Chapter 25
“You’re telling me you just got back to your own bed and you’re already packing to head back on the road?” I ask, balancing the phone between my ear and shoulder as I pull on my sweater. “When do you have any time to yourself?”
Ryan’s laugh crackles through the speaker, warm and familiar in a way that makes the distance between Boston and here feel a little shorter. “Man, I’ve been sleeping in hotel beds for what feels like years. I don’t care if it’s only one night, I’m happy to be back in my own bed.”
I try to laugh with him, but the sound comes out wrong. It’s thin at the edges and I know the second it leaves my mouth he hears it.
There’s a beat of silence on the line. The kind that only comes from someone who knows you better than you know yourself sometimes.
“Okay,” Ryan says, his tone shifting. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I shove my free hand in my pocket. “Just tired.”
“Beckett.” He says my name the way he always does when he’s not buying it, flat and patient, like he’s willing to wait me out for as long as it takes.
He’s been doing it since we were ten and I acted like I wasn’t upset my parents had to miss a music performance at school because they were working.
He’s never once been wrong about when I’m lying.
I blow out a breath and make my way downstairs, my eyes catching on the house out the front window. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve always got time for you.”
I hesitate. It’s not that I don’t trust Ryan—I do, more than anyone—but this isn’t my news to share. Madison’s pregnancy, the way it came about, what I learned Saturday when I dropped by her house.
It might not have been the smartest idea showing up when I didn’t hear from her but I was worried.
I stopped by to drop off some dinner—nothing fancy—just some soup and bread from the inn’s kitchen.
I knew she wouldn’t have the energy to make anything herself, and I didn’t know if anyone else dropped something off for her.
She answered the door in an old oversized flannel, her hair piled on top of her head.
I remember thinking she looked smaller than usual.
Fragile in a way that had nothing to do with the bruise still prominent at her hairline.
I didn’t plan on asking about the conversation with Mark.
It didn’t feel like my place. We weren’t anything specific to each other, and no matter how their story ended, there was a long history between them, one she needed to see through however it suited her best. So I took her lead, same as I’ve been doing since the day I met her.
She didn’t leave me hanging. With a hesitancy I hated, she told me about the conversation. About the fact that Mark wants nothing to do with any of it—the baby, being a father, her.
Everything’s hers to share, and telling my best friend over the phone doesn’t feel like my place.
But I need someone to work through the mess in my head with. Someone who isn’t her or her brother, and Ryan’s the only person I trust enough to say the ugly parts out loud.
“Okay, but it’s a mess,” I tell him, leaning against the kitchen counter, my eyes still trained at the house across the way.
“Now I’m really worried.”
I start talking. I tell him about the accident, about the terror I felt when she fell off the horse, about the way my heart dropped when they slipped the collar around her neck and put her on the backboard.
I tell him about the news that came after, the news about the baby…
whose baby it is. I tell him about the last three days, the carefulness that’s settled between us like a third person in the room.
About the way she still smiles at me and leans into my touch but that everything is different now, and how it’s something I can’t name anymore.
Ryan’s quiet so long after I finish I have to check the screen to make sure the call didn’t drop.
“Damn,” he finally says. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“And the ex, Mark, he’s just out?”
“He doesn’t want to be part of the situation. Apparently, being a father was never part of his plan.”
Another pause, and the tone of his words when he finally speaks drives home a fact I already knew, Ryan and I are two peas in a pod. “And Madison’s okay with that?”
“She says she is. She told me she’s at peace with how the conversation went.” I rub the back of my neck. “I believe her. Or at least I want to. Maybe that’s the same thing right now.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, I can’t tell if she’s actually fine or if she’s just telling me she’s fine because that’s easier. She said it flat, Ryan. No inflection or emotion. I couldn’t read her.”
“Okay,” he says slowly. “And where does that leave you?”
“I don’t know.” I push off the counter and start pacing around the cottage.
“I knew things would change. You don’t find out the woman you’re falling for is pregnant with someone else’s baby and just keep going like nothing’s happened.
I just thought the change would be something we could talk through together. Not something that just sits there.”
His words are hesitant, but logical. “Have you tried talking to her about it?”
“She’s concussed and dealing with enough. I don’t want to add my stuff to her pile.”
“Some of your stuff is her stuff too, though. That’s kind of what happens when you’re in it together.”
I stop pacing, my eyes going back out the window. “We’re not in it together. We’re not together at all. Not officially.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” he says, and I can hear the smirk in his voice. “From where I’m sitting, you’re already in it. You’re calling me to talk about a woman you’re not anything specific with, and her pregnancy is eating you up. That sounds pretty specific to me.”
I don’t have a good answer for that, so I don’t try to give one.
Ryan sighs, and I know I’m won’t love what he has to say, but that’s exactly why I wanted to talk to him. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t know what to tell you here. This is outside my wheelhouse in every aspect. But I’ll tell you what I think, and you can take it or leave it.”
“I always want the truth.”
“You’ve spent your whole career—your whole life, really—worrying about what people think. Your label, the press, your fans…and I think you’re doing it now. You’re worried about what it looks like, stepping into a messy situation. Not just about your circle, but her circle too.”
“I’m not,” I interrupt him. “But I’ve known her for two weeks. How can we possibly build anything real now?”
“Beckett.” The word is almost a whisper and I know it’s because he wants me to really hear him. “You’ve got to stop running. Follow your heart on this one. Do what feels right. Not what the world thinks is right, not what I think is right. What you think is right.”
I let that sit for a second, taking in everything he’s said to me. “That’s very wise for a guy who likes to say he’s a dumb as a doorknob.”
“Shut up. I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” I look back at Madison’s house, at the window in the front room where the Christmas tree shines bright. “Thanks, Ryan.”
“Anytime. And Beckett?”
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t figure out what you are to each other before I get there in the new year, I’m going to ask her myself, and I will embarrass you.”
I laugh, and this time it comes out right. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later, man.”
The call ends, and I slip my coat on before slipping out the front door. I stand on the porch for a minute, the cold biting my cheeks, my breath fogging in the air in front of me. It’s not technically winter but it feels like it more and more with every passing day.
The gravel of our shared driveway crunches under my boots as I make my way to her house.
I think back to Saturday and the conversation we had.
After she told me about her talk with Mark, I asked if she called her parents.
I wanted to know if her mom showed up for her, helped her in a way only a mother could.
It felt like the natural next question. I watched her face as I said it.
I watched the way her jaw tightened just slightly before she shook her head and then immediately nodded.
She called them about the accident, made sure they knew she was okay, but she didn’t want to overshadow Jackson’s birthday.
His birthday dinner was just around the corner and she didn’t want to take any attention away from him.
Not more than she already would simply by showing up injured from the accident. She swore she’d tell everyone after.
After the dinner we’re headed to tonight.
I pause at the base of her porch steps, my eyes catching on the window of the front room where the piano sits.
The one she so easily offered to let me use.
The one that’s become the only thing keeping me tethered to her some days.
I think about Sunday night, about the dinner at her parents’ house with Aiden and Jackson.
It felt strange being there without Madison.
No one blamed her for staying home. Everyone knew about the accident and her concussion.
About the doctor’s orders to take it easy.
When her mom clucked her tongue and said Madison should be more careful with the horses, I had to fight to keep my mouth shut.
When she continued to explain an accident just like this was the exact reason she told Madison she didn’t want the horses on the land in the first place, I almost walked out.
It was the look Aiden and I shared across the table that kept me in my seat. The quiet understanding that passed between us, the kind that comes from knowing someone well enough to communicate without words. Even when I’d only known him for two weeks.
He knew I was thinking the same thing he was. Madison was going to do what Madison was going to do, and no amount of maternal worry would change that. Especially when Ruby didn’t seem to know her daughter all that well.
I take the porch steps slowly, trying to prepare myself for the stilted conversation and hesitant looks I’m about to share with the woman I’ve grown so comfortable with. Just as my boots hit the top step the door swings open.
Madison stands in the doorway, her fingers gently tugging at the hem of her shirt, pulling it away from her stomach in a way that immediately puts me on alert. She turns to her side, one hand still on the fabric, and looks at me with something close to panic flickering in her eyes.
“Can you see it?” she asks. “The bump?”
I freeze.
The question lands somewhere in my chest and stays there, heavy and warm all at the same time.
My eyes move over her without my permission, taking in every inch.
Her hair falls loose around her shoulders, the light waves catching the moonlight coming through the windows.
There’s a glow to her skin that I don’t think she sees, something that’s been there for weeks but seems sharper today, more defined.
The way her teeth catch her bottom lip. The way she’s holding herself like she’s bracing for an answer she’s not ready to hear.
And then my gaze drops to her stomach.
It’s subtle. The slightest swell, barely there.
The kind of thing you’d only notice if you were looking for it.
If you were studying her the way I’ve been studying her since the day we met, cataloging every detail like a man who knows he’s going to write songs about her someday, even if he hasn’t admitted it to himself yet.
My heart races.
She’s beautiful. So beautiful it makes my throat ache, and I know, with a certainty that settles in my bones, that she’s only going to get more beautiful as the baby grows.
As her body changes and rounds and becomes something else entirely.
I can see it already, the path stretching out ahead of her, and I want to tell her all of it.
I want to say the words out loud and press them into her skin so she knows, so she never has to wonder.
But I can’t say any of that. Not after the last three days.
So I clear my throat and meet her eyes. “No one will know you’re pregnant.”
She huffs—the sound exasperated and a little breathless—and turns away from me. “I’m going to change my shirt real quick. Then we can go.”
She’s moving up the stairs before I can say anything else, her footsteps light and quick. I let myself in, closing the door behind me against the cold, and when my eyes land on the piano in the corner of the living room I can’t help but step toward it.
My fingers find the keys without thinking, the familiar cool press of ivory under my skin grounding me in a way nothing else does.
Notes of something new drift through my mind, half-formed and searching.
I let them out, gently working through a few chords.
The melody is tentative, the kind of thing that might become a song or might just be a moment, but it pulls at me the way music always does, the way it has from the first moment I started playing.
I sing a few words, something about the quiet after a storm, about how life will shift and change, but to never be afraid. The sound fills the quiet room as the last few notes linger.
The soft pad of Madison’s footsteps in the hall pulls me up short. I lift my hands from the keys and turn to look at her only to find her frozen in the archway, stunned silence written across her face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice rough with worry.
She shakes her head, a small, almost dazed smile tugging at her lips. “Nothing. You just have a beautiful voice.”
I laugh, the sound soft and low. “You still haven’t looked me up, have you?”
“Of course I haven’t,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like the idea of googling me is still the most absurd thing she’s ever thought of, and I don’t know why that makes my chest tighten the way it does.
I stand from the bench and cross to her, ushering her to the front door to grab her coat. “You still have my permission to look me up,” I say, holding it open for her.
She slides her arms into the sleeves and I settle it over her shoulders, my hands lingering for just a moment longer than necessary.
“I just might have to now,” she mutters, and I don’t stop the chuckle from slipping free.
Three days since things have been normal between us, and this tiny moment gives me hope that we might be able to find our way back there.
“Ready?” I ask.
She nods and offers a quick smile over her shoulder as I guide her out the door and into the cold, my hand finding the small of her back as we make our way to the 4Runner.