31. Phillip
31
PHILLIP
“ T heir marketing team needs a stern talking to. Easy to assemble, my foot,” I say, flopping back into my chair.
“I think you should have a sit down with the whole company,” Wesley agrees. “Those directions were unnecessarily complicated.”
“Well, you two certainly made it look easy when you were working on it,” Jamie says as he flips the burgers.
I cross my arms. “Then next time, you can put the playset together and I’ll do the burgers.”
“Absolutely not,” they say together.
“It wasn’t that bad. They were edible.”
“They were hockey pucks.” Wesley shakes his head.
“Okay, so maybe they were a little crispy. That doesn’t mean they weren't still good.”
“Do I have to pull up the picture I took of them again?”
I throw up my hands in defeat. “Fine. I can’t cook. I admit it. Satisfied?”
“When are you going to let me teach you?”
“When every takeout place in the world shuts down.”
We both laugh.
“Nice to see you guys in a good mood with how tense things have been lately,” Avery says, stepping out onto the deck.
“I’m glad you made it. We were starting to worry.”
“There were a few things that came up that ended up making us late,” she says, not meeting my eyes.
I give Avery my best ‘we’ll talk about this later’ look then walk over and ruffle Leo’s hair.
“Nice to see you, Buddy.”
He gives me a shy wave. “Hi, Mr. Fip.”
“Mr. Jay, Mr. Wes, and I all pitched in and got something special just for you. Would you like to see it?”
“A prize? For me?”
“That’s right.” I hold out my hands to him. “Can I pick you up so you can see it from here?”
He nods enthusiastically.
I scoop him up and carry him to the railing at the corner of the deck. Avery follows close behind.
They both gasp when they see the toddler-sized playset and sandbox sitting in the middle of the yard.
“Ma, I can go play?”
“Of course you can, Little Bug. Phillip, do you mind carrying him down the steps? He’s just excited enough that I’m worried he’ll fall down those steps and hurt himself trying to get to it.”
I nod. “Of course.”
Having me carry him was a good call on her part. About halfway down the stairs, he starts squirming like a greased pig. It’s all I can do not to drop him.
As soon as I put his little feet on the grass, he’s off like a shot, squealing in delight.
Seeing him so happy from something we put together for him fills in the hole in my heart just a little bit more.
She wants something permanent just like you do. You’ll have a wife and a son someday, and if she ever wants more kids, there are two other people in the relationship who can give them to her.
You can be with her without ruining her life.
I watch Leo play for just a bit longer before heading up the steps to rejoin the other adults.
“You guys didn’t have to do this.” Avery smiles.
“We wanted to,” Wesley says. “We all felt bad that there wasn’t much for him to do here besides play in that little playpen or wander around in the yard. So last Sunday, we all got together while you were at work and got some things for him to keep at our houses.”
“You’re telling me that you have one of these at each of your houses?” she asks.
“Not exactly. Each of us picked a different kind of set, so someday, when we end up moving in together, we won’t have any duplicates.”
She bursts into tears—something she’s been doing a lot of over the past few weeks—and throws her arms around all three of us.
“This was so nice of you. You are the most wonderful men I’ve ever met.”
“You really like it?” I ask.
She sniffs. “Yes.”
“Good, I was worried that we’d overstepped.”
Avery wipes her eyes with the back of her hand then shakes her head.
“No, not even a little bit. I love how much you care about my son. Thank you for this.”
“He’s a great little kid,” Jamie says. “Very easy to like.”
“Seriously, it means a lot. Not too many men would be willing to take on a single mom and her kid, and somehow, I found three of them. You have no idea just how much I appreciate your accepting him. It really makes me feel like this actually could go somewhere. Thank you.”
“We knew what we were getting into.” I kiss her temple. “Our lives have gotten so much better with you in it. I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I would.” Wesley grins. “I think maybe in a few years, if you don’t get tired of us, we could add a few more kiddos into the mix.”
Avery pales to an alarming shade of white.
“I’m so sorry,” he says quickly. “That was out of line. I never should have joked about it. Especially not when we haven’t been dating for very long. Are you okay?”
“No, not really. That was absolutely the last thing I expected you to say. It caught me completely off guard and I just… There’s just been a lot going on lately, and I feel like all my emotions are on a hair trigger. Everything feels like too much right now.”
“Has something else happened with your ex?”
“Flowers were sent to my condo today, but I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before that happened. There might be a bigger problem, though. I?—”
“Ma, Look!” Leo shouts.
She practically deflates with relief at the interruption. “I can see you from up here. What do you want me to see? I’m ready.”
“No, here,” he insists.
“Hold tight. I’m coming.”
She races down the stairs so fast she almost blurs.
“He’s sending things to her house now? Are you fucking kidding me? Why is she just so blase about this? I’m going to kill him,” Wesley growls.
“I’m just as angry as you, but beating him into a pulp is only going to land you in prison. Do you really think Avery is going to visit you there?”
“I know you’re right. I just hate feeling so powerless. I just wish I could do something.”
“We’re paying for her lawyer. We’re staying with her at night and driving her to work. There isn’t anything else we can do,” Jamie says from the grill.
“It’s only a matter of time until we have enough evidence to file for a restraining order. We just have to keep doing what we’re doing.” I sigh. “But there’s more that’s upsetting her. She was going to tell us before Leo called for her. I don’t think whatever it is has anything to do with her ex. Whatever it is has to do with us. She looked ready to faint when you made that quip about kids.”
“Maybe there’s a bigger issue going on between the four of us that we don’t know about. We’ll have to try and get it out of her once Leo is asleep, but until then, we have to let it go.”
I give Wesley a hard stare to make sure my point got across.
He holds up his hands in surrender. “I got it. I got it.”
The two hours between dinner and Leo’s bedtime seem to take four times that long. Avery seems aware of this deadline too because as each second ticks by, she gets exponentially more tense.
Since she’s not relaxed, neither is Leo.
Getting him to settle down takes all four of us. I try every psychological trick and meditation in the book, but he doesn’t fall asleep until the sixth reading of Dump Truck’s Day Out.
When he’s finally asleep, we settle onto Jamie’s overstuffed couches. Avery pulls a blanket off the back of her seat and wraps it around her shoulders like it’s armor.
It’s dead quiet.
I swear I can hear the blood in my veins moving.
I dig through every corner of my brain to try and figure out what we could have done, but I come up empty.
After several agonizing minutes, Wesley breaks the uncomfortable silence. “Avery, what I said earlier?—”
“It did strike a nerve, but not for the reason you think.” She pulls the blanket tighter around her. “Kyle coming back and sending me these gifts has taken a toll on my mental health. What I didn’t realize until the morning after we were intimate at the Academy was that I’ve been so stressed that I had no idea when the last time I’d taken my birth control was. When I counted what was left in the pack for the month, I had way too many left. I wouldn’t have been able to catch up on the pills, so I’d have to wait until my next cycle came and just start them again after.
“Then I double-checked my calendar, and according to that, I should have had my period the week before. I thought it was just stress. I didn’t want to worry you if it was, so I waited one more week just to see if it would come and it still hasn’t yet.”
Well, there’s no way it could be mine. I might as well say my goodbyes now.
Wesley lets out a low whistle. “So that’s why you asked us to wear condoms the last few times.”
She nods.
“Do you know for sure if you’re…?”
I can’t bring myself to finish that thought. I just can’t.
If I say it, then I’ll start thinking about a little girl with her eyes and my nose or a little boy that’s the spitting image of me but with her wavy gold hair.
If I think about it, I’ll want it, and the only place that will lead to is a depressive episode.
“I don’t know. There’s still a very real chance it’s just stress, but at this point, I’m concerned enough that I want to take a test just to be safe. Since this involves all four of us, I wanted to tell you before I did anything like that.” She fiddles with the blanket anxiously. “I thought maybe you might like to be with me when I do it so you’ll know as soon as I do.
“And I’m… I’m…” Her voice drops to just above a whisper. “I’m scared. I’m scared you’re mad at me. I’m scared that I might be pregnant, and I’m terrified of what that will do to our relationship—not to mention what might happen if Kyle or the academy found out. I’m sorry I let him distract me so badly. I should have been more responsible. You'd be well within your rights to be furious and never talk to me again.”
I could never be angry with her for something like this. We’ve all been on edge since her ex started making himself a problem. I can’t even tell you how many careless mistakes I’ve made or things I’ve lost lately.
What I am, though, is disgusted with myself. Shame is buzzing so furiously in my ears that I don’t hear what my friends are saying, but I can see their faces.
There’s concern in their brows and excitement in the corners of their eyes.
None of us can exactly be classified as young men anymore. We've all wanted to settle down and have families of our own for a while now.
There is no way either of them would throw away their chance to have that, even with the timing being the farthest it could be from ideal.
We haven't even known each other for a full year, and now there might be a baby in the mix.
If this is really happening, things are going to get very complicated very quickly.
For starters, there's the whole matter of paternity. That alone could drive a wedge between us all—especially if she wants to wait until the baby is born to do that particular test.
Even though we said that the four of us (plus Leo) were a unit, our whole dynamic is going to crumble as soon as we know who the father is. There’s no way it won’t.
The only right thing for two of us to do once we find out will be to back off and bow out.
All the wishing in the world won't make me magically able to father a child, so I'm guaranteed to be left out in the cold because I'm defective.
It'll be just like it was with my ex-wife. The only difference between then and now is that Avery is going to look at me with pity instead of contempt.
I feel like the secret I’ve been keeping from her is tattooed on my forehead.
I’m under a microscope, and they can all see every single one of my flaws. Suddenly, I’m painfully aware of every place my clothes are touching my skin.
Breathing is no longer automatic—I have to make myself do it. Every sound in the room is magnified, and every light in the room burns with the intensity of a Broadway spotlight.
It’s too much.
I'd never understood why Avery felt the need to crawl under her bed and hide as a coping mechanism for when the panic completely took over her body.
I get it now.