I just stared.
I stared and looked at her too, wondering what the hell I was supposed to think.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. Foolish question. Very foolish question.
She laughed again. “I don’t know if I should answer that, or how I’d give you the PG-rated version of that story. Did you need something? Gilly’s not here.”
“No. I don’t need anything.” My throat closed up and tears stung the backs of my eyes.
What the hell was I supposed to think besides what it looked like?
Giselle answering the door wearing nothing but Gilly’s shirt tended to say a whole lot.
“Well, I’ll let him know you stopped by.” She nodded and closed the door in my face.
I allowed the tear that had been building to run down my cheek, and in despair, I drove back home.
Mia was there when I got in. She took one look at me and knew something was wrong.
When I told her what happened, she pressed her lips together and sighed.
She sat me down on the sofa in the living room, but I was so antsy I had to stand. I paced around the room, my mind a mess.
Gilly was with Giselle last night, or this morning, or whenever it was.
They were back together.
That was what it looked like.
It was…
So, why couldn’t my brain accept it? It was fact staring me right in the face. Fact. She was in his house, wearing his clothes. How did she get in the house if he didn’t let her in?
That part was irrelevant. It was the whole sleeping together part.
“What are you thinking, Abby?” Mia asked.
“Everything. Mia, why does something feel not quite right to me? Why am I holding on to hope when it’s clear they’re back together?” The tears came now. “Mia, he came here just last night, and we talked. It was clear he wanted to be with me. He said he’d be there for me no matter what I chose, and now this? Mia, he told me if there had been me back then, there wouldn’t have been her, or anyone else. It doesn’t make sense.”
Mia sighed again and grimaced. She looked like she was considering something.
“What, Mia? Share, please. I’m going nuts here. I totally am.”
“Abby, maybe I want to see you and Gilly together so bad that I’m clutching on to straws. I’m clutching on to straws because my mind is telling me it doesn’t make sense either. I’m gonna go on the limb and strip away the romantic side of you two and think of you as friends first and say I don’t think Gilly would hurt you like that. He wouldn’t say those kinds of words to you and hop in bed with his ex, either the same day or the next day, or ever. At least not until he spoke to you and he knew you guys were done. You said it yourself. He told you if there’d been you, there would never have been her or anyone else. So, Abby, maybe it doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t make sense.”
I took her words in, and warmth filled my heart.
She was right. I knew what I saw and knew what it looked like, but it didn’t mean that was how it was. Not until he told me so. Giselle was who she was, who I classed as the love of Gilly’s life. However, there was no way he would hurt me the way I thought it looked. Not even with her.
Before I’d become the girlfriend, I was the best friend. Back in high school, when I had to bite the bullet and accept that I couldn’t be this clingy person who leeched onto him, especially when he was in a relationship, he always did something to acknowledge me and let me know I was important to him. It could have been a small thing. As small as a little look. A look of confirmation or acknowledgement first before anyone else.
I was the best friend, and even when I didn’t take notice, he always put me first.
Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I rose above my fears.
“I have to go see him.” I nodded with conviction.
Mia smiled. “You go see him, Abby, and sort this thing out.”
I took one step forward and stopped short as a wave of something I couldn’t quite describe washed over me and drained me. It syphoned the energy from my body, and the room spun.
It spun right around along with Mia, catching me off guard.
“Mia, I…” I tried to grab for something, anything, but lightheadedness took me, and then I was falling.
“Abby!” Mia cried.
Her panicked voice filled the room, but darkness took me as I blacked out.
Chapter 16
Gilly
* * *
Distraction…
It was a friend when you needed it to be. I’d found, though, that there were some things in this world that I couldn’t be distracted from.
Last night, when I gave Abby the options again, I’d feared she’d go with B.
If she did, I didn’t know what I would be like. It crushed me to think of making love to her and not being together. Not having her the way we were, and then it would stop when she got pregnant. Mission accomplished.
Then she’d have the baby and I would just be the father in the background. I wouldn’t have her. She would just be my friend who’d had my child, and I’d find it difficult to move on.
That was on my damn mind all through last night and this morning when I left to train.
Today, Coach Simpson came by so he could lay out our schedule for the period prior to the start of training season and then when it started.
I found myself thinking of Abby and how I’d see her. The plans looked just as badass as last year because the goal was to hold on to our title for dear life.
We had a great team, and that meant we had a chance. I wanted to seize that chance to be the best, just as good or better than I had been this year.
That was my distraction for the most part. Always football in some aspect or way.
I’d taken my bike out today, and after training, I went out to the woods to think. It was nearly late afternoon when I got home. Going to the woods was supposed to be my attempt to fill my day with something to do.
The idea of giving someone time and space to think and figure things out meant you weren’t in their face every minute trying to get an answer. An answer I wanted badly.
I went straight up to my room when I got home but stopped at the door when I sensed someone was inside.
I would pity the fucker who thought he could break into my house. I really would. Fans had been known to do all kinds of crazy shit, like steal players’ underwear and crap like that. It hadn’t happened to me in my house before, but I did have a fan steal my jockstrap and sell it on eBay for two grand. Then she went to the press with the story and got paid for that too.
Since I wasn’t about pussyfooting around in my own house, and definitely not when I was pissed and in this state of angst over Abby, I pushed the door in.
I pushed the door right in. When it flung open, my gaze landed on Giselle in my bed. I growled.
She’d sat up with the sheet pulled up to cover her breasts, but it was clear she was naked under there.
She smiled when she saw me.
“What the fuck is this?” I barked.
I now believed wholeheartedly that the universe was out to get me. Had to be that because fuck, fucking fuck, what the hell was this?
Her smile widened. “Me, silly. I was wondering if you’d left the country. Didn’t seem like you were ever coming home.”
“How’d you get inside my house, Giselle?” I swore this could be classified as insane. No normal person would do this.
“Spare key. You always keep it behind the porchlights.”
“Get out.” I wouldn’t normally speak to a woman in that way, but she asked for it.
“What? Gilly, stop this. You should join me.” She cooed.
“Giselle, you stop this. I told you we’re done, and you mess everything up for me with Abby. I saw you on the bridge by the docks. You saw us, saw we were together, and you set out to fuck with me. What the hell is wrong with you?”
She slipped off the bed, wrapped the sheet around
herself, and marched over to me.
“Clearly, I’m trying to make you see I want you back. Gilly, you and I made sense.”
“Don’t talk that bullshit to me, Giselle. You got with me after I made a name for myself with The Centaurs. You left me and jumped to the next rich guy, and the next. Now you’re back, and you want to be with me because of my fame and recognition from the Super Bowl.” That was the plain truth.
“Gilly, you talk like you expect to have this candy-coated lifestyle. You can’t do better than me.”
“I have!” I yelled, stunning her.
She laughed. “You mean the pampered princess of a best friend? Please, surely, that must have been some sort of act of curiosity. We made sense. We were the power couple. Imagine us together again.” She reached for me, but I stepped back.
“It’s not going to happen. Fucking hell, Giselle, this is the last time I tell you it’s done. I mean it. Don’t cross me again. Don’t do it.” I bared my teeth. I couldn’t believe the craziness of this.
She seemed to get the message because her eyes darkened with fury. “You think you can just dismiss me? Just like that?”
“I just did.”
“Well, wow, you certainly grew a pair of balls.” She moved away from me and walked over to the chair by the bedside to pick up her clothes. She grabbed them and moved past me but stopped just before she was about to go down the stairs and looked at me like she’d just remembered something. “By the way, Abby says hi.”
My blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”
“She came by earlier. I tried to take a message, but she didn’t leave one. Told her I’d let you know she sends her regards. You should have seen her face when she looked me over wearing nothing but your shirt. I’m so glad I can think on my feet. When she pulled up outside, I knew exactly what would get rid of her.”
If she were a guy, I would have decked her. To sate the rage that roiled through my being I balled my fists and held them at my side. “Giselle, don’t look for me again. Get out of my house and my life.”
She looked like she wanted to throw some smart comeback at me but withheld.
She continued down the stairs, and I watched her. I watched in rage and disbelief.
A heavy sigh left my lips when I heard the front door close. My shoulders slumped with the weight of the fucking world as the realization of the new situation hit me. It hit me hard and weakened my soul with that helplessness I always hated.
That was it. She’d ruined me. Abby had only suspected I’d get back together with Giselle. If all that Giselle said happened, there wouldn’t be any conclusion to form. She’d think I slept with Giselle.
I bit down hard on my lip and breathed out a sigh of pure frustration.
I’d lost her. I’d lost her now, and I wouldn’t know what to say to get her back.
I reached for my phone in my back pocket to check if there were any messages, but what I saw were five missed calls from Mia.
Five missed calls I wasn’t sure why I didn’t get. Maybe my time in the woods had thrown the signal.
In panic, I called her back, and she answered straightaway.
“Mia, hey, I’m sorry I missed your calls.”
“Gilly, Abby’s in the hospital.” She said in a rush.
I was out the door before she could say another word. This was just like when we were eighteen.
I got a call back then too.
* * *
When I got to the hospital, Mia was talking with the doctor.
That first phone call I’d missed from Mia had come in nearly three hours ago. I could have kicked myself for missing it and going to the damn woods.
Mia smiled when I rushed up to her.
“Is she okay?” I asked. “What happened?”
“She fainted, and I couldn’t revive her. She’s okay now. You can go see her,” Mia explained with a gentle smile. “Let me take you to her room.”
We walked down the corridor.
Abby was in room ten. Her parents sat with her. My spirits lifted when I saw her sitting up on some pillows dressed in a white hospital tunic.
Her face lit up when she saw me.
“I’m sorry I got here late,” I said, rushing up to her.
I didn’t care who was watching, or what anyone thought, or what conclusion she’d come to from seeing Giselle at my house, but I kissed her.
“I’m okay,” she breathed, cupping my jaw. Her voice sounded weak.
“I think we’ll allow you guys some privacy,” her father said, giving me the same warmth in his smile her mother gave, and like the way I always took Abby’s hand, he took his wife’s and led her out. Mia followed.
As soon as the door closed, I turned back to Abby.
“Baby, what happened? Tell me what happened to you? Please don’t tell me you had some problem you cast off as a bad tummy ache or eating bad candy.”
Although her skin looked pale, a hint of color rushed to her cheeks.
“I’m… pregnant. Gilly, I’m pregnant,” she answered, and her face brightened again.
The combo of joy and shock that filled my entire body was paralyzing.
I searched her eyes and found I was unable to talk. I didn’t know what I’d expected after all these weeks of us trying, but hearing she was actually pregnant filled me with the kind of happiness I’d always heard people talk about but never thought I could have.
“Abby… we… you’re pregnant? We’re going to have a baby?” As I spoke the words, I still couldn’t quite believe it. It didn’t seem real.
A tear trickled down her cheek. She nodded, and it was only when she ran her finger over my jaw that I realized I was crying too.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried.
My mind went back to months ago, to the day of the Super Bowl. I remembered getting the ball and knowing if I could just get to the end zone, we’d win. The Centaurs would celebrate an epic win, and the ball was in my hands to make it happen.
As I ran that day and the crowd went wild with excitement, lightning took over my movements, and I did it. That touchdown was what I thought would be my greatest achievement in life.
It wasn’t. It was this moment as I looked at my girl pregnant with my baby.
I placed my hand to the flat of her stomach, looking at her in disbelief because she was so small, her waist so tiny.
“I’m three weeks. My blood pressure is super low, and I’m uber anemic. That was why I fainted. They want to keep me in for a few days,” she explained. “But I’m okay, and the baby’s okay too.”
I smiled at her. “Oh, Abby…”
“I know, it doesn’t feel real yet. Feels like everything’s about to change.”
And I would be there.
As I looked at her, the damn choices evaporated from my mind. If she decided she didn’t want to be with me, I’d spend the rest of my life getting her to trust me, getting her to believe that she was it for me.
I knew she loved me, and that was all I needed. That baby was mine, and that meant she was mine too.
I took both her hands into mine. “Abby, I know what happened with Giselle. I know what happened, and I’m sorry it did. I swear to you that nothing happened between us, and nothing ever will. I don’t want you to choose option B. I don’t even know why I gave you the option when all I wanted was you. I’ve always wanted you, and I won’t let you go. I won’t let you leave me even though I know you may think I’m guilty as sin for being with Giselle.”
To my surprise, she shook her head. “I don’t think that. I know what it looked like, but I know you actually wouldn’t hurt me that way. You said if there’d been me, there would never have been her. There is me, so she could never be. I’m sorry I fell apart and went on this stupid train all by myself.”
I smoothed my hand up her cheek. “You believe me, baby?”
“I do.” She nodded.
As she said that, I knew exactly want I was going to do.
Nothing was clearer to me
than the path that laid itself before me.
I lowered my mouth to kiss her and savored the taste of her on my lips. Sweet like honey and wild strawberries. Wild just like her. Wild just like us.
How we’d always been. The boy and the girl were now having their own baby.
I absolutely knew what I was going to do.
Chapter 17
Abby
* * *
Tonight was the last night I’d spend in this house.
Poor Mia. She now had the house to herself, and while on occasion she’d complained about how messy Taylor and I were, being the neat freak she was, she’d cried several times today.
My sister cried and couldn’t stop gushing on about how much she was going to miss me.
I cried too, both tears of sadness and joy.
It had been my idea to get this house together. Dad bought it for us as a present. We were all so excited to live together and saw it as a different version of when we’d lived at home with our parents.
We were like The Little Women with our own place. Now it was just Mia.
All I had left was a few bags of clothes, and that was me done.
That would all happen tomorrow.
Gilly appeared at my bedroom door with a smile on his face. He’d come by earlier to check on me. I didn’t expect him to come back, but then, he’d hardly left my side since I’d been released from the hospital last week.
We’d been moving my stuff, so I’d mostly stayed with him, but I’d spent time here too with Mia.
He had a bright smile on his face that brightened even more when he crossed to the window where I sat.
He pulled me into his lap as he lowered himself onto the bay seat.
I slipped my arms around him and got lost in looking at the masterpiece he was.
“I came to say good night.” His smile turned up a notch.
“I love that you came to see me.”
“Are you okay?”
I also loved that he asked me that same question a hundred times a day.
Pregnancy Scandal: Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County BK 2 Page 12
