Chapter 30
Landon
When I wake up, my ass is sore, and it makes me smile.
Grady fingered me for the first time last night while giving me the most mind-bending blow job.
I keep my eyes closed as I float back to consciousness.
The air is cool against my face, but my body is warm because of the duvet and the big, thick leg thrown over mine, and the arm possessively lying across my chest.
I’m on my back, and Grady is curled into my side. I inhale slowly and exhale a sigh of contentment. He must be waking up, too, because his lips move against my shoulder.
“Rise and shine, boys. We need to talk.”
It takes a second to register the voice because it can’t be real. Angela isn’t here. In Maine. In this house. But when my eyes fly open, there she is, beside the bed. Her hair’s longer, a slightly different color. She’s pale. She looks different, but it’s her.
Grady wakes and immediately sits up, pushing himself to the corner of the bed, away from me.
He takes the sheets with him, so I’m naked and exposed.
I grab his pillow and cover myself. Angela doesn’t look shocked or heartbroken at what she’s seeing, which I’m sure included my morning boner. She just sighs.
“Get dressed. I’ll be in the living room.” She pauses, puts a hand on her stomach, which is… holy shit. “Correction. We’ll be in the living room.”
She closes the door behind her, and I just stare at it. This has got to be a nightmare. I’m still sleeping. This isn’t real. It can’t be. Grady stands first, his hands dive into his hair, and he curses. I blink over and over and debate pinching myself. Because this can’t be real.
Grady is pulling on his underwear and then track pants. As he reaches for the hoodie, he looks at me. The panic in his eyes is palpable. “Get up!” he demands in a voice that can barely be called a whisper.
I start to move, but my brain is frozen in that bed, looking at Angela’s small, round stomach. A pair of pajama bottoms hits me in the chest. I catch them before they fall to the floor. “She’s… she’s… that’s…”
I pull on the bottoms, and Grady hands me a shirt as he blows by me. He’s got the bedroom door open and his suitcase handle in one hand as he steps into the living room. “I’ll leave you two to—”
“There’s a slight possibility it’s yours, Garrison, so I suggest you stick around.”
I step into the living room, and my knees feel like they’ve been replaced with Play-Doh. Angela is standing by the couch. Her arms crossed over her chest. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit in here. Why?”
“The power was out. I… think maybe the generator turned off overnight…” Grady looks around like he’s lost. I think he is, in every way possible.
I walk to the door that leads to the back porch, step out onto the icy wooden deck, and double-check the connection. It was loose. I fix it, and the generator hums back to life. I head back into the house. Yep. My ex-girlfriend is there and still looks pregnant.
“So, I see I was right about you two.”
“What? No.” It’s a really stupid reflex to argue after she found us naked in bed together, but for some reason, my mouth does it anyway.
“I don’t mind. Honestly,” Angela says, and she looks… tired. Exhausted actually. There are dark circles under her light eyes and a paleness to her skin I haven’t seen in… ever. “I’m not here to win you back or force you back because of this.”
She points to her stomach again. Both Grady and I stare at it like it’s an atomic bomb.
She clears her throat when it’s obvious we’re riveted.
I glance up at her. “It’s likely yours, Landon.
I mean, the odds are in your favor, but there was…
fluid from both of you, so I’ll take a paternity test if you guys want it. ”
“I don’t think… I mean, I’m sure it’s Landon’s,” Grady says in a voice that is shaking with lack of confidence.
“I don’t know if I can even have kids, remember?” I say.
“This is probably proof you don’t need to take that sperm count test.” She walks over to the couch. “Can I sit?”
I nod, and she basically collapses onto it. She really looks beyond tired. “Can I get you a drink? Water? Juice?”
“Do you have any of that mint ginger tea you used to drink after the chemo? The stuff that helped with nausea?” she asks.
“I think there’s some…”
“I’ll go look. You two talk.”
Grady bolts from the living room, disappearing in four long, rushed strides. I turn back to Angela. She gives me a weird little smile. “I’m honestly happy for you guys. Your chemistry was embarrassingly obvious.”
“I… I… it’s not… I mean…”
She waves a pale hand between us. “Oh shut up, Landon. I won’t tell anyone about this, and my little development will most definitely throw everyone off the trail if you choose to keep it.”
Her words tumble around in my shocked brain. “Keep it? Me? And you? How far along are you?”
She’s acting like the threesome is where this happened. It would have to be if she thinks it’s mine because that’s the last time we had sex… or maybe we conceived before that? I don’t know. But she walked out three months and a half ago, and the threesome was two weeks before that, so…
“You either keep it by yourself, or you don’t.
Like I said, I’m not asking to get back together.
And I don’t want to be a mother. I never have.
” She lays a hand on her stomach, rubbing it lightly.
“I also know that I couldn’t… I didn’t want an abortion.
I’d be all for it in any other situation, but I know you thought you were infertile.
This could be yours, and you wanted kids.
It was the one thing I wanted to change about you.
So, I just thought it would be wrong for me not to tell you.
So I’m telling you and giving you the option of keeping it or not. ”
I run a hand through my hair, and it snags on a knot. I grimace and rub my face. My skin feels tingly. My fingers are numb. I’m definitely in shock. “Thank you, I guess?”
“You didn’t want to know?”
“No. Yes. I mean, I don’t know,” I blurt out and take some trembling steps until I’m able to lower myself onto the chair. I cradle my head in my hands. “I just don’t know what to think or say. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“That’s how I felt when what I thought was food poisoning turned out to be a nine-month souvenir of the end of our relationship,” she retorts.
She isn’t being mean or harsh. I think she’s just kind of drowning in the realization, like I am.
“Anyway, I’m here. Now you both know, and you can tell me what you’d like to do. ”
Grady walks back in with a steaming cup. His hand is trembling as he places it on the coffee table in front of Angela. “I think this is the one.”
She reaches for it and sniffs as she raises it to her mouth. “It is. Thank you.”
We both just stare at her as she sips. “Morning sickness is no joke. It should be over by now, according to the internet, but I might be one of those unlucky ones that has it for longer.”
“My mom had morning sickness for seven months with me. And then it transitioned to chronic heartburn,” Grady offers.
I turn and look at him like he’s insane. This, all of this, is insane. “What is even happening right now?”
The words come out much louder than they should. I put my head in my hands again.
“You’re going to be a dad, if you want,” Angela says, her voice cutting through the screaming in my head. “That’s it. It’s probably not ideal. If you don’t want to be a dad, I can handle it. I’ll walk out of here tomorrow, and you’ll never hear another word of it. Same goes for you, if it’s yours.”
“It can’t be mine. I mean, statistically the chance is small.” Grady sounds like he’s trying to convince the universe. “There was no penetration on my part, and even though… I mean, there are some recorded cases of… I just, I mean, the odds… I think I should go.”
“You’re both freaking out. I get it. I don’t expect a decision right this second.
” She gets off the couch holding her tea.
“But I am gonna ask if I can have a shower and a nap while you two try to figure out how you feel about this. I took the red eye. I’m exhausted, and that always makes the nausea worse. ”
“Yeah. Whatever you need,” I manage to croak out.
Angela brushes past me and out onto the porch. When she returns a second later, she’s got a small suitcase with her. “I’ll take the front room upstairs, if that’s cool. I take it you two are both in here now.”
Her head tips toward the main floor bedroom. I watch Grady shake his head. “I have my own place. This isn’t… we’re not.”
Angela rolls her eyes as if exasperated. “Oh, for God’s sake. I have no idea how someone so big and scary-looking is so afraid of his own feelings. Okay sure. You’re not anything more than teammates who like to play with each other off the ice, too. Sure. Got it. Our little secret.”
She walks down the hall, through the dining room, and climbs the stairs. I hear them creak as she goes until the sound of my thundering heart blocks them out. “Holy fuck.”
Grady looks over at me, his hands in his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Neither do I.” He starts for his suitcase again and grabs his coat out of the closet. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you space. To think. I need it too.”
“Don’t you think it might make more sense to talk this out together? Since it involves both of us?” I ask as he moves toward the door that leads to the porch.
“It’s not mine.” His voice is more confident than before. “As your friend, I’ll support whatever decision you make, but you have to make it.”
“As my friend?” I repeat. “What about as my boyfriend?”
“Fuck, Landon. You got a girl pregnant. The girl you spent ten years of your life with,” Grady reminds me, like I have amnesia or something. “Maybe this is the universe telling us I was right last night when I said this can’t work.”
“No.” It’s the only fucking word I can make come out of my mouth.
“Yeah, Landon. Think about it. I’m gonna go.”
“Grady, Angie is right. You’re a fucking coward when it matters,” I snap.
He doesn’t even stop walking.
A second later, I hear the front door close. I collapse back onto the chair, tears blurring my vision.