I Kissed Her First: A BOUND TOGETHER NOVEL

by Becs, Lindsay

  “You and him? I didn’t know. Nikki just told me this afternoon that you might be here.”

  “Interesting,” I slowly say.

  Jett opens his mouth to say more but is cut off by the team coming back in. Tristan bounds in with his huge goofy grin aimed at me. “We’re celebrating tonight,” he says, pointing at me with a little wiggle of his brows, making me laugh and roll my eyes.

  I turn to say something more to Jett, but he’s already got his back turned to me, walking away again. Taking in a deep breath, I try to ground myself. I need to be happy for Tristan, and I can’t do that if I’m wallowing in whatever the hell just happened with Jett.

  * * *

  A few hours and a lot of tequila later, Nikki and Noah show up where we’re out partying.

  “You’re a fucking bitch!” I spit at Nikki. Half the group we’re with goes silent as she halts her steps. “You should have told me he’d be here,” I add on.

  She cocks her head to the side. “How drunk are you right now?”

  “Oh, she’s white girl wasted,” Gabby says next to me.

  “Shush, you. You probably knew too,” I slur, putting a finger to her lips.

  Smacking my hand away, she asks, “What are you talking about?”

  “Jett!” I yell. “He’s here. Saw him too, before he turned and ran away again,” I say, licking salt off my hand and downing another shot.

  “Oh, fuck,” Gabby mumbles.

  “Yep,” I say, popping the end of the word.

  “We had a deal, Harper. I’ve kept my side of it,” Nikki sighs, sitting across from me and downing two of the shots in the middle of the table. “You think this is easy for me? I’m stuck in the middle of the two of you.” She takes another with a shiver.

  “I’m sorry,” I slur slowly, making it sound like saaaaaaa-wie.

  “Yeah, who’s the bitch now?” she asks with pursed lips and a know-it-all look.

  I fall forward, hitting my head on the table with a thud. “I can’t do this all over again.” Gabby rubs my back and Nikki takes my hand while Noah—who’s been quiet so far—pats me on the head.

  “What’s wrong?” Tristan’s deep timber asks from behind me.

  Spinning around on my stool to face him, I spin a little too fast. “Whoa,” I say with a giggle and then my face falls. “Jett was there tonight.”

  “Mother. Fucker.” He seethes.

  “Tris, he didn’t know I’d be here either,” I sigh, suddenly feeling more sober. His eyes snap to Noah’s. “He didn’t know either. Leave your brother alone.”

  Tristan looks back down at me, his big hands cupping my face. “It’s time to stop hiding, Harper.”

  “I’m not hiding,” I grumble, making him and everyone around us chuckle.

  “Whatever you say, babe,” Gabby says.

  “I hate you all.” They all know it’s a lie. Leaning forward, I wrap my arms around Tristan’s waist. “I’m not ready.”

  “Will you ever be?” he asks.

  * * *

  I’m nervous as hell as I stop outside the room that Nikki told me was Jett’s. Wiping my sweaty palms down the front of my shorts, I blow out a puff of air. “Here goes nothing,” I say to myself, raising my fist to knock.

  It’s late and this is probably a super bad idea, but I know if I don’t do it now, I never will.

  I hear shuffling around inside, then a loud bang and muffled curse before the door opens. I stand there and gape at the bare chest in front of me. My eyes slowly slide up to eyes squinted from the light and messed up hair that I think about all the time.

  “Harper? You alright?” he asks. His voice sounds rough from sleep, and I feel bad for obviously waking him up.

  “I’m sorry. I should have waited until tomorrow. I’ll go,” I rush out, turning to leave.

  “Wait!” he yells, stopping me. I turn back around and tears are already filling my eyes again. “Please.”

  Swallowing down my nerves, I ask, “Can I come in and talk to you?”

  “Yeah, of course.” He opens the door wider and motions for me to go inside. I do, rocking back and forth on my feet and nibbling on my thumbnail again. “Here. Sit.” He gestures to the sofa. A single lamp is on, bathing the room in a soft glow.

  Instead, I rush to him, wrapping my arms around him as a cry fall from my lips. It’s awkward and weird, but it’s all I want to do in this moment.

  “Hey,” he soothes as his arms slowly come around me in return. “What’s going on? You okay?” Nostalgia wraps around me from being in his arms again, feeling him, touching him. His soft and soothing voice sends warmth straight to my heart.

  Wiping a hand over my face, I step back from him. “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” I say, my eyes trained on the floor. He stays quiet, so I keep going. “I’m not with Tristan. We’re just friends. We work together some.” I lift my eyes to look at him. “I’m a massage therapist and yoga instructor.” I lift my mouth into a small grin. He looks so confused the more I say, and I know none of this is making any sense. “I had to drop out of school early on.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I was pregnant,” I say and hold my breath, waiting for his reaction to the bomb I just dropped on him.

  His hand comes up to cover his mouth. “Is… Do we have…” He closes his eyes a second, and I give him the time he needs to process things.

  “I found out late. I was almost four months pregnant by the time I found out.”

  “Holy shit,” he whispers. “I’m a dad?”

  Tears fill my eyes again and I bite my lip, shaking my head. “Yes… No… I was in a car accident a couple of months after I found out.” I pause to take a breath, exhaling slowly. “I lost the baby.” He stares at me for so long I start to wonder if he heard me. “I’m so sorry, Jett.”

  “You…” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You come here and wake me up in the middle of the fucking night to tell me this? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Of all the reactions I thought I might get from him when the day came and I told him what happened, anger was not one of them. Not like this anyway.

  “I…I thought you should know,” I say weakly. “That you’d want to know.”

  “Yeah,” he scoffs. “Well, thanks for giving me hope of something good only to rip it away.”

  “Are you kidding me right now? You left me. You walked away and left me behind. You ripped my heart from my chest and stomped on it every time you didn’t answer my calls. I tried to reach you. I tried to tell you, but you blocked me out of your life, Jett. What was I supposed to do?”

  He sniffs and grits his jaw. “It’s off your chest now, Harps. Thanks for putting that shit on me now too.”

  Narrowing my eyes at him, I ask, “Who are you?”

  “Nobody to you anymore,” he says, walking back toward the bedroom. “You can leave now.”

  I walk out and slam the door shut behind me. Staggering to stay upright, I reach for the wall across from his door, falling to my butt when my legs give out under me. Tears falling hard and fast down my face, I crumble and cry.

  That was definitely not how I saw that playing out in my mind.

  And now my head is swirling with memories of the past…

  “I swear I’m the only one using tampons anymore,” Gabby says, walking into our suite with a sack from the drugstore.

  I look up at her and mentally try to remember the last time I had a normal period. Huh. I had a couple light ones, and then I skipped one… two months? Panicked, I look at Gabby, the fear on my face saying it all.

  “Oh, shit,” she whispers. “Are you pregnant?”

  Jumping up from the couch, I ran to my car and sped to the drugstore that Gabby just came from. I fidgeted the whole time I waited for the results of the test I took the second I was back.

  My cell rings with the timer I set. With a trembling hand, I reach for the plastic stick that holds my future. Closing my eyes, I swallow down my nerves, mouth dry as I turn
it over.

  I cover my mouth with my hand. I feel a mixture of fear and happiness for this little unknown person that’s growing inside me, and my hand drops to my stomach. Lifting my shirt, I look in the mirror. Smiling, I pick up my phone and take a picture.

  I know I shouldn’t be happy about this, but I am. It’s a life that I made with Jett. Our child. A child who was made from love.

  I open the bathroom door slowly and look up at Gabby, who’s pacing back and forth in the room. One look and she rushes to me, hugging me tight.

  “Holy shit, Harper! You’re going to be a mom.”

  I laugh as tears fill my eyes. “I know.”

  “We need to get you to the doctor. How far along do you think you are? How did you not know? This is crazy!” she prattles on.

  “I need to tell Jett,” I say, stopping her excitement. “Don’t look at me like that, Gabby.”

  “He’s completely ghosted you. He doesn’t deserve you or that baby,” she says, annoyed.

  “Yes, he does,” I say quietly, looking down at my stomach and rubbing circles there.

  Over the next week, I try in every way I can think of to reach him. I’m pretty sure he’s blocked my number, but I try anyway. I try through Nikki, but she told me no one had heard from him since he left for school. I even had Gabby try him. But nothing.

  By the time I’m able to get in to see the doctor, I’m mad and hurt that Jett doesn’t know and isn’t here with me. He should be.

  Instead, Gabby is with me. She refuses to leave the room, even during the exam. I just laugh and shake my head, telling the doctor to ignore her.

  Dr. Thomas tells me that I’m about twenty-one weeks along. I get to have an ultrasound, and because I’m so far along, I find out it’s a girl. I’m also assured that everything looks good and the baby is healthy. Not that I’m a big drinker but I’ve had a couple nights since Jett left that I tried to forget.

  I leave the doctor’s office smiling big and feeling better now that I know our baby girl is healthy. I can’t stop staring at the ultrasound pictures as Gabby drives us over to Teddy’s to tell him how it went.

  Teddy hugs me and gushes over the pictures I show him of the baby, even though I know he’s mad at Jett. He’s mad he left, that he got me pregnant, that he won’t get in touch with me; he’s more upset at this point than I am.

  As mad as I should be, I just can’t be. Not anymore.

  I’m going to be a mom. I’m bringing a child into the world, and in order to do that, I can’t be full of anger and hate toward her dad. Even if he doesn’t know about her yet. But one day he will, and I want him to know that I told her how much she was loved by both of us.

  My parents were pissed, to say the least when I told them. But they agreed that I should stay at school for as long as I felt comfortable, and then once she was born, we’d reevaluate.

  It took a little bit of time for them to be happy, but now they seem excited. When Christmas came, they had piles of baby clothes and items for me. I cried the whole morning as I opened each and every box, overwhelmed with all of it. Their support. The reality of me being a mom soon. But mostly, I was overwhelmed by how much I wished Jett were there with me.

  The weeks passed quickly. Overnight I started to feel her move and kick. She’s growing perfectly. And so am I. I’m starting to sport a cute little bump that I can’t get enough of. I took weekly pictures of my growing stomach in hopes that one day I’d be able to show Jett and he’d see how our baby girl grew.

  “He doesn’t care about you anymore!” Teddy yells at me. Tears fall fast and freely down my face.

  We’d come to watch Tristan fight and were waiting for it to start.

  After that night at his party, he texted me daily, trying to get me to go out with him, but once I found out I was pregnant, he switched from trying to date me to being a really great friend.

  I’d told Teddy that I was planning on going to California to find Jett. Tristan was going to go with me so I wasn’t alone.

  “He should know about our daughter,” I yell back at him, swiping at my cheeks.

  He grits his teeth, shaking his head. “He doesn’t deserve you. Either of you.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you about this, Teddy. I’m tired of fighting with you about this.” I put my hand on his arm, hoping to calm him down. He’s so worked up he might as well be in the ring. “Please, understand,” I beg him.

  “Why did you ask Tristan to go with you instead of me?” he asks after a bit of silence between us as we wait for the match to begin.

  “I didn’t want you to miss any school. Tristan offered to go with me when I told him the other day that I was thinking of going. I thought it was a good idea not to do it alone.”

  But my trip to California to find Jett didn’t happen.

  That night after the fight, I left with Tristan instead of Teddy since he was still mad. One of Tristan’s opponents who lost that night ran our car off the road. The crash caused the car to flip several times. Tristan and I, along with the driver, were lucky to come out of it alive without many bad injuries.

  A life was still lost that night though.

  The accident caused too much trauma to my body. When they did an ultrasound at the hospital, she was gone. The thumping sound that usually filled the room didn’t come.

  Tristan held my hand, refusing to let the doctors look him over until I was taken care of. His head fell to my shoulder when I started to cry. “I’m so sorry, Harper.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I tell him, running my fingers through his hair. Because it’s not and I don’t want him to carry that misplaced guilt.

  Tristan was discharged the next day but stayed with me, not leaving my side. Not even with my mom and sister, Teddy, and Gabby taking turns staying with me. He still stayed.

  It took two days for the baby to be delivered.

  It was the worst two days of my life.

  I opted to try to have a natural delivery if possible. I might not get to be the mom I wanted to be to my baby girl, but I still wanted to experience everything that I could with her. Including her birth.

  The room was somber as I labored and delivered her into the world that she would never know. My mom and Gabby held my hands and encouraged me with every excruciating second until she was no longer inside my body, which was unable to protect her.

  There were no newborn baby cries. Only the sounds of my own wails as I mourned her loss.

  The nurse cleaned her up and tucked her into a pink blanket, placing her in my arms. She was still warm from being in the womb. Pressing my cheek to her tiny head, I cried. So small and tiny in my hands and yet I could already see how much she looked like her dad.

  I asked Gabby to take several pictures of me with her and some of just her sweet little face. So soft and serene as her lifeless body lay in my hands.

  Teddy and Tristan entered the room, both with their heads down. Tristan’s red-rimmed eyes from his lack of sleep brimmed with tears, while Teddy looked ready to explode in anger.

  I smiled down at the little girl who was breaking my heart. I guess it was fitting. Her dad took most of it when he left, and she was taking the rest.

  “Do you have a name for her?” my mom asks, dabbing at her eyes.

  Sniffing, I nod. “Serenity. Serenity Jane Leos.”

  “You’re giving her his name?” Teddy asks, sounding angry.

  “She’s his daughter,” I say, begging him to understand. He just shakes his head.

  “Teddy, now isn’t the time,” Gabby warns him, and I appreciate her so much in this moment.

  “It’s a beautiful name,” my mom says, kissing me on the head. “I’m glad you’re giving her your middle name.”

  “I want her to have peace and parts of both of us with her.”

  Leaving the hospital the next day without her felt like I was living someone else’s life. I was a mess in every way. My emotions were all over the place. I couldn’t stop crying, and all I wanted to
do was sleep.

  I knew there was no way I could go back to school, but when my mom offered to take me back home with her, I couldn’t do that either. Too many memories would flood me there.

  Tristan offered to let me stay with him for as long as I needed. That sounded like the best option, so that’s where I went, ignoring my life and everything that reminded me of Jett and Serenity for as long as I could.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jett

  I squeeze my eyes shut when I hear the door slam. “Fuck!” I yell, hating everything about what just happened. Why did she have to tell me? Why now?

  But I get it really. I did walk away. I blocked her number, not able to handle hearing her voice once I was gone. Nikki tried to get me to reach out to her so many times, but each time I got furious with her about it. Nikki was my friend, not Harper’s. Now, I’m wondering if she knew this whole time.

  Grabbing my cell, I don’t care what time it is. I call her. I have to know.

  “H-hello?” she answers sleepily.

  “Did you know?” I ask without adding anything more.

  “What? Jett? Did I know what?” she asks, confused. I hear her shuffle around, and I try to calm my anger before I say anything more.

  “Did you know that Harper had been pregnant?” I finally manage to ask, the words feeling like acid.

  She’s quiet a second, and I wonder if it’s because she’s as shocked as I am or if she’s trying to get out of the fact that she should have fucking told me.

  “I wondered, but I didn’t know for sure.” She pauses a second before going on. “When she couldn’t get in touch with you, she tried me. She wouldn’t tell me what was so urgent, but she was adamant that she needed to talk to you. I put two and two together.”

  “But I was an ass to you every time you brought her up,” I say, pressing my palm into my eye.

  “That’s one way to put it.” She huffs a laugh before asking, “She was though?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Where’s the baby? Or I guess child now.”