Chapter 10
Jonas
Until today, the only times in my life I’ve been racked in the balls, it’s all been staged.
Taking a blow to the nuts hurts a lot more when it happens for real.
Taking a blow to the ego might hurt more. “I met Emma Monroe on her honeymoon,” I tell the sheriff for the sixth time.
“Emma Monroe didn’t have a honeymoon,” the stern-faced woman across from me replies.
“She took it solo after her wedding didn’t happen.”
“She never mentioned you.”
“I don’t think she wanted a lot of public attention back then.”
“What makes you think she wants public attention now?”
She shoots, she scores . “Apologies. I should’ve thought of that. I was driving through and thought I spotted her, and figured I’d say hi.”
“And interrupt a wedding.”
“It was over.”
I smile.
The sheriff does not smile back.
“Could I get a new bag of ice?” I ask.
I’ve already spent the past three days feeling like throwing up.
Nothing like a new assistant searching for an email from Emma Watson, ending up in a folder of email your previous assistant marked crazypants stalkers and AI-generated bullshit accusations instead, and finding evidence that you might have a kid wandering around in the world that you didn’t know about to throw your reality off kilter.
That hit to the gonads made it worse.
Even if I can acknowledge I probably deserve it.
The sheriff hits a button on her office phone. “Darlene, bring fresh ice for our guest’s testicles, please.”
“On it, boss.”
The sheriff questions me for another hour. I don’t ask for my lawyer. She doesn’t ask for an autograph. When she releases me, she follows me to where I’ve parked my rental car and stands there watching while I drive out of town.
As expected, my phone’s blowing up with texts from my mother and my sister-in-law.
They don’t like it when I ditch my security detail.
Can’t blame them, but I wanted to be low-key.
Worked fabulously well.
Until I fucked it all up.
I should’ve waited until the wedding was over -over.
But I saw Emma, and then I saw that little boy.
The little boy in a miniature tuxedo with my eyes and my nose and my chin and Emma’s hair.
The little boy with the same impish grin that won me my first starring role in a Razzle Dazzle commercial at about eighteen months old.
My son .
The son Emma tried to tell me about a half dozen times two years ago.
All I’ve had of him from three days ago until today were two ultrasound pictures and a single newborn photo.
And now I know he’s a living, breathing, perfect little human being who can talk and walk and probably stack blocks and sing songs and ride a bike.
Or maybe not ride a bike.
Yet.
But definitely walk.
And smile.
Oh my god .
That smile.
I saw him—saw him say something to Emma, saw Emma , saw him smile, saw her smile—and there was no more waiting.
I needed to talk to her.
Now .
And instead, I’m banished from town, with my car marked by the sheriff.
Easy answer.
Time to get a new car. And do this the right way.
And four hours later, that’s exactly what I’ve accomplished.
Almost.
I’m aware that parking a brand new vehicle at a public park a quarter mile from the back entrance to Emma’s house, then hiking through pine trees and underbrush to spy and wait for her to get home, is probably not the right right way.
But it’s righter than leaving again.
Or sending an email.
Especially after the way I left her in Fiji.
I get to her backyard, and my breath leaves me.
She has chickens.
She has chickens .
An entire decent-size penned-in coop of little cluckers next to a two-person swing that’s hung from a little wooden pergola in a clearing near the coop at the back of the yard. With flowers. It’s like a flower garden around a chicken coop.
Her house is cute too.
Two stories, but not large. Brown shingles. Open windows that suggest no air conditioning. There’s a screen door beside a small concrete patio with a hot tub on it.
This isn’t the house she told me about in Fiji. Her dream house. Her friend’s grandparents’ house. Her ex’s grandparents’ house.
This house is too small. The yard is too small. And I don’t think it has any views.
Even if it’s not her childhood dream home, it’s not checking the boxes of what she wanted.
It’s private though.
There are enough trees and boulders and just general mountain forest growth that I can’t see her neighbors.
And I wonder if that’s my fault.
The chickens cluck. A few birds chirp. I stay hidden, waiting.
Like a stalker.
Probably not wise, but I need to see her .
It takes forever, but finally, two cars pull into her drive shortly after nine.
Dusk is settling, and I’m realizing I’m mildly fucked if she won’t talk to me.
In addition to the deer and elk that have wandered past the caged-in chicken coop in her cozy backyard—I’m still having reactions in my heart area to knowing she actually got her chickens—I’ve seen at least three foxes.
Know what else that means?
That means it’s mountain lion o’clock out here now.
And if that’s not dangerous enough, the tall guy who leapt between me and Theo Monroe when I thought Emma’s brother was going to murder me is circling her house with a flashlight.
“See anything?” the much shorter, redheaded pregnant bridesmaid asks as she dashes along next to him, her legs moving twice as fast as his to keep up.
Something’s in the water.
The bride was pregnant. The bridesmaid is pregnant. Begonia’s pregnant.
Do not breathe wrong around Emma , I order myself.
Oh, fuck me.
What if she’s pregnant?
What if she’s seeing someone and she’s pregnant too?
My gut cramps in a way it has no business cramping and that I don’t want to think about too much.
“Nothing human,” the tall guy says.
He sweeps his flashlight over where I’m hiding in a thick set of bushes. I close my eyes and hold my breath.
“Don’t wake the chickens,” the bridesmaid whispers.
“I think they’ll live if they miss a little beauty rest,” he mutters back.
“Aw, you’re adorable when you’re grumpy.”
He grunts.
The light dims behind my eyes, and I open them and peer through the bushes again.
The couple is moving on to the other side of the house.
It’s another hour before they leave.
Lights have flipped off and on inside the house. Two windows on the lower level are still glowing in back. I saw Emma pull the blinds, but not before I spotted a fridge and cabinets. A low light came on in one of the upstairs rooms, then shut off not long after.
Is that the boy’s bedroom?
Is that where her son—our son— holy hell , I have a son—is sleeping?
Sebastian Nathaniel Monroe, per her email with the newborn photo attached.
My middle name is Nathaniel too.
Did she know that?
Is that why she gave it to him?
Also, am I a creepy stalker who needs to go knock on the door and quit being a spying asshole?
Yes.
It’s time.
My feet are falling asleep. My balls are still tender. My stomach is in knots. My legs are tight and my ass is numb.
But I sneak out of the bushes and head for the house, debating if I should go to the front door or knock on the back door.
I make it three steps before the chickens erupt in a cacophony of squawking.
The light by the back door flips on almost immediately.
Motion-activated? Or?—
No.
Emma activated.
She pulls open the wooden door and stands there, staring grim-faced into the darkness behind the screen door. “So you didn’t leave,” she says.
“I left,” I reply. “The sheriff made me. And then I came back.”
“You’re welcome to leave again.”
“Emma—”
“There are so many things I could say to you right now, but they all basically end with I fulfilled my obligations to you two years ago, I don’t want you in my life, please leave .”
No small part of me wishes her brother had gotten away with smashing my face in. It’s clearly what he intended before the other guy jumped between us and got me in the nuts instead.
And it’s what I deserve. “I didn’t mean to leave the way I did. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. You may leave.”
“My email got attacked by AI spam bots. Your notes got lost in the middle of all of them. I would’ve been here before if I’d?—”
“Ba gock !” something cries at my feet.
I instinctively take a step back.
“Yolko Ono, get in the house.” She opens the screen door just wide enough for a one-legged chicken to hop past her inside, then snaps it shut again like she’s worried I’ll force my way in.
Forty-three other chickens squawk behind me. Or maybe just ten. I don’t know.
No wonder her friends were willing to leave her alone.
She has a gang of guard-chickens, and they are loud . I’d smile—it makes me happy that she got her chickens—but she’s still glaring daggers at me.
I swallow, then have to swallow again.
This woman was my friend when I desperately needed one. I thought I was being her friend. But I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t mine too.
And I fucked it up.
I’ve always known I fucked it up. I’ve always told myself she was better off without the limelight I’d bring into her life.
But three days ago, I discovered I fucked up on a level that goes beyond any fuck-up that I could’ve ever imagined.
“How are you?” I ask hesitantly.
“Tired and likely to be up early, which means it’s time to say goodnight.”
“Can I do anything?”
“No. Thank you, but no. Very nice to see you again, Jonas. Have a lovely life.”
She shuts the door.
Flips off the light.
And leaves me without a shred of a doubt that I could offer her the world, and she still wouldn’t want to talk to me.
And I don’t blame her in the least.