Hard to Say Yes (The Fallout Series Book 3)

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Hard to Say Yes (The Fallout Series Book 3) Page 16

by Heather Young-Nichols


  “So what’s going on?” Laney asked. “I know you heard the end of that, but Tegan genuinely sounded confused. Said you hadn’t been answering his calls.”

  “Why was he even talking to you all about it?”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “Well, Rhian said something and we were going to let it go, but Zac muttered something under his breath, which started this whole thing.” She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. Tell me.”

  I took another long drink before spilling my guts. “With Ian, things started small. He’d make little comments.”

  “You told me about that.”

  “Right. But it started small. Weird requests.”

  Her eyes danced with excitement. “You did not tell me about that. Spill.”

  “I’d rather not, but he was insistent on some things and I let it slide. He’d make shitty comments and I’d let it slide. It took him wanting me to give up my kid to finally put my foot down. What’s that say about me?”

  She squeezed my shoulder then took another drink. “It says you see the best in people. If he was awful all the time, you wouldn’t have hung on as long.”

  “True.”

  “Is that what you thought was happening with Tegan?”

  I really didn’t want to answer this but knew I would. I shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe I was just scared that it was.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Yeah. He was getting me comfortable to have him around Dylan. Then he made that comment about being a trophy wife. I don’t know. My head was telling me to bolt and I wanted to take some time to figure out if I should listen to my head or go with my heart then before I could fully decide, today happened and made the decision for me.”

  I’d literally done everything wrong and now it was too late. My heart ached at the idea of being so scared to trust myself or anyone else that I’d hurt Tegan in the process. Fuck me and my stupid head.

  Laney sat all the way up and folded her legs underneath her. “Wait. What joke?”

  “The one about the trophy wife that I told you about.”

  “Oh, OK. I thought maybe I’d missed something.”

  I shook my head. “I’m still shocked as hell that Porter and Zac hadn’t already told you.”

  “They told me nothing. How do they know and I don’t?”

  “It happened the day that I saw Porter and Rhian at Culver’s.”

  Her head was shaking back and forth quickly. “Those rat bastards.”

  I took a long drink, emptying the bottle then setting it on the coffee table. She would’ve kept asking anyway. I told her the whole thing, not wanting to give her any reason to ask for details when we were done.

  “I’ve been thinking it’s me that’s fucked in the head. Then I talked to Emily and it made me realize I’ve never actually been in love so I have no idea what the hell that even looks like.”

  Her eyes softened as she reached out to touch my hand. “Seriously never?”

  I shook my head. “No. I think I was starting to believe that there was something wrong with me. Which made me desperate to love Ian but it never came.”

  “Thank god.”

  “Right? Could you imagine if I’d actually loved that guy?”

  “So you started falling in love with Tegan.”

  I tried to object but she held her hand up.

  “Don’t try to deny it. You fell in love with him and that scared you. Scared you of your own feelings and maybe… the power it would give him over you?”

  “Power?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Loving someone gives them a lot of power to break your heart.”

  “Oh shit.” I closed my eyes. “I hadn’t thought of that. But yeah. That kind of explains it perfectly. I didn’t want him to have power over me because look what Ian turned into because I gave him power without even loving him.”

  “Well, Maddie,” she said once I had this fucking epiphany that made me feel worse about myself and the situation. “You have to do what you think is right for you, but I think maybe you got in your own way on this one. Don’t let a past bastard keep you from being happy. Whether it’s with Tegan or someone else.”

  My eyes watered. She was right. That was exactly what I’d let happen. “Thank you,” I told her. “For listening and being my friend and I’m sorry for what Rhian said when the guys walked in with me.”

  Laney shrugged my words off as if Rhian hadn’t bothered her. She may have gotten past Zac and me but that didn’t mean she liked the reminder. “I’ll address that with her. It’s not for you to apologize for her and honestly, you don’t have to apologize for what happened between you and Zac. It’s in the past. We’re past that.”

  Her words almost brought me to tears. I didn’t know why, but something about this moment reminded me of before she’d moved away. Before we’d lost touch. It was one of those moments that really made me feel like we were friends again.

  “You know she’s going crazy over there right now,” Laney told me. Clearly, she was referring to me insinuating that I might’ve had sex with Porter. Which had never happened, never could happen, and never would happen. He was like my brother.

  “And that, I’m not sorry for. She was being an asshole.”

  “That she was. Let’s get another beer.”

  She grabbed my hand and yanked me off the couch. I’d needed this night more than I’d thought.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After that night with Laney, I mentally kicked my own ass as I wandered around my apartment. I realized that Tegan had made me happy when he was around, but those nagging feelings, the ones I’d had with Ian had overtaken me. I’d overreacted. But could I trust myself to react appropriately?

  Four days later, I still hadn’t spoken to Rhian and I wasn’t going to. It was up to her to reach out and apologize. I was tired of having this thing hanging over me. She shouldn’t have thrown something that had happened years ago that didn’t even involve her in my face. Laney had come to terms with the fact that Zac and I had sex one time. We’d had a kid and if she hadn’t been able to live with that, then she and Zac wouldn’t have been able to be together.

  Neither he nor I was giving up on our kid.

  “Mommy, I don’t feel good.” My boy’s tired voice snapped me out of my own thoughts.

  We’d just had lunch not long before and the day had been going fine. Not a sign of sickness from him at all.

  I went right to him and got down to his level before asking, “What doesn’t feel good, baby?”

  “My tummy.” Then these giant tears rolled down his cheeks. He almost never cried, which meant he really wasn’t feeling good. “But I’m supposed to go with Daddy today.” Zac had wanted to take him for some guy time after work today. I thought it’d include Porter, but I wasn’t exactly sure what guy time entailed. I wasn’t allowed at guy time according to Dylan.

  “I know, but if you’re not feeling good, you don’t want to throw up in Daddy’s car, do you?”

  “No.” He cried harder.

  “How about I call Daddy and ask him if he can do it whichever day you’re feeling better?” I didn’t want to give him false hope that he’d be fine tomorrow. “I bet he says yes and that way you don’t miss anything.”

  “OK.” He spoke slowly.

  “Let’s get you into some pajamas and tucked into bed. Maybe after you sleep, you’ll feel better.”

  “OK.” Again, he didn’t sound like himself and even having experienced a sick kid before, an awful fever when he had ear infections as a baby, and everything else, every time my boy was sick, my heart ached. I hated him feeling like this. He didn’t feel warm to the touch so I didn’t think he had a fever and my hope was that something he’d eaten just wasn’t sitting well. Though we’d eaten nothing out of the normal.

  We did a quick change of his clothes and got him tucked down into bed. I even moved the small TV from my room into his so he could watch movies while he lay there. First movie was Dreams, his favorite, which made me think of Tegan.
But I shook off any thoughts threatening to take up space right now and I scurried off to the kitchen to get Dylan a straw cup full of water so he could sip on it whenever he was awake. I swear he was asleep before I left the room.

  Swiping my phone off the coffee table and hitting Zac’s name seemed to take forever.

  “Hey. What’s up?” he answered.

  “Dylan’s not feeling good.”

  “Is he OK?” he asked immediately.

  “I think so, but he’s really not feeling good. Cried and everything.”

  The background noise of his work got quieter, which meant he’d gone into the office for our call. “Shit,” he said. “He really must be sick.”

  “Maybe a stomach bug. I’m not sure. But he can’t go tonight.”

  “Yeah, of course not. I’ll come over after work to check on him. Text me whatever you need and I’ll grab it on my way.” That was Zac. More than ready to help his kid, no matter what.

  “I will. Thanks. But he was super worried about missing out on his guy time,” I told him. “I said I’d ask if you can do it on whatever day he’s feeling better.”

  “Absolutely. I didn’t have anything big planned, but I do want to take him to a Tigers game sometime soon.”

  “Oh, man.” I grinned into the phone, which he couldn’t see. “That’ll get you Dad of the Year.”

  He chuckled. “That was the plan. Listen, I’ve got to go unless you need something else.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I’m good. I’ll text you a few things, though. Popsicles and stuff he’d love. I have cash when you get here.”

  “Get the fuck out of here with that,” he countered before ending the call.

  A few hours later, around four, Zac brought everything I’d asked for and a few things I hadn’t. Most of them were for Dylan, but he grabbed my favorite pop and a few quick dinners so I wouldn’t have to cook. Then he offered to stay. He always offered to stay. I declined because Dylan was just going to sleep. It wasn’t like I’d be up all night with a crying baby or had puddles of vomit to clean up. Still, I appreciated the offer.

  When I checked on Dylan a while after Zac had left, I laid my hand on his forehead and my heart thudded to a stop before taking off. He felt warm. Thank fuck Zac and I had both bought one of those thermometers that was no-touch. Kind of like an infrared laser beam or whatever that you could just point at their forehead and it gave a reading. A hundred and one. Not terrible. I always hated it when my kid had a fever but something about this was rubbing me the wrong way.

  It caused me to do something I promised myself I wouldn’t.

  After pacing around for ten minutes, I snatched my phone off the table and pressed Tegan’s name without thinking about it. But I ignored the fact that my wallpaper was still a picture of Tegan and me at the pond. My heart couldn’t let my brain think about that other than to chastise myself for not changing that.

  “Hey, I can’t answer right now, but leave me a message and I’ll get back to you.” Fucking voice mail. I thought about hanging up but knew I couldn’t.

  “Hi, Tegan. It’s Maddie. Please don’t stop listening. I’m a dick. I know I’m a dick and shouldn’t be calling you. But Dylan’s sick and I’m worried and you’re the first person I thought to call. He told me his stomach hurt and now has a fever. Just a hundred and one. But he cried before he fell asleep.” My voice cracked on the word cried. It was my baby, after all. “And that might not sound like a lot, but he never cries when he doesn’t feel good and I don’t know how worried I should be, so I’m really fucking worried. Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry if this makes you mad.” Then I just ended the call because what else could I do?

  Immediately, I regretted making that phone call. Telling Zac not to stay also seemed like a bad idea now. But no. I had to prove that I didn’t need any help tonight. Ugh. What had I been thinking?

  When Tegan said he didn’t need this, he’d meant me. My drama. He owed me nothing. Not even a call back about my sick kid. I was the one who hadn’t wanted him involved with said kid in the first place.

  Yet when my phone rang, a tiny part of me hoped he’d made an exception. Talking to him would’ve put me at ease both because he was a medical professional who knew what to do about these things, but also because that would’ve been the closest I’d been to him in far too long.

  Fuck. The caller ID said Rhian.

  “Hello,” I answered, doing my best not to sound disappointed.

  “Hi,” she said sounding at least as uneasy as I did. “Maddie, first I have to apologize for what I said to you. It was shitty and I’ll explain my attitude to you sometime other than now if you’d let me.”

  “Sure, Rhian. I think we can do that sometime.” I’d done things I wasn’t proud of before and had been forgiven, so it was my turn to do the forgiving. Actually, I’d done something I wasn’t proud of very recently as well.

  “Great. But that wasn’t why I’m calling.”

  “Why then? I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a bitch, but Dylan’s sick and—”

  She cut me off. “I know. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “Huh?” I ran a hand down my leg out of habit.

  “Tegan called me. He got your voicemail and he wanted me to call you with his opinion.”

  He didn’t want to call me himself. I deserved that. “And that is?”

  “He’s sorry Dylan’s not feeling well and he says right now it sounds like a virus, but sometimes appendicitis starts like this. It’s hard to tell in kids. He said to take him to the ER if his stomach pain moves to the lower right side or if he starts vomiting. Otherwise, you can call his doctor in the morning if he’s not feeling better.”

  That did take a weight off my shoulders. Just knowing that it didn’t sound bad made me feel slightly better.

  “Thanks, Rhian,” I told her. She didn’t have to call me yet she had. “And thank Tegan for me, please. I appreciate it. Calling was a knee-jerk reaction and I shouldn’t have bothered him.”

  “You absolutely should have,” she countered. “He knows this shit and it’s your kid. Of course, you should’ve called.”

  I wasn’t about to argue with her over it. “Well, thank you.” There was something I needed to tell her that could’ve probably waited but I had her on the phone now and I didn’t want things to be weird. “Hey, Rhian. I’ve never had sex with Porter.”

  She groaned. “It shouldn’t matter one way or another and I never should’ve said that to you in the first place.”

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Thanks, Maddie,” she told me then ended the call.

  Two hours after that phone call, Dylan came slowly out of his bedroom. His little bare feet slapped against the floor. I was over to him before he could get very far, but before I made it, he leaned over and threw up all over. Like an ocean of vomit. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a person produce that much.

  Shit.

  Then he started to cry again.

  “It’s OK, buddy. That’s easy to clean up. But let’s clean you first and change your clothes.”

  “My stomach hurts.”

  My heart froze. He vomited, so his stomach hurting made sense, but I had to ask. “Can you point to right where your stomach hurts?”

  Dylan shook his head.

  “Does it hurt more or less than earlier?”

  “More. Lots more.”

  Cooperation out of a sick kid was hard. On the positive side, he didn’t feel warm anymore, but I knew I was taking him to the ER. Might’ve been an overreaction, but I didn’t care at this point. I wanted him checked out and it was after hours. That meant the emergency room to me.

  I got my son changed and slipped on some shoes then walked him out to my car, bypassing the mess on the floor. Luckily, it wasn’t a carpeted area, so clean up, even after a while, wouldn’t be the worst.

  Once we were in the car, I called Zac. It was only seven. He wouldn’t be asleep
and even if he was, he would want to know.

  “Hey, Maddie.”

  “I’m taking Dylan to the ER.”

  “What?” he asked worry changing the tone of his voice. “What happened?”

  “He’s not hurt, but Tegan said to watch for increased abdominal pain and vomiting. He has both, so it could be appendicitis. Said to go to the ER if those things happened.”

  “Tegan called?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No. I called him and left a weird message, then he had Rhian call me with instructions. I’m taking him in.”

  “OK. Since you didn’t want me to stay tonight Laney and I went to get some things in the city. It’ll take me just a little bit to get back.” Something scratched against the phone. “Laney, we have to go.” Then he came back to me and said, “I’m leaving right now. I’ll meet you there.” Then he ended the call. He knew I’d be taking Dylan to the ER closest to us. It also happened to be my preferred hospital.

  Knowing that Zac was on his way calmed me as we pulled into the ER then got Dylan out of his seat. He was so sad and moving so slowly that I wished I could pick him up and carry him, but he was just too big.

  After he was registered, we’d barely sat down when he was called back. Must’ve been a slow night for them.

  First, we went to the room where they took all of his vitals. His fever was down. That was good. Then we went through all of his symptoms. After they had everything, they took us back to the pediatric ER and got him set up in a bed and the doctor came in to give him the once-over.

  “We’ll run some bloodwork,” the doctor, who appeared to be in her early forties and all business, told me. “And if he has to use the bathroom, let’s get a urine sample. But I’m going to call down a surgical consult just to check him out. Make sure it’s not appendicitis.”

  “OK,” I said weakly because the idea of my baby having surgery of any kind turned my stomach.

 

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