Chapter 5
Both Hannah and I needed a break after that phone call.
Once I’d sobered up, I drove her back to where she and Kian were staying and took myself home.
I stuck my key in the door, only to furrow my brow when it didn’t turn.
I tried the knob, and the door swung open.
I started when I spotted Raleigh chilling on my couch like he belonged there.
“What are you doing?” I asked, pretending like my heart hadn’t tried to jump out of my chest.
“Waiting for you.” He stood and went to the kitchen. “You gave me a key, remember?”
“For emergencies. Not so you can lie in wait to scare the shit out of me. Why aren’t you at the bar?”
“Jack and Angel have it covered.” He emerged from the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other. “Are we drinking or what?”
I let out a sigh of relief. Raleigh knew me better than I knew myself sometimes, and in that moment I couldn’t be more grateful.
I still hadn’t wrapped my head around the idea of having a daughter.
I’d talked to Erin long enough to assure her Hannah was safe, but I could still hear the icy tone in her voice.
I was fire to her ice, burning to unleash every question I had on her: When did she find out she was pregnant? Why didn’t she tell me? In seventeen years, she didn’t think to mention that I had a kid running around?
“Yeah, we’re drinking.”
Rather, I was drinking. I knocked back four shots before Raleigh downed his first, and my head started to spin as I collapsed onto the couch.
“I have a daughter,” I muttered.
Raleigh finally slammed back his shot, then set the glass on the coffee table. “You sure she’s yours?”
I shrugged. “I’ll do a paternity test, but the timeline adds up. She’s got my eyes. Hannah was born eight months after Erin left for New York. She didn’t deny it on the phone either. It’s like she knew she got caught. She didn’t have anything to say for herself.”
“What are you going to do?”
“No fucking clue,” I groaned. I sank into the couch, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Hannah flies home in two days.”
I reached forward to pour another shot, waiting for another famous Raleighism that would make everything fall into place. Instead, what he said next only made me spill whiskey all over my coffee table. “You going with her?”
Liquid sloshed over the table, spilling to the floor. I jumped up to grab a towel. “What? What the hell makes you think I would do that?”
“She’s your kid. You don’t want to be a part of her life?” He gently removed the towel from my numb fingers and mopped up the spill.
“I don’t know if Erin wants that.”
“Sounds to me like she already did what she wanted. There’s someone else involved now who has wants and needs of her own—two more people, actually.”
I looked up, confused. “Who’s the other one? Kian?”
Raleigh pinched the bridge of his nose right below the piercing there. “Christ, Ryder, how drunk are you? You aren’t this fucking clueless.” He looked up at me when I didn’t answer. “You!”
“Me?”
Raleigh finished pouring the shots I’d abandoned and slid my glass toward me. “It’s not like you’re a deadbeat. Erin made her choice, and in doing so, she took yours away from you. What does Hannah want?”
“Answers.” I necked my shot and sat down again. “I guess that’s what I want too.”
“Then get them. If you need to go back home to do that, so be it.”
I flipped my shot glass around in my hands, watching as a drop fell and sank its way into the carpet.
I never thought I’d want kids. Sure, I had loved Erin, but the only thing on our minds at seventeen was college. I thought I’d do anything to stay with her.
“Where’s your head at, Ryder?” Raleigh asked, reaching forward to grab the whiskey bottle again.
“Don’t you have a husband to get home to?” I grumbled.
“I have a husband who loves you as much as I do, and he knows I need to be here right now. We both care about you.”
My vision blurred. Resting on my knees, I tried to use the heels of my hands to stop the burning. Raleigh squeezed my shoulder in support.
“I want to run,” I confessed.
“I know.” At my surprised look, he chuckled. “You’re not as hard to figure out as you think. Everyone wants to run away from their problems. Some of us are just better at it.”
I sighed. “What do I do?”
“I can’t tell you that. But I think it’ll take more than a day to figure it out, and that’s okay.”
I picked my head up when I felt the couch shift. Raleigh had grabbed our shot glasses and the bottle of whiskey, then headed to the kitchen.
“I guess I’m done drinking,” I called after him, getting a laugh in return.
“You sure are,” he confirmed. “You had a late night, and you’ve had a long day. You’re going to call Hannah and make sure she’s okay, then you’re going to bed.”
“When did you get so good at this?”
Raleigh entered the room again and settled on the couch, resting his head against the back. “Best friends always are.” He nudged me with his leg. “Now go. I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
I opened my mouth to thank him, but only got a “Go!” as he kicked his feet up on the table.
I called to check on Hannah, and it was about as awkward as you can imagine.
Neither of us knew what to do or say. In a sense, I guess it was a good thing: it meant both of us were figuring things out as we went.
Except Hannah knew how to have a dad, whereas I had no idea how to have a daughter.
As an only child, siblings were never a part of the picture, and so I didn’t even have the benefit of any niblings running around.
I retreated to my bed and waited quietly, hoping Raleigh would think I’d fallen asleep.
I waited for a while, but the big man stayed right where he was.
Frustrated, I flipped onto my back and stared at the ceiling.
I couldn’t shake the memory of Erin’s eyes when I told her I wasn’t going to New York with her.
Everything about that final night played on a loop in my head.
Back then, I never would’ve guessed she’d choose to break things off.
It hadn’t been heartbreak in her eyes that night—it’d been anger.
She’d called me selfish and childish. I probably was.
But the tightness in my chest at the thought of going to New York and doing the college thing had been too much to bear.
Even lying there in my bed, I started to feel it.
I sat up, trying to rub the ache away. Maybe that was why Erin hadn’t told me. A kid was a lot more permanent than going to college.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the room started to spin.
My heartbeat thudded in my ears. The pain in my chest jolted down my arms. Nausea churned my gut, and I tried to swallow the bile threatening to rise—not quick enough.
My legs felt like jelly as I wobbled out of bed.
I stumbled to the bathroom just in time to surrender to the heaving of my stomach.
Footsteps sounded behind me as Raleigh rushed into the bathroom.
“You okay?” he asked, keeping his distance as I emptied my lunch. Well, my happy hour.
I really didn’t want him to see me like this. “Fine,” I spat, wiping my mouth with the back of my shaking hand. I collapsed, leaning against the closed door of the shower. I pushed my hair away from my face—it was drenched in sweat.
“It’s a little soon to be hungover already, don’t you think?”
My heart thundered against my chest. My best friend in the entire world stood in front of me, and I couldn’t bring myself to say the words I was truly feeling. “Drank too much,” I lied.
“You?” Raleigh studied me with a dubious expression, but thankfully he chose to let it go. “Come on,” he said, holding a hand out, “let’s get you in the shower.”
“I don’t want a shower.”
“Tough shit.”
“I want to get back in bed,” I whined.
“Good. Let’s get this shower out of the way, then.” When I protested further, he speared me with a no-nonsense look. “You just threw up and you’re covered in sweat. Take a cold shower. Trust me, you’ll feel better.”
I looked from Raleigh’s hand to his eyes.
Neither wavered. With a sigh, I let him pull me to my feet.
He turned on the shower, then left the room while I stepped in without waiting for it to heat up.
The cold was a shock to my senses, but it seemed to do the trick.
By the time I wrapped my towel around my waist and exited the bathroom, I felt stable.
Not calm, exactly, but it was a step in the right direction.
“Feel better?”
I tossed a grunt of affirmation toward where Raleigh was entering my bedroom with a glass of water.
“You know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”
“I don’t want to talk. I don’t even want to think. I want to sleep.” I grabbed a pair of shorts from my dresser and gave him a pointed look.
He snickered. “I’ve seen you naked before.”
I rolled my eyes, but slipped my shorts on underneath the towel before tossing it into the basket in the corner. “What are you still doing here, anyway? Go home to your husband.”
“You sure?”
Tired of talking, I grabbed Raleigh by the collar of his shirt and hauled him toward the door—which he allowed, since I had no chance of actually budging the man if he didn’t want to be moved. “I’m sure. I don’t need a babysitter; just sleep. I’ll see you for my shift tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Raleigh backed out of the room. “But Jack said he could cover—”
“Leave, Raleigh.” I forced a grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
This time, I watched out the window until his car was gone, then returned to the bed and closed my eyes. Though I desperately wanted to sleep, it didn’t come easily. I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. When I finally drifted off, it was a restless sleep. I awoke every hour.
By the time my shift rolled around, I was dragging.
Heads turned as I walked into the bar—and not for the usual reason.
I didn’t need anyone to tell me that I looked rough.
As the night wore on, I was quiet. I didn’t flirt with every customer who turned my way, not even the woman who batted her eyelashes at me and trailed her hand down her sternum in an obvious attempt to bring my eyes down to her chest—which didn’t work. I blew past the pickup line she fed me.
“What can I get you?”
I didn’t miss the flash of disappointment in her eyes as I brushed off her flirting. “Shirley Temple?”
“Sure thing.” I went about making the drink, mindlessly tossing the cocktail shaker around in my hand. As I poured the drink, I remembered how Hannah looked with hers in hand, eyes bright as she asked me if I’d teach her to make one.
I got an idea. It was likely irresponsible, so I moved before I could stop myself. Angel watched the bar while I ducked into the back hallway.
Please be awake.
With my phone to my ear, the line rang. Once. Twice. Four times.
My heart was racing again, and I brought a hand to my chest to fight the tightness from returning.
I was about to give up when she answered. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” I asked.
“No,” she said with a soft laugh. “I panicked.”
A scared little laugh bubbled out of me. “You wouldn’t be the only one. What time is your flight tomorrow?”
“Late, why?”
“Can we meet? I’d like to see you again before you leave.”
There was a pause before she said, “I’d like that too. I don’t want to leave things unfinished.”
“Me neither. Is ten okay? Do you need me to pick you up?”
“That’d be great. I’ll see you then, Ryder.”