Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AVA
Kasey looks at me, utterly dumbfounded.
I wait patiently for the words to settle, for the secret I’ve been keeping to finally make its crash landing.
I wait for those brown eyes to squeeze shut in anger, for his jaw to tic and his neck to roll.
I wait for him to start yelling about how I’m trying to trap him in a marriage without giving him the full truth.
About how I’m still the reckless and irresponsible and selfish girl I’ve always been.
But none of that happens.
Kasey just looks at me, frozen in shock. He looks and looks and looks. I don’t even think he’s blinking, but his face is shadowed in the dim kitchen light, and my eyes are too watery to know for sure.
“Kasey?” I ask, voice trembling.
His eyes flare wide. “I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head. Like this might be some kind of hallucination his mind is serving up to fuck with him. He looks at me again, squinting. I can see the way he’s internally working to piece this all together. “What did you say?”
I let out a quick breath, standing to face him as fear rattles through me. “I’m pregnant, Kasey. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before now.”
His gaze drops to my stomach before rising again to meet mine. “How . . .” he starts, but stops, stumbling over his words. “But we . . . I don’t—”
My heart breaks at his confusion. Shatters that his first reaction would be to think he might have something to do with it, even though we haven’t slept together in ten years.
The proof of his shock is another deep layer of my own guilt and regret.
“It’s not yours,” I say carefully, feeling something long dormant inside my soul wither and curl in on itself.
“When I left Miami to come back home, I was already pregnant. I found out two weeks before I left.”
Kasey’s expression shutters, his face slackening. “Tobias?” he asks. It’s barely a whisper.
I nod.
He looks down at his feet, taking in a deep breath. “Does he know?”
I can’t help but cringe. “Yeah,” I answer softly. “He knows.”
Kasey looks back up at me, the question clear in his eyes.
“It’s what he used against me,” I explain. “With the partners. He told them I was ‘knocked up.’ That I was planning on keeping the baby and would be too distracted to commit to the firm in the ways it needed me to. It’s why they rescinded my partnership agreement.”
His eyes flash with a fierce intensity that siphons all the air from the room, the sharp edge of his jaw pulsing. “Isn’t that illegal?”
I shrug. “I could try to sue them for discrimination, but they’d bury me. They’re lawyers with way more resources than I have. It’s not worth the fight.”
“So, what? You just . . . lose the opportunity? You’re forced to walk away from everything you worked so hard for all these years?”
“They didn’t fire me,” I say. “They’ve actually sent over a dozen emails asking when I’m coming back. But I won’t ever be made partner—that’s no longer on the table.”
Fury flashes over Kasey’s face, there and gone in the span of a breath.
He eyes my stomach again with scrutiny. “It’s why you were sick,” he says, almost to himself.
He scrubs a hand over his jaw before stuffing his hands into his pockets, rocking back on the heels of his feet.
“Wait, you said you’re planning to keep the baby? ”
I nod. “Yes.”
And then I see it: his smile. It’s gone before I truly have a chance to catch it, but my heart knows it was there because it pounds furiously.
“How far along are you?”
I swallow. “Thirteen weeks. I just started my second trimester. The doctor in Miami said I’m due at the end of November.”
“How do you feel?” he asks, and there’s genuine curiosity behind his words.
“I’m okay,” I say. “The nausea has been a little rough, as you saw, but otherwise I don’t really feel any different.”
He nods, eyes falling to the ground again. After a long moment he asks, “What does this mean, Ava?”
“What do you mean?”
He clears his throat. “What does this mean for me? For us?”
“It doesn’t mean anything.” I walk into the kitchen until he’s a mere foot away, reaching a hand out and pressing it to his chest. His heart is galloping, and I imagine he’s thinking of all the ways I’m trying to take advantage of him and his family.
I desperately need him to understand I was never trying to trap him, that I don’t expect him to bear any responsibility for my mistakes.
“I know I’ve been keeping this truth from you, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to justify it alongside asking for this marriage.
This baby isn’t your responsibility,” I promise.
“I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure it doesn’t disrupt your life. I’m prepared to do this all on my own.”
“What about Tobias?”
I exhale slowly. “He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be involved. He has no interest in being a father, trust me.”
“What if I want it to mean something?” he asks. There’s a softness to his expression, a spark of hope that draws me nearer as the question sends me into a freefall. “What if I want to take responsibility?”
“Kasey,” I breathe out. “You don’t mean that.”
He presses a tentative palm to my cheek, and I lean into the warmth of it. “You shouldn’t have to raise a baby alone, Ava. You’ll need support. You’re going to need help with things. What about a crib? I mean, christ—what about labor?”
“I’ll manage just fine on my own,” I assure him. “I’ve been reading books and making lists. I’ve got enough money saved that I can take a decent break from work when she’s born—”
“She?” he asks, eyes widening and dropping once more to my stomach. His free hand reaches for my waist, gently gripping and pulling me closer.
Emotion stings my eyes and claws at my throat. “I mean, I don’t know for sure yet. I won’t know the gender for another few weeks. I still need to find a new doctor here and make an appointment, but I just have this feeling.” I smile. “In my dreams, she’s always a girl.”
Our bodies are flush now, and it’s . . .
dizzying. Intoxicating and unexpected. And against my better judgement, I keep finding new ways to lean deeper into him.
Kasey’s so warm and steady, and he’s always felt like home.
Still, even after all this time. “Ava,” he whispers, his breath fanning along my cheek.
Emotion glistens his eyes as his mouth tips up in a lopsided, happy grin.
“You’re having a baby. I’m not going to let you face this alone.
” His thumb swipes tenderly against my jaw.
He’s careful, every movement slow and tentative, like he doesn’t want to scare me away.
Tell me, do you worry she might leave again?
“It’s too much,” I quietly protest, as a lone tear slips down my cheek. “I can’t keep letting you fix my mistakes, Kasey, I’ve already put you through so much—”
“Ava,” he says gently. “Everything we’ve been through .
. . we both contributed to it, all of it.
The good and the bad. God, we were so young.
We’ve both made mistakes, both took things for granted—it was never just you.
I . . . I thought—” He swallows. “I thought we were ready to spend our lives together, but really, I was just so desperate to keep you. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I shouldn’t have proposed.”
My heart pounds as I feel the weight of what he might be about to say, what he might be trying to ask me for. What I already know I don’t have to give. “Kasey—”
“Please just let me finish,” he pleads. “I felt it, in Pastor Brown’s office.
The things you were saying—it felt real, Ava.
And I’ve been trying to keep my distance from you, but the truth is I have to fight my feelings every step of the way because when you’re near me, it all just goes to shit.
Even when we were kids, I used to try to fight the way I felt about you, but it never worked.
It never fucking works, and . . . I don’t know, maybe . . . maybe we can try this again.”
His eyes are bright with so much hope that I have to look away. Despair ratchets through me, twisting through my insides until everything clamps into uncomfortable knots. All the old fears and anxiety I used to wear like a second skin press into me all over again, smothering me like tar.
Kasey was always so good at communicating his feelings.
It’s something I’ve envied, but I don’t know how to tell him how I feel when I don’t even understand my own feelings.
I don’t know how to articulate all the ways his love and support drive me deeper into my own self-loathing, because I don’t know how to give him back what he gives so freely, so easily.
I make myself look at him before I say the words that burn like acid all the way up my throat. “I think you misunderstood,” I explain. “I don’t—I don’t know if us being together was ever a good idea.”
Hurt darts across his eyes, and I know my words have landed with precision. The hands that cradle me so lovingly drop to his sides as he takes a firm step back. “Liar,” he whispers.
“Kasey, please.”
“No, Ava. Ten years later and you’re still doing it.”
My sorrow gives way to frustration as my blood heats. “Doing what?”
“Acting like this isn’t what we’ve both always known it is!” he barks. “Acting like my feelings for you are one-sided. Like the way I feel about you isn’t more than some school-age crush.”
“I am not eighteen years old anymore, Kasey,” I snap.
“I’m not the same girl I used to be, regardless of what you may think.
We had something real when we were kids, but it was young and naive.
We’re older now, and I know myself better.
I’ve lived through so much beyond what we had—this baby is proof. ”
He scowls, his face twisted in bitter resentment. I watch as he walks to the small kitchen table and drops into a chair, looking downright miserable.
I hate myself for hurting him all over again.
“Ever since I came back you’ve been making your opinions about me loud and clear: you don’t like my shoes, my clothes, or how I take my damn coffee.
You want to strip me of all the things that make me different from who I was when I left so I can get back to being the girl who was yours.
But I’m not her, Kasey. I can’t be her—not anymore.
Not when I have to focus on being this,” I say, holding my palm against my stomach.
“I have to be hers.” A quiet sob bubbles up and out of me as tears stream down my face.
Kasey studies me for a long time. Eventually, he asks, “Why did you leave, Ava?”
I stifle a scoff. This is the last place I want this conversation to go. “I didn’t have a choice,” I admit.
His gaze narrows. “Then why did you say yes? Why did you let me put that ring on your finger?”
“Because I wanted you.” My voice breaks. “But I didn’t trust myself.” The words spill out of my mouth, revealing a fractured part of myself I never intended for him to see.
“Didn’t trust yourself to do what?” he asks.
I let my gaze trail along the hard set of his jaw, deciding how far I’m willing to go.
“Stay,” I answer honestly. I move to sit down in a chair on the other side of the table as I work to gather my thoughts.
“I didn’t trust myself to stay here. I wanted to say yes to you, Kasey.
When you asked me to marry you, I felt so unbelievably happy.
Like every dream I ever had was coming true.
But then I remembered who I am, and . . . I didn’t trust myself to stay.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure I even know how to. It’s like this .
. . this curse. Sometimes I think I was built to run from everything good in my life.
The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.
” I let out a bitter laugh. “And it’s exactly what I did anyway.
I convinced myself that if I left, I’d find some relief from the pressure of this place, and maybe I’d learn to be still.
I even thought maybe I could come back to you someday, but .
. .” I let the words die off. “I mean, it’s not like I could’ve asked you to go with me—”
“Why?” he demands, color rising in his cheeks.
“You would have said no,” I say plainly. “You wouldn’t have come.”
“Yes I fucking would have!” he snaps, rising to his feet with a strong push that sends his chair flying behind him. “You didn’t even give me a chance.”
“You have the ranch, Kasey!” I yell. “I know what it meant to you, what it still means to you. I would never put you in a position where you have to choose between it or me. I already know what you’d pick!”
“I would have chosen you,” he insists, and the sincerity in his eyes crack me wide open. “I would have always chosen you.”
He shakes his head, turning away from me. “I’m going to bed,” he says, sounding defeated, before disappearing down the hallway.
I hear the soft click of his bedroom door as he pulls it shut behind him.