Seven of Hearts

6. Logan

6

LOGAN

S eptember in Beaufort was miserable. For some stupid reason, I had left the breezy low seventies of Chicago and traded it for North Carolina swamp ass.

That stupid reason was for my thirtieth birthday.

I didn’t really want to fly back home so soon after Kylie’s wedding, but going to my family was preferable to them coming to my place. I didn’t even own a couch, but they didn’t know that.

Besides, it was easier for me to leave Beaufort and go back home rather than to kick them out of Chicago.

I rounded the curving road that led to Davis Bay, the part of the coast where Kristin and Will had built their mansion. The DeRossis’ house came into view first. I wondered if Leah was in there, or if she was over at the Lawsons’. She was a shared nanny between two families I had known since I was a kid.

Why was I still thinking about her?

It had been three months since that night at the wedding. Three months since we had spoken. Not a peep since.

Three months of listening to a voice note and fucking my hand.

I couldn’t get Leah Holloway out of my head, which was why I was driving half the speed limit past the DeRossi house to see if she was there.

But she wasn’t.

Cars were already piled up in Kristin’s driveway next door.

I parked the rental on the curb, even though I was staying the night. I wanted an easy escape if it came down to it.

Kristin and Will spent Monday nights with their group of friends, playing poker. It was usually held at the DeRossis’ house, but it had been moved to Kristin’s for a joint poker night and birthday celebration. Their friends were my friends. Really, they were more like family. It just made sense.

I wouldn’t have invited anyone else anyway.

I let myself into the chaos of the house. Collective cheers of “Happy Birthday” rang out as the door opened and closed.

Kylie and Bryan were the first to attack me. I gave Kylie a hug and a hello and offered Bryan a fist bump and a half-hug.

“How was the trip?”

Bryan chuckled. “You mean the honeymoon?”

I cringed. “You married my sister. I’m just going to call it a trip.”

Kylie rolled her eyes and disappeared into the crowd.

“It was good. How are things up your way?” Bryan asked as we moved into the house. He worked for SolomonTech too, but held a remote position so he and Kylie could stay in Beaufort.

Bryan and I had worked together for years. It was how he had met my sister. He was a great guy, and I was glad he and Kylie had found each other.

“Going well. The new team is great. Offices are great.”

Bryan lifted an eyebrow. Before he could say anything contrary, my youngest sister, Zoey, bounded through the crowd. At seventeen, she was looking more and more like an adult, rather than the kid I remembered.

“It’s about time,” she huffed. “You were supposed to be here three hours ago.”

“Flight got delayed,” I said as I hugged her tightly.

“Lame. That’s why you should always come the day before.”

“Some of us have to work for a living, Zo.”

She rolled her eyes like Kylie had.

“Where’s Hunter?” I asked.

“Present.” My brother elbowed his way through and gave me a hug. “Happy birthday, bro.”

“Thanks,” I muttered as that tight feeling in my chest began to grow. It was only my family, but suddenly, I wanted to shapeshift into a fly on the wall.

I didn’t like being the center of attention. Will was always trying to push me into central roles at work, and I hated it.

Leading the Chicago launch team was a compromise. I got out of Beaufort, and he put me in a leadership role.

“There you are!” Kristin weaseled her way between bodies and pulled me into a hug. “You don’t call. You don’t text. You’re three hours late. I was worried sick.”

Will peeled her away, giving me a chance to breathe. “Happy birthday," he said.

“Thanks.”

Thankfully, the crowd moved as an amoeba into the kitchen where pizza boxes were piled high. I made the rounds as people filed in—saying hello to the DeRossis, the Pelhams, the McGraths, and the Brannans—before parking myself on the couch with a slice and a beer.

I’d stick around for an hour or so, pick up on something memorable to regurgitate when I inevitably had to tell Kristin how much I had enjoyed myself, and then slip upstairs to the guest room.

Kylie and Bryan filled out the rest of the couch, recounting their European travels. I had already seen the thousands of pictures she had texted me and heard Bryan’s stories during his first day back at work, but I listened intently anyway.

Someone broke out the playing cards and started shuffling and dealing everyone in.

“Luca and Maddie hooked us up with a couples’ cooking class when we were in Italy, and it was the best time,” Kylie said as she passed me her phone to show me a video of her and Bryan making pasta.

I rested my stack of cards on my thigh and took her phone. As I watched the video of Kylie laughing on screen with flour covering her cheeks and hands, showing off a poorly made ravioli, a text popped up at the top of the screen.

Leah: A little better today. I only threw up once, so hopefully it’s passing. At least Gio and Ellie are back in school.

“What the hell?” I muttered as I passed Kylie’s phone back.

Just seeing Leah’s name made desire flare up inside me. It was a sharp contrast to the constant numbness I lived with.

Kylie opened the text and typed out a quick reply, telling Leah to let her know if she needed anything.

“Is Leah okay?” I asked, glancing at the cards dealt to me. I hoped my voice sounded normal, not the choked, nervous tremor I struggled to disguise as neutral.

“Yeah,” Kylie said, her attention focused on her phone as she texted. “Leah’s pregnant. Morning sickness has been kicking her butt.”

"What?” Everything went numb. She hadn’t been dating anyone at the wedding. And now she was pregnant?

Kylie glanced up. “Shit. That’s not supposed to be public knowledge yet, so keep it to yourself. She’s keeping it quiet since she’s still in her first trimester.”

First trimester.

My fingers tightened around my playing cards, and heart palpitations made me lightheaded. “How, uh...how many weeks is she?”

Leah and I had hooked up a few months ago. But we had used a condom . . . It couldn’t . . . Surely I hadn’t . . .

Maybe Leah had started seeing someone new. That was it. But that also didn’t make me feel any better.

Kylie thought for a moment. “She’s fourteen weeks along this week. Hopefully, she’ll feel up to that dinner I texted you about. I wanted the two of you to come over so Bryan and I could say thank you for all the work you did on the wedding.”

Fourteen weeks—that was just over three months. And it had been just over three months to the day since I’d slept with Leah Holloway.

The front door opened and closed, and the Lawsons shuffled in with their daughter, Ellie, in tow. Gio DeRossi was around here somewhere, which meant Leah wasn’t working tonight.

Without a word, I got up and walked out the door.

I didn’t even realize I had taken my playing cards with me. The drive to Leah’s apartment was a blur. I was surprised I had remembered how to get there. Even though I had been there a handful of times during Kylie’s wedding week, the blood roaring in my ears probably meant there was very little left to make my brain function.

I pulled up to the curb of her apartment complex and hopped out. My body buzzed with nerves as I made the walk up the three flights of stairs that led to her apartment.

The fragrant warmth of ginger and garlic wafted out of the unit next to Leah’s.

What if she wasn’t home? What if it wasn’t mine, and I was about to make a fool of myself? We hadn’t texted even once since that night.

But what if it is mine? What if she’s angry?

What if she didn’t even answer the door?

I shoved the playing cards in my pocket and tried to shake off the shock enough to knock. There was no answer. Not even a sound for a long moment. Then, shuffling around inside.

I knocked again, softer this time.

“Just a second,” a sweet voice croaked from inside.

The door whipped open, and my heart stopped.

Leah looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes, and her jaw dropped. “Logan.” She cupped her hand over her mouth.

We stood there, staring at each other. I didn’t know how to ask something so personal. Something so...life-changing.

Because if she really was pregnant with my baby, everything was about to change.

Tears welled up in her heart-stopping eyes. “What are you doing here?”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I worked through all the possible answers in my head. My jaw ticked and flexed as I tried to calculate my response.

“Kylie told me.”

Her eyes widened. Was that surprise or...fear? What was she afraid of? The situation or me?

Before she could answer, Leah clapped her hands over her mouth, then turned and bolted inside.

The gut-churning sound of vomit echoed through the packed apartment. I let myself in and followed in the direction she had gone until I found her hunched over the toilet.

I kneeled behind her and pulled her hair away from her face. Her skin was clammy as she retched over and over again.

As I gently rubbed her back, the feel of her spine beneath my hand brought back every vivid memory of the hours we’d spent together.

Leah hadn’t told me the baby was mine. She hadn’t even confirmed that Kylie was correct and that she was pregnant.

But I could feel it in my bones.

The baby was mine.

And that life-altering realization scared me to my core.

“I think I’m done,” Leah rasped as she eased away from the bowl. She let out a shaky breath. “I swear I haven’t stopped throwing up since the hangover from hell the day after we...”

My mind raced with a million questions. But all I could croak out was, “It’s mine.”

Leah nodded.

My phone buzzed with an incoming call. Probably Kristin wondering where the hell I had gone.

“Give me a minute,” she said as she elbowed her way up, using the sink for support.

Honestly, I didn’t really want to leave her. But my head was spinning and I needed some air.

I waited in her matchbox kitchen, close to the front door. It had been a while since I had a fight or flight moment, and my body didn’t remember what to do. I was suspended in decision paralysis. Fear of the unknown made me want to bolt.

Every carefully made plan I had used to measure whether I was good enough had gone out the window.

I had made a mistake. And I didn’t just mess up my life. Regardless of whether Leah intended to keep the pregnancy, I had permanently altered her life as well.

Now I wanted to throw up too.

I had been to Leah’s apartment, but I had never been inside. I looked around at the rather eclectic studio. I didn’t live in Beaufort, and she couldn’t raise a baby here. There was hardly enough space for her to begin with.

A thick three-ring binder was open on the two-seater kitchen table. It was bursting at the seams with plastic page protectors. Each plastic sleeve had eight sections that held vintage stamps.

Thick textbooks were stacked up beside it. One was open and had folded tissue paper on top where she had been pressing flowers. There was a big basket of yarn with knitting needles stabbed in the top beside a couch sporting a floral slipcover. From the looks of it, most of her furniture had been customized, whether it was new paint in an array of colors, patterned contact paper, or cloth covers.

Everything was a different color. Everything had a different pattern. Nothing matched. There was no cohesive theme or style. Just whatever she liked at the time. There was barely space to walk from one side to the other; just little trails carved out in the chaos.

The bathroom door creaked open, and Leah stepped out. She barely made eye contact with me as she wrung her hands together and tiptoed through the apartment.

My phone buzzed again, catching her attention. Her eyes widened. “Today’s your birthday.” She said it as if it was a wild revelation that changed everything.

I nodded.

Leah dropped her head into her hands and whispered, “I’m such a terrible person.”

I didn’t have the faintest clue why she thought such an absurd thing. "What? Why?”

Her eyes welled up with tears. I wanted to hold her, but I needed the distance to be able to think straight. Still, it took everything in me to keep from pulling her into my arms.

Leah’s lip quivered. “I didn’t want to ruin everything for you.” She sniffed. “Kylie?—”

“I don’t care about what Kylie thinks right now.”

“Kylie doesn’t know that we...that the baby’s yours.” She lost a little bit of her nervousness and got defensive. “And if you need a test to prove it, that’s fine. But I’m telling you, I haven’t been with anyone since we hooked up, and I wasn’t pregnant before we hooked up.”

I glanced over at the retro-looking refrigerator, painted light pink, and saw a strip of black-and-white pictures pinned to the door.

My chest seized. “Is that...” I didn’t remember intentionally lifting my hand as I pulled the sonograms out from under the magnet.

There were a few different sets pinned together, starting with a little white peanut shape to one of the most recent ones listing fourteen gestational weeks at the top. There was a little head that was way too big for the small body. I could even see two little arms and two little legs.

“Those are from my appointment last week," Leah said, appearing beside me. She rested her hands on her belly, though she wasn’t showing yet. “I’m sorry."

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I stared at the sonogram of the baby. My baby.

“It’s not your fault,” I rasped. “If anything, it’s mine. It was my condom.”

“I should’ve told you I wasn’t on the pill. I didn’t exactly need it in my last relationship, and I hated the side effects, so I went off it a long time ago,” she said, starting to ramble as she dabbed her eyes. “I just figured the condom would be enough.”

I thought back to how long it had been in my wallet. I guess there was a chance it was expired, and I had been too sex-crazed to check. Maybe it had been exposed to the heat or cold too much and broken. My memory of the moments after we’d finished, when I disposed of it in the hotel bathroom, was fuzzy at best. I had been tired and horny; a bad combination.

I hadn’t been my normally hyper-vigilant self, which made this all my fault.

“I’m sorry I ruined your goal.”

I peeled my eyes away from the strip of images and looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Kylie told me...about you always needing—wanting—to be perfect.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “About making it to thirty without messing up.”

My fucking sister . . .

I stifled the urge to grind my teeth down to nothing, but losing my shit on Kylie—or worse, Leah—wouldn’t help now. Will had taught me to be more level-headed than that.

Leah had picked up a tea towel and was mindlessly wiping down the already clean countertop. “Kylie doesn’t know. I wasn’t going to tell her. Wasn’t going to tell?—”

“Me?” I said as hurt began to creep in.

I knew what her family thought of mine. I had watched Kylie deal with it when we were teenagers.

But did Leah think I was like my parents? Did she think I was the screw-up everyone assumed I would be?

Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t she call? Or text? It fucking hurt.

Leah looked down. “I thought if I kept it to myself, that you’d be happier. That if I didn’t say who the father was, that...that you could go on with your life. You deserve to.”

Whether or not she would have told me, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that I had fucked up in the most irreversible way.

My world collapsed like a house of cards. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs ached. Adrenaline roared in my veins. The fight or flight urge was back, and my body wavered between both options.

My phone buzzed again. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw the endless string of missed calls and text messages from everyone at the party, wondering where I had disappeared to.

“I should probably get back before they send out a search party.”

Leah nodded. “I guess . . . now you know.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of the playing cards I had taken from the house in the dash to get over here. The seven of hearts.

“I already have your number,” Leah said with an edge to her voice.

I grabbed a permanent marker out of the little caddy she had beside a massive stack of mail. I popped the cap with a shaking hand and scribbled out a message, then pinned the card beneath the magnet holding the sonograms to the fridge.

“I, uh...” Shit. I couldn’t get my thoughts out with the way my head was spinning. I felt like I was going to pass out. “I should go.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Yeah,” she choked out. “I think you should.”