I stood inside the vacant waiting room, the cold air blasting my face, and took a moment to get a grip. There was no way I’d be able to tell him anything if I were on the verge of passing out or throwing up. And after a solid minute of nothing but standing alone with my eyes closed, taking deep breaths, and giving myself a pep talk, I was ready.
Or at least I thought I was.
No one sat at the front desk, which meant there was a good chance he still had a patient in the back. After peeking down the hallway, I noticed his door cracked open and voices coming from inside—a man and a woman. So I calmly made my way toward his office, unable to hear much of what was said as I approached due to the blood rushing in my ears. But once I stood on the other side of the door, hand in the air to grab the knob, I froze.
“Shit, Noel . . . I don’t know how much longer I’ll last,” filtered through the crack, the words wrapped in a deep, desperate voice. It was followed up by a woman moaning, “That’s okay, baby.” Panting filled the quiet spaces in between, as well as the distinct sound of one person frantically slamming into another. But what made me abandon my mission was when he said, “Fuck, I love you so much.”
I couldn’t take any more. It was too much to handle. So I ran.
I ran, and I didn’t look back.
I couldn’t do this again.
Never ever again.
Chapter 14
Aaron
When it rained . . . it poured.
All day, I’d looked forward to getting done with work so I could see Kelsey. Last night had been intense, and I worried how she’d react today. I hadn’t stuck around last time to see how she was the next morning. There was no way to know if she had freaked out, if she’d thought about it, or if she had gone about her life as if nothing at all had happened the night before. So I had nothing to go on this time. The one thing I did know, though, was that I didn’t want her thinking I’d been gone all day to avoid her.
Because that wasn’t the case.
I’d been called to the hospital to evaluate a patient. It wasn’t unusual to have a doctor ask me to come in and give my opinion; I just wished they had picked another time to ask me. Then again, I doubted the woman had planned to be involved in a car accident today, so there was that. It was just frustrating because the last thing I wanted this evening was to get home late.
It had been one thing after another—my truck wouldn’t crank, so I’d had to take Noel’s car to the hospital, leaving her to call her husband to pick her up. After the consultation, I’d dropped off my old battery, bought a new one, and then swapped Noel’s car for my truck at the office. Now, it was almost eight, and I was finally climbing the steps to the apartment.
I found Kelsey on the couch, curled against the armrest with a blanket, the TV glowing in front of her. She barely made eye contact before returning her attention to the screen, not saying anything to me. That wasn’t a good sign. So I decided to ease my way into this, feel her out, evaluate the entire situation before coming to any conclusions.
“Oh, I love this movie.” I didn’t. In fact, it had to have been the worst film ever created, but if I had to pretend it was amazing just to be in the same room as her, then I’d make this movie sound like it was worthy of an Oscar. “Let me get the ice cream.”
“It’s all gone.”
I stilled behind the couch, where she couldn’t see me—as if she would’ve seen me had I been in front of her, considering she refused to take her eyes off the TV for two seconds. “You ate it all?” I asked with a laugh, trying to act like nothing was off with us, even though it would have been obvious to a stranger that something wasn’t right. “Want me to go to the gas station and see what they have? I can be back in, like, five minutes. Or I can run up to the store, but that might take me longer. You’re about to get to the good part.”
“I don’t care, Aaron. Do what you want.” There was something in her voice that I couldn’t ignore. It called to me, drawing me closer until I was on the couch next to her, and once I was close enough, it was impossible to miss the glassy appearance of her eyes, even without her looking at me.
I pinched her chin between my fingers and eased her neck to the side, forcing her to face me. “What happened? Are you okay?”
My throat closed up at the possibility I had caused this. Whether it was what we’d done last night or my absence all day, I was to blame. But what worried me the most was how closed off she seemed. If I couldn’t get her to open up to me, I wouldn’t be able to make it right.
“Do you remember me telling you about my ex? The cop who was married?”
My face flamed with heat, anger burning within me at the mere thought of that douche. “Yeah. What about him? Did you run into him again today? What’d he do?”
She shook her head slowly and dropped her gaze to her lap. “Nothing. And no, I didn’t see him.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“So I told you that we were together for two years. That’s two Christmases, two sets of birthdays—his and mine. Two Valentine’s Days, two Thanksgivings, two of everything. There wasn’t a holiday in those two years that I didn’t see him. There were many nights he stayed with me. Weekends he didn’t leave other than to go to work, but he’d come back to my place and fall asleep with me in his arms.” She paused to take a deep breath, the raw emotions from dredging this up pooling in her eyes.
I grabbed her hand to offer her support or comfort . . . yet she yanked it away.
When she continued with her story, she made sure to meet my gaze, contempt shooting daggers at me while she spoke. “We had talked about marriage, about kids. We even discussed a destination wedding, possibly going to the Caribbean or Hawaii. He’d told me he wanted three kids, and I told him I only wanted one . . . even though I would’ve had as many as he wanted.”
My heart ached with every word that fell from her lips, but I didn’t do or say anything. I simply let her get it out, let her lay it all on the table so I could figure out what she needed from me. As of right now, she clearly wasn’t interested in anything I could offer.
“So imagine my surprise when I learned that he was married—had been married the entire time we were together. I felt like an utter fool. But the worst part was that I didn’t leave him when I found out. I confronted him, we fought about it, and in the end, had he told me that he would leave her, I would’ve stayed.” Kelsey wiped an errant tear from her cheek. “He made me weak. He made me stupid. And because of him, I swore I’d never allow myself to be that vulnerable with someone else ever again.”
“That doesn’t make you weak or stupid. People do all kinds of things for love—or should I say the interpretation of such, since it’s nothing more than endorphins and emotions that create the concept of love. I’m sure most people would’ve been willing to stick around in that same situation, Kelsey.”
She glared at me, making me retrace every word I’d spoken in case I had said something offensive without realizing it. “I was the other woman, and even if she had been the other woman, it wouldn’t have changed anything. I was willing to stay with a cheater, someone who had no problem lying to my face. That’s weak, Aaron.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, because it seemed she wasn’t happy with anything I could come up with to justify her actions. So instead, I chose to sit there and listen until she was absolutely done talking.
“After I confronted him about it, he told me that he wasn’t happy with her. That she never wanted kids and he did. I heard about what a bitch she was to him all the time, and how nothing he ever did was good enough. I felt bad for him. I wanted him to leave her—not necessarily for me, but because he was a good person who deserved better than that.”
“I take it he didn’t leave her?”
She shook her head yet chose to answer anyway. “He stayed because she had money. He was a cop, so it wasn’t like he was bringing home the bacon. She came from old money, and I guess he wasn’t willing to give up the bank account, no matter h
ow miserable he was with her. It wasn’t until later that I started finding out more of the truth than he’d let on. She wasn’t a bitch. Oh, and they didn’t have kids because he had gotten snipped before they got married. From what I’ve heard, she actually wanted a baby and had even contemplated adoption. He’s the one who said no.”
“So everything he told you was a lie?”
“Pretty much. He had two different Facebook accounts, both with super high privacy settings to keep either of us from finding out about the other. The one I knew of had tons of pictures of us together. And apparently, the one she knew of was filled with photos and posts of her. It was like he knew exactly what he was doing, playing us both, using his job as a way to keep us from finding out where he was sleeping at night. I wanted to tell her, and I almost did, but he reminded me of what that would look like to everyone. No one would believe for one second that I didn’t know about her. I’d be dismissed as the woman he didn’t choose, the one he didn’t leave his wife for. And because of that, it’d look like the only reason I told her was to get back at him.”
The more she explained about this asshole, the worse I hated him. And I hadn’t thought I could hate him more after finding out he’d been married while seeing Kelsey. Apparently, I was wrong . . . because I’d found a new level of loathing.
“I’m not sure where this is all coming from, Kelsey.”
She sighed and stood from the couch. “I just wanted to let you know that no matter what has happened between us, my mind hasn’t changed. I still have no desire to get married. I don’t wanna play house and raise babies with anyone.”
“Is this about last night?” I stood and followed her, stopping a couple of feet behind her when she reached her bedroom door. “If it is, tell me so we can talk about it, please. Don’t just make assumptions and verbally slam a door in my face without giving me a chance to discuss it first.”
“Yes, it’s about last night. And the very first night. But I don’t want to talk about it, because we’re pretending it never happened. Right? Isn’t that what you said? Act as if we’ve never slept together? Well, that’s what I’m doing, Aaron. And I suggest you do the same.” She didn’t waste a second before closing herself off in her room, leaving me alone with more questions than answers.
Maybe it was good that I hadn’t seen her the day after the bachelorette party.
“You’re gonna have to start over, Aaron.” Noel moved around the waiting room, cleaning up after a busy day, while I sat in a chair and listened. “Last I knew, you were desperately trying to find somewhere else to live so you didn’t have to move in with the—and I quote—man-hater. Now you’re asking for advice on wooing her? How do you go from wanting nothing to do with her to wanting to make her like you?”
“I never said woo. That word would never come out of my mouth.”
She perched her fists on her hips and glared at me. “What word you used or didn’t use is irrelevant, asshole.” Thank God for the smile on her lips and slight lilt of humor in her tone. “How long have you lived with her?”
“Almost five weeks.”
“And how many times have you slept with her?”
Nothing got past her. I felt bad for her husband. “Twice . . . including the first time, which shouldn’t really count because I didn’t know who she was at the time. The other one happened a little over a week ago, and let’s just say that didn’t turn out so well.”
“I told you this would happen.” She didn’t have to look at me to make her point. Her eye roll was implied. “But you assured me it wouldn’t. You said she hated men, and she was your best friend’s little cousin. But I know you, Aaron.” Her stare literally pinned me to my seat, making it impossible to move.
“Can we skip the I told you sos? It just kind of happened. She got upset last week at dinner when Tatum told everyone she’s pregnant. Her mom and sister made her feel like shit, and when we got home, she made a comment about how her mom would love Tatum’s baby more than her own.”
“More than Kelsey’s?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know Kelsey was pregnant.”
“She’s not.”
Noel plopped into a chair in front of me with narrowed eyes and a cocked head. “Then why’s she upset about a baby she’s not even having? I’m highly confused here, Aaron.”
“It was more hypothetical. Like if she were to ever have a baby, it would just be a baby to everyone. No one cares who the mother is or how they’re related to it. I guess her mom has been making comments about her settling down and having a family, and now that Tatum’s fulfilling that role, she doesn’t care what Kelsey does. That’s her interpretation of it, at least.”
“So how did that lead to sex for the second time?”
This would’ve been much easier to explain to Jason, considering he knew about the role-playing concept from the first time. Now that I knew Kelsey was his cousin, there was no way I’d go to him about this. Which left me with either filling Noel in on the bachelorette party or keeping the entire thing vague. I doubted she’d be able to help me if she didn’t have the details . . . so I decided to start from the beginning.
“And that’s how we wound up in bed for the second time.”
She stared at me with wide, blinking eyes, a combination of disgust and mortification on her face. “There’s something severely wrong with you, Aaron. I’m concerned. The first, sure. I can kind of understand how that might’ve happened. But this time? Who in their right mind gets off on the thought of knocking someone up?”
I shrugged, having figured this would be her reaction. It was why I hadn’t wanted to go into the whole story with her, but I doubted she’d be able to offer much advice without it. And now that she’d basically condemned me in my own office, I wished I’d never told her in the first place. No one would understand, because I doubted many people were in my shoes. She certainly wasn’t. “You should ask your husband. I bet the idea of you carrying his baby turns him on.”
She softened a little bit. But that didn’t last long. “Okay, but we’re married. And we’re trying to get pregnant. Of course the idea of me having his child would excite him . . . but I doubt it would make him wanna have sex with me.”
“You’d be surprised. You should text him and ask.”
Even though she rolled her eyes and laughed at me, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and began to tap on the screen while carrying on with her conversation with me. “Regardless, you aren’t married to her. You aren’t in love with her. So your theory is flawed.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
After sending her text, she met my eyes again. This time, they were soft, full of sympathy—which I hated. “You’re in love with the idea of being in love. That’s dangerous, Aaron. It can’t just be anybody, but it’s like you’re too impatient to let things naturally happen.”
I pushed out of the chair and walked around her toward my office. “Forget it.”
I’d learned this lesson before, but it seemed I needed a refresher course—never tell a woman to forget it. She wouldn’t. Never mind should also never be uttered to a female. All it did was make them more interested in your business. And this time, it led Noel into my office with her arms crossed and face pinched with that “don’t brush me off and then walk away” expression.
“What am I missing here, Aaron? You slept with the girl twice; both times were fulfilling some sort of fantasy, whether it was hers, yours, or somewhere in between. Either way, it wasn’t real, yet you seem to have missed that part.”
“I haven’t missed any part, Noel. I know it wasn’t real, okay? I’m not confused about anything—I’m not in love with her, and she’s not having my baby. I’m not delusional.” That could be argued by some, but that was a moot point. “I just needed advice on how to get her to talk to me. Prior to last Monday night, we were good. We joked, spent time together, watched movies on the couch while eating ice cream from the carton. But now . . . she can’t stand to be in the same r
oom as me.”
“So this has been going on for a week?”
“Yes. The only time she talks to me is when she finds new houses for me to look at. And the conversations aren’t even pleasant. I feel like she’s telling me I need to find something soon and get out of her apartment.”
Noel’s brows dipped. “She wasn’t ever pushy before?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “She’d let me know when she found something, but we’d always go together to look at them. Granted, there weren’t many that I wanted to see, but at least she drove with me, and we’d walk through the houses together. She doesn’t even do that anymore. Now, it’s just, ‘Here, let me know if you need the Realtor’s info for any of these,’ and then she’s gone, locked in her room where she’s spent the last week.”
“And this all happened after the night you had sex?”
“Yes. I came home that next day from work—which was the day I had to go to the hospital and my truck broke down, and then I had to get a battery on my way home and swap your car for mine after getting mine to crank. It was, like, eight o’clock before I got home, so I don’t know if she thinks I was avoiding her or what. I don’t have a clue what to do or how to fix it. Which is why I came to you . . . not to get a lecture about how fucked up I am.”
She lowered herself into the chair across from my desk and gestured for me to do the same. And once I sat next to her, she relaxed in her seat, her expression soft and comforting. “Start from the beginning, Aaron. Tell me everything.”
“I’m not sure, could be wrong, but I believe the sauce is supposed to go in the pasta. Not on the floor.” I glanced down at Noel, who was currently on her hands and knees in my kitchen, cleaning alfredo sauce off the tile while I worked at getting the splatter off my work pants.
After telling Noel everything yesterday, she’d offered to help me cook Kelsey dinner tonight. We’d rushed to leave the office, making sure we gave ourselves enough time to get everything done before Kelsey came home from work.
The Secret Baby Page 16
