Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
Hadley
I don’t remember getting in the Uber, and I don’t remember our ride home.
I do remember Easton’s hand in mine. I do remember him asking me if I was okay.
All I can do is nod, but I’m not. I’m not okay.
He slept with my best friend. My best friend slept with him.
Now, we’re on the sidewalk outside the condo building, about to walk through the security gate, and it dawns on me.
“She knew about you.” A sharp pain has me clutching my chest.
He stops, holding the gate open for me, but I don’t step in.
“I told her the first time I slept with you, I told her, and every time after that. She knew who you were to me.” Tears prick my eyes. Whether from anger or sadness, I can’t be sure. Probably both.
I walk past the gate, and he wraps his arm around my shoulders as we make our way up to his unit.
I feel terribly selfish right now. He just found out who Tanner’s mom is. This is a big thing for him too.
“How are you doing?” I ask.
He laughs softly, pressing the code into the keypad. “I’m… I don’t really know.”
We walk in, and seeing all of Tanner’s things scattered around the room breaks me.
How could she? She had to know what she was doing when she slept with Easton that night. There is no chance she didn’t know who he was.
“Why?” I ask, picking up Tanner’s blanket and hugging it to my body.
“I told her so much about you, Easton. This entire time, I’ve told her everything about us.
My feelings… and that Tanner called me Mama.
” I feel dizzy, so I sit on the couch. “Oh god, Easton. I told her that her son called me his mom.”
My head falls into my hands, tears streaking down my face.
I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to make this about me, but everything feels so heavy.
I have no idea what to think.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
Easton sits on the couch. “Why did she leave him? There’re a lot of questions that we’re not going to know the answer to until we talk to her.”
“Which I want to right now.”
Easton gives me a look.
“Why can’t we?” I ask.
“She’s grieving her grandma,” he says, so in control, so unbothered.
“Aren’t you mad?” I stand and stalk to the window, staring at the street.
“Of course I’m mad.”
“Well, could you act like it?” My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to. “Because I’m standing here feeling like the world just fell out from under me, and you’re just—” I gesture at him. “Sitting there.”
He doesn’t react to my attitude, and somehow that makes it worse.
I bring my hands up and massage my forehead. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“It’s okay.”
I shake my head. “It’s not.”
And that’s when more tears prick my eyes. Not from what he said or what I said, but from the fact that I almost said something cruel to the one person who doesn’t deserve it, and I still can’t stop the ground from moving under my feet.
“I slept with the best friend of the woman I love and conceived a baby with her that I wish was my wife’s. Believe me, I’m more than pissed.”
My shoulders fall, and we stare at one another from across the room.
I want to go to Easton. I want to crawl into his lap. I want to feel the safety I always do in his arms and have him whisper how it will all be okay. But how can it be? We can’t turn back time.
For just a second, my brain goes somewhere I don’t want it to go. It asks a question I’m desperate for an answer to—does this change what we are?
I shut it down immediately.
It doesn’t. I know it doesn’t.
But the fact that I asked it at all frightens me.
“We should get Tanner.” I make a break for it across the room.
“We shouldn’t.” He cuts me off, standing in my way. “Callie is fine. Said he’s good. Sleeping on the floor with Ellis right next to him. She sent me a picture.” He goes to pull out his phone.
“No, I need to see him.” I push back from his hands and slide by him.
“You don’t.”
He’s so steady right now, and I hate him for it even though I know that’s not fair.
“Excuse me?” I whip around and glare at him.
“Forget what I said.”
I throw my hands in the air. “I don’t understand. How has this happened?”
The tears I’ve been pushing back flood out of my eyes, cascading down my cheeks. I look at Easton and shake my head.
He wraps his arms around me. “I know… but we’re going to get through this. It’s not going to be easy, but nothing changes here, you understand.” He draws back, his eyes meeting mine. “Us.” He waves his finger between us. “The three of us… nothing touches this.”
The only thing that’s ever helped is leaving.
His arms tighten around me, and I close my eyes.
For the first time in my life, the instinct to bolt feels like the wrong one. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay exactly where I am.
The buzzer rings.
My eyes snap open and meet his.
We both know who it is.
“Don’t answer it,” I whisper.
He looks at me for a long moment. “Remember… nothing touches this. But we’ll never get back to where we were without seeing this through.”
He presses the button that invites her into our lives.