine to my face. "I'm pregnant."
The words penetrate my skull but don't truly register for a few seconds. Celine flinches like she's been slapped but still doesn't let go of my hand. It's as though she wants to tell them that she's with me no matter what. Except she can't be with me through this.
"Pregnant?" The word comes out through a throat that sounds strangulated. I stare at Lina with an expression that can only be described as horrified.
"Yes." Her hand caresses her belly again. "I couldn't believe it either, but the pregnancy tests, it's true."
I want to scream at her that I always wore condoms, but that wouldn't matter, would it? Condoms can fail. It says on the box that they’re only ninety-eight percent effective.
"It's not mine." I bark. It can't be mine. I won't believe it.
Mom chooses that moment to return with a tray of coffee and blueberry muffins. She fumbles with the tray, and it drops to the table, sloshing some of the liquid. "Oh…look what I've done." She bustles back to the kitchen, and Lina and I exist in a weird stare-off.
"Of course, it's yours," she says.
"You cheated on me. It must be his."
"He had a vasectomy, and we used condoms, so no. It can't be his." She shrugs like the cheating was nothing and describes another man's sexual function as though it's something normal to do.
My heart skips in my chest. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. My stomach lurches, and I have to swallow the bile that threatens to rise. This can't be happening. I got away. I saw what this woman was like, and I left, and now she's trying to pull me back in.
My legs feel like they might go out from under me. The only thing keeping me standing, keeping me functioning, is Celine's presence. I don't want her to see me weak. I don't want her to witness me lose my cool or, worse, see how fucking broken this situation is making me.
"I want a paternity test," I say.
Lina's spine stiffens, and she smooths her long chestnut hair. Her tongue slicks over her teeth, pushing out her reddened lips. Mom returns with a cloth and the grayest pallor to her face. Upstairs, Gabriella laughs loudly, in another world where people aren't being trapped by their psycho ex-girlfriends into a lifetime of misery.
Because that's what this will be. If the baby is mine, my life is ruined. She'll use it to embed her nails into me permanently. She'll control the child to control me. I'll have to live in Germany because there is no way I'll leave a child of mine to be raised solely by a woman like this. My dad chose another woman over his family and ended up dead before he ever confessed his secret. There is no way I'd put a child of mine through what I went through. They'll know I love them and am prepared to sacrifice my life for them.
"Of course." She says it like she's confident that nothing will come of it. She says it as though she knows for sure that I'm the father.
I want to sit down. I need her to leave so I can get my head together.
Mom hovers like she doesn't know what to do. This woman is a guest, and Mom is hospitable to a fault, but this woman is obviously not my friend. Mom knows I wouldn't be standing across the room as stiff as a plank of wood if this woman was someone I care about.
Celine's hand is warm in mine, and her closeness makes me want to rewind time to the moments when we were singing in the car, laughing, and joking, where happiness felt like a thing that was possible. I could dwell in that moment forever if I knew that what came next was this.
A noose around my neck.
Dreading that my first child might be on its way into the world because its mother would be the worst kind of person, capable of ruining its life like she ruined mine.
"But the test will have to wait until it's born because there are risks." Her tone is smooth and confident.
"When's that?"
"Five months." Lina stands and makes her way closer, and I'm reminded of the school tarantula I looked after in the summer holidays. It had a way of walking that gave me the creeps.
She touches my arm and peers down her nose at Celine as though she's hoping she'll just disappear by wishing. "I know this is a lot to understand, but it's a good thing, yes? We were happy once. We can be happy again. I made some mistakes, I know. But with a baby, I won't make the same mistakes again." Her smile, that's all teeth and thin lips, could turn me into dust.
The audacity of her to give me this speech while I'm holding another woman's hand isn't lost on Celine. Her fingers tighten around mine, and I feel she's ready to unleash. I squeeze her hand gently, urging her to keep calm.
"That isn't going to happen." I shift on my feet, my fight-or-flight instinct telling me to run as far away from this toxic woman as I can. She touches her stomach again, and the panic I feel that it could be my child contained inside her sends a trickle of sweat down my back.
Her eyes narrow into the same slits that I remember so well from when I confronted her about the rumors. There was no shame. No apology for sleeping with another man. There was just anger that I found out and rage that I dared to ask her about it.
"I can go back to Germany, and you won't hear from me again." She tips her head to one side, smiling again like she didn't just threaten to take a child that might be mine and disappear. "Or you can come back to Germany with me, and you'll have a chance of spending time with your child when it's born. Those are the options, Travis. There are no others."
"Now hang on a minute," Mom says, her hand reaching out towards Lina. "Don't you think that's a little radical? Travis has a life here, and if he's not certain the baby is his, shouldn't you be willing to take some time and work at things? I don't understand why you're treating this as a black-and-white situation."
Lina cuts my mom a withering stare. "Travis should understand that this situation is very difficult for me. I need to prepare for this baby. The preparation can be with him or without him. If it's without him, then me and the baby won't need him."
"A child always needs a father."
"A father doesn't have to be genetic."
Mom's face reddens at the idea that I could so easily be replaced in my child's life. Celine is still holding her tongue, but I don't know how. She's conscious of overstepping, maybe. Conscious that this is a family matter, and the stakes are high.
Feet pound down the stairs, and Gabriella appears in the doorway, dressed in purple gym gear with her hair braided into two long blonde strands. "I thought I heard voices." She looks between us all, waiting for a response, but no one says a word.
"I'll come to Germany if the paternity test proves the baby's mine."
Lina shakes her head. She puts up two fingers. "Two options, Travis. You don't have to decide now. I'm flying back tomorrow. Come with me or don't. It's your choice."
She turns to my mom. "I'm sorry we met under these difficult circumstances."
Mom grimaces, a flush settling high over her cheeks. "It seems to me that you are making the circumstances more difficult than they need to be."
With a blasé shrug of her shoulders that indicates zero remorse, Lina walks past Gab, down the hallway, and out of the front door, slamming it behind her for effect.
It's only when the lock clicks into place that I slump into the chair behind me. I clutch at my chest. I can't fucking breathe.
"Jesus." Celine drops to her knees in front of me and takes my face in her hands. "That woman is awful." I close my eyes, inhaling slowly to the count of four, and exhaling at the same speed until I have some control over myself again.
"What am I going to do?" I ask the question even though I don't expect Celine to have an answer. Even hearing advice at this moment won't help. I just need time to decompress and face up to what's just exploded in my face.
Gab steps into the room and takes a seat next to me. Celine drops her hands, defeat etched into her expression. Gab's arm drapes over my shoulder and she gives me a fierce hug. "Trav. She's pregnant?"
"So she says."
Mom slumps onto the opposite sofa, resting her face in her hands. It looks like she might cry and I couldn't deal with that, knowing that the impact of my decisions are the cause.
"I don't know what to do," I admit. "I don't know what I believe."
"She wouldn't have flown all this way if she wasn't pregnant. If she gets you to go back with her, she'll need to be showing within four weeks, or it'll be pretty obvious she's lying." I meet Mom's eyes and she shakes her head. "Do you believe what she said about not letting you have any contact if you don't go immediately?"
"Yes."
She blanches, twisting her hands in her lap. "So, you either go now, or you have to fight a foreign legal system to get a paternity test and access to a baby in five months."
"Or the baby isn't his, and he doesn't have to do anything." Gab leans into me and rests her forehead against my temple.
"He can't plan for that." Mom straightens. "He can't take that risk. He has to plan as though the baby is his."
"Why?" Celine voices my question.
"Because if there's even a small chance that the baby she's carrying might be Travis's, he has to put himself into the best position with the courts. If he stays here, the courts won't look favorably on him. He'll be seen as a foreigner who wasn't prepared to make any sacrifices for a child who is a German citizen. She'll use Travis's denial of the child against him."
"Fuck," Gab mutters, dropping her arm from around me.
Celine rests back on her feet, as defeated as I feel, because Mom's right.
Mom lays her face in her hands for a few seconds, then straightens again. "That is not a woman who will be a nurturing mother for a child, especially if she resents or hates the father. Travis, you need to see the next few months as a possible investment in your child's safety. If it's not your baby, you can walk away."
"But he can't go back to Germany," Gab moans. "He just found a new job…he just signed for a new apartment."
"None of that compares to his responsibility for a child."
Nausea surges, filling my mouth with saliva, which I swallow. I push my hands over my head and blow out a long, ragged breath. Celine's eyes are filled with unshed tears. She rests her hand on my knee, and I reach for it, holding it so tightly, I expect her to complain, but she doesn't.
"I have to go," I say eventually. "She's not going to back down. You don't know what she's like. If I don't go now, and it is my child, she's going to make it suffer for being a part of me."
"She can't do that," Celine pleads, but I can tell she doesn't believe her own words. Even though she only met Lina for a few minutes, she knows. Mom knows, too. How I didn't see it before, I don't know. I'm an idiot who was blinded by her brilliant smile and stark beauty. I wanted to believe that a girl like that could love me. It sounds pathetic now.
"You and Gab should go to the gym. I need some time to think." Celine's hand drops from my knee, and the loss of connection with her aches.
"I want to stay."
I reach out to take her hand in mine. "You should go. I need to talk to Mom."
"Take a muffin each," Mom suggests weakly.
Celine meets Gab's eyes, and she nods. "We'll come back after," she says.
I touch Celine's cheek, my heart aching now I'm having to push her away. "I'm sorry."
She covers my cheek with her hand. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Travis. You made a mistake. Now you have to deal with it. We're all here to support you, whatever you decide."
I want her to tell me she'll wait for me. I want her to tell me that the happiness I felt when I was with her isn't something I'm about to lose to return to a life that fills me with misery and dread. But none of that is fair. Celine has come out of a tough situation of her own. She doesn't need to be dragged into my drama.
Mom stands and presents Celine and Gab with their muffins, and they take that as a sign to leave. When they've gone, I stand, intending to hide out in my room to try to come to terms with all the ways my life is about to change, but Mom doesn't let me. Instead, she pulls me into a long hug and tells me that everything will be okay.
I wish I could believe her.