Jared pushed himself off the couch. “I’ve made up my mind, Callie. Your sister and then you kept me out of my son’s life for whatever misguided reasons you had. I’ll never get those years back, but I definitely plan to be in his life from now on.”
Without giving me a backward glance, he stalked out of the living room. A few seconds later, the apartment door clicked shut.
In the end, after everything was said and done, everyone had left me. Alexis. My parents. My ex-boyfriend.
And soon Logan and Jared would be added to the list—and I would lose everything that mattered to me.
Chapter 20
Callie
In the staff locker room the next day, I stripped my uniform off and changed into my jeans and T-shirt.
“Any big plans for tonight?” Beckie asked, even though she already knew the answer. In the years she’d known me, I never had big plans for the night. The only exception was when I’d celebrated mine or Logan’s birthday with pizza and cake.
“Logan’s taking Jared to visit Nolan Kincaid and his girlfriend’s puppy. So I’m watching a movie till they get back.” And eating a container of ice cream.
Ice cream was supposed to be great if you were dealing with a broken heart because a boyfriend dumped you or had been caught cheating on you. What about when the guy you loved discovered your son was really his, and decided that you no longer fit in his son’s life the way you used to? Would ice cream fix that kind of broken heart too?
As luck would have it, I’d bought a container of triple fudge chocolate supreme the other day. I was all set for a fun-filled night.
“You really need to get out more,” Beckie said. When I opened my mouth to argue, she rushed out with, “I mean date. You need to find a great guy who makes you happy.”
“I’m happy.” This would’ve sounded more convincing if I hadn’t grumbled it. “I am, really.”
She shook her head. “No, what you are is overworked. You work here full-time, you take classes online, you work as a graphic designer on the side, you’re taking a sign language class, and you have a son. You need more fun in your life.”
“Logan and I do lots of fun things together.” Just not as much as we would have liked. Even the trip to Disneyland, which I’d idiotically blurted out that he and I would do last weekend, had been postponed indefinitely. But now that Jared planned to take Logan from me, “indefinitely” had become “permanently.”
From the way Beckie sadly shook her head, I had a feeling that either she disagreed with me or my interpretation of her words wasn’t quite what she’d meant—or a combination of the two.
Before she had a chance to list all the fun things missing from my life, I grabbed my backpack and hightailed it from the staff room.
The door of the diner hadn’t even shut behind me when an enthusiastic Logan came racing at me from nowhere and hugged me. “Hey, what are you doing here? Weren’t you guys going to see the puppy?”
“We are,” Logan said. “You said you come with us.”
He was right, I had said that, but after everything that had happened between me and Jared last night, I figured I was uninvited.
Or maybe I had just hoped I was, because the idea of spending the afternoon with Jared sounded like the worst possible idea in the arena of bad ideas.
My mouth twitched with the urge to tell him I couldn’t, but then I realized I needed to make the most of the few precious moments I had left with Logan. Soon I’d be nothing more than Auntie Callie, and I didn’t know if that meant I’d still have visitation rights.
I probably should hire a lawyer to find out.
I let Logan lead me to Jared’s car. The booster seat was a different model than the one in my car. He must have bought one. I looked at Jared, eyes wide.
Understanding where my thoughts were, Jared answered, voice low so that Logan would be less likely to overhear him, “I haven’t told him yet.”
I nodded. It was up to Jared as to when he wanted to break the news to Logan. He was on his own for that. I’d be there for Logan, of course, but that was about it.
The car ride over to Nolan and his girlfriend’s home was quiet, if you could call an excited four-year-old who was about to play with a puppy quiet. The journey couldn’t end soon enough for him.
At the lead singer’s house, a modest two-story home in a decent neighborhood, we parked on the street and climbed out. Jared let Logan ring the doorbell, and a small barking noise greeted us.
Logan pointed at the door, a huge grin on his face. “Puppy!”
The smile on my face at seeing him this happy was as wide as his.
The door opened a moment later to reveal the hottest guy I’d ever seen. Well, second-hottest after Jared, but considering how mad I was at him, he didn’t count.
“You have to excuse Rocky,” Nolan said. “We’re still training him.” He crouched to Logan’s height and held up his hand for Logan to high-five. “You ready to meet him?”
It was a good thing Logan’s head was securely attached to his neck, otherwise it might’ve fallen off from how fast he was nodding.
Nolan opened the door wider to reveal a beautiful woman with long dark hair in jeans and a purple Pushing Limits T-shirt. She was kneeling and trying to restrain an excited fluffball from charging at us. One hand was gripping his collar, the other held against his chest.
My heart melted at the sight of the puppy. It hadn’t stood a chance, if truth be told.
“Hi, Logan.” The woman smiled in a way that told me the two were already acquainted. “You want to pet Rocky?”
I knelt next to Logan and held out my hand, showing him how to approach a dog. The little furball sniffed and licked my knuckles. Logan giggled.
“How old is he?” I asked her.
“Nine weeks.”
“He’s adorable.”
“Adorable and a handful,” she said, “but I’m glad we have him. Now I have someone to keep me company when the guys are on tour. I’m Hailey, by the way.”
“Hi. I’m Callie.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you. Jared said you guys have known each other since you were kids.”
“That’s true. How did you and Nolan meet?”
“Same deal. We were once best friends, but it wasn’t until he returned home last December that things between us changed.” The look she gave her boyfriend, who was talking to Jared, said it all. She was deeply in love with him, and from the look he gave her in return, the feeling was mutual.
Rocky licked Logan’s hand, and he giggled in surprise. Hailey showed him how the puppy liked to be stroked. Forget Disneyland—Logan had found his new happy place.
Maybe, if he was lucky, Jared would get him a puppy.
I couldn’t tell if Jared had already told Nolan and Hailey the truth about Logan. If she did know, she said nothing that would give it away.
The puppy jumped up against Logan’s legs, and he laughed again. I retrieved my smartphone from my purse and shot a few photos. At least I’d have those once he was gone.
Tears welled up. I blinked them away.
“Rocky, no jumping,” Hailey said, pushing the energetic puppy back down. “How ’bout we go outside? Maybe you can get Rocky to play catch with you, Logan.”
Their backyard wasn’t huge, mostly just grass and some flowers and shrubbery around the outside, along the fence. But it had plenty of room for a young puppy and four-year-old boy to play in. Hailey gave Logan Rocky’s favorite ball and we watched them run around. Logan’s throwing arm needed a little work, but Rocky didn’t care. He bounded after it and tried to pick it up in his mouth.
While they played, Hailey and I talked. Any other time, under different circumstances, it was easy to see that she and I could’ve been good friends. But now that the situation between Jared and me had changed, it would never happen. Her boyfriend was Jared’s best friend and bandmate, which meant she had to be on Jared’s side—even if she wasn’t.
A hand rested against my lo
wer back, and I startled. “I have a feeling he’ll now expect me to get him a puppy,” Jared said, his mouth close to my ear. A shiver of desire shuddered through my body. Stupid, traitorous body.
“I suspect you’re right,” I replied in as cheerful a voice as I could muster, given the situation between us. “Then he’ll have someone to keep him company while you’re touring.”
The hand on my back jerked away, as if Jared had just realized he’d accidentally placed it there. “It’s not like I’m leaving him alone in the apartment.”
Yeah, but you’d be leaving him with your family instead of the only mother he’s ever known. The words hovered at the tip of my tongue, but I needed to keep things civil between us. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. It’s just Hailey said she’s happy to have Rocky to keep her company while the band’s away touring.”
Hailey returned from retrieving the ball from a bush. “Nolan said you guys are going to Disneyland tomorrow. I’ve always wanted to go there.” She looked longingly at her boyfriend, standing next to her.
“We are?” My gaze shot to Jared. He threw the ball for Rocky and Logan to chase after.
“I’m taking Logan since he wants to go,” he said.
“And when exactly were you going to ask me?” My throat closed up, shrinking to the width of a straw, making it hard to squeeze out the last words. He was already pushing me out of Logan’s life.
“You can come with us if you want.”
Now if only it had sounded like he actually meant it.
I focused my attention on Logan, but I could feel the quizzical gazes aimed at Jared and me.
“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” I asked Hailey.
“No, go ahead.” She told me where to find it.
I didn’t really have to go. I just needed several minutes on my own to pull myself together. I didn’t need Logan to witness me falling apart.
The bathroom was decorated in a soothing blend of earth tones, but it wasn’t enough to help with the turbulent emotions inside me. I slid down the wall and pulled my knees to my chest.
Yesterday, after I’d told Jared what had happened to my family, I’d thought that I’d be dealing with a drought of tears for the next twelve months, after almost drowning Jared with how much I’d cried.
I was wrong.
Chapter 21
Jared
“What’s going on with you and Callie?” Nolan asked as soon as the back door shut behind him.
I slipped my lucky guitar pick from my pocket and toyed with it. Everything was going to shit and I had no idea what to do about it. “There’s nothing going on. She’s a friend, that’s all.” A friend who, until her betrayal, had felt like something more than a friend. Thoughts about her—some X-rated—had constantly paraded through my head ever since the kiss.
Even after I’d discovered the truth about Logan.
“Right. So why are you taking her son to Disneyland without discussing it with her first, and then making it clear that she isn’t welcome to join you guys?”
“I told her she could come if she wanted.”
Nolan’s eyebrows arched up in that you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me way of his. “I’ve dealt with blizzards warmer than how you just treated her. And again, why are you taking her son to Disneyland?”
I checked to make sure Logan was busy. I had no idea how I was going to tell the four-year-old that he was my son, but this wasn’t when and how I’d planned for it to happen. He was still running around the lawn, throwing the ball for Rocky, then racing after it, giggling. He wasn’t the only one enjoying himself. Rocky was having as much fun with the game as Logan.
“That’s the thing,” I said, keeping my voice down so he couldn’t hear me. “Logan isn’t her son. He’s mine.”
For a couple of seconds Nolan and Hailey just stared me, at a loss for words. I knew the feeling.
A crow cawed from a nearby tree, eager to share some unwanted advice. It was Nolan who finally broke the silence between us. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I briefly told them about Alexis and what she had told me, and then how I’d discovered Logan’s birth certificate. I also pointed out that Callie had known all this time and had kept the truth from me. “The DNA test came back. He’s my son.”
“Sounds like she was only trying to protect him,” Hailey said, her expression suggesting she would’ve done the same. “You can’t blame her for that. But anyone can tell that she cares deeply about you. Maybe she thought she was doing the right thing for him and for you.”
I scoffed. “Callie doesn’t care deeply for me. We hadn’t even seen or talked to each other for five years until I bumped into her and Logan in the grocery store.”
“You’re wrong. I’ve seen how she looks at you. Even after everything that’s going on between you two when it comes to Logan, she looks at you like you’re the world to her.”
“That’s crazy. I was fooling around with her sister back when I was in high school. Callie and I were just friends. Nothing like you and Nolan. She was more like a little sister.” Except now the last thing I would have considered her to be was a little sister, especially my own. Far from it.
“What’s going to happen now that you know Logan’s your son?” Hailey asked. “Will Callie still be his mother?”
“She’s not his mother. She’s his aunt.”
“As far as Logan is concerned, she’s his mother. What are you planning to do? Tear him away from the only mother he remembers?”
“Well…no. Callie can still visit him.”
“As his aunt?” Nolan said. It wasn’t really a question.
“Of course as his aunt,” I said, a little more forcefully than I had meant to. “His biological mother is dead.”
Hailey reached for Nolan’s hand, her face pale. “And so is Callie’s mother. And so are her father and sister. What about her grandparents or other relatives? Do any of them live in L.A.?”
“No. Her grandparents died years ago.”
“So you’ll take away the only family she has left. How do you think she feels about that?”
“She’ll still get to see him.” But even as I said it, I knew Hailey was right. Family had always been important to Callie, like mine was to me. She could have given Logan up for adoption right after his mother had died. It would’ve made her life simpler and she wouldn’t have been forced to give up everything she had worked hard for. But she had sacrificed everything—for the only family she had left.
“How are you planning to tell Logan?” Nolan asked.
Logan was still laughing at the puppy’s antics, oblivious to the conversation about him and his future.
“I have no idea, but I’ll have to tell him at some point.”
“I wouldn’t tell him yet,” Hailey said. “Spend more time with him. Be father and son. Show Callie that you’ll be the kind of father Logan deserves. And once you tell him the truth, give him time to adjust before you remove him from the only home he’s known…especially since Callie won’t be a major part of his life anymore. Think about what he needs over what you want.”
Hailey’s words were like a knock to the head. No wonder Callie had looked so panicked. It wasn’t because she’d been caught in a lie. Her life would be torn apart all over again, and this time I was the one responsible for her pain.
Chapter 22
Callie
It was official. My butt was numb from sitting on the bathroom floor for so long. How long? God knows. But long enough for everyone to wonder if I had an exotic gastrointestinal disease that required a ridiculous amount of time in the bathroom.
A knock on the door interrupted my pity party for one. “Callie, are you okay?” Jared asked.
Define “okay.” “Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.” Or a hundred and fifty.
“Can I come in?”
“I’m busy.”
“On the floor?”
And that was what happens when you had a pity party on the floor next
to the door. At least if I had enjoyed it from the toilet seat, I could have easily pulled off the GI disease excuse.
Knowing he wouldn’t leave until I let him in, I reached up and unlocked the door. Then I scooted out of the way.
He entered and lowered himself onto the cold tile floor next to me. “Comfy?”
“Very.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been an ass. I guess I was in shock, but that didn’t give me the right to act that way.”
I sniffed. “You’re right. You were an ass.” And a few other names I could think of that would’ve shocked my mother, had she still been alive.
He let out a sharp breath, as if gathering his thoughts. “When she first told me she was pregnant, I did what any other twenty-one-year-old guy would do—I panicked. I had goals and they didn’t involve a baby, at least not yet. But the truth is that even though I didn’t love your sister, I would’ve been there for her and our child. I would have loved our child. Things would have been challenging, but I’m positive we would’ve figured it out.
“But then two days later she told me that she couldn’t go through with it. She had aborted the baby. She hadn’t even talked to me first. She told me it was her choice and I had no say in it. I was angry. I called her a selfish bitch. I said all kinds of things I shouldn’t have.”
I fiddled with the wet tissue in my hand, unsure what to say. Did I think my sister was a selfish bitch? Far from it. She had been the sweetest, most generous person that I knew.
“She did what she believed was best for you and your unborn child,” I told him.
“Right, she did,” he said. From his tone, it was clear he believed that as much as he believed in Santa.
“If she’d known the kind of father you would’ve been, the father I’ve seen you be with Logan, she would’ve done everything differently.” If only she hadn’t been so blinded by her own insecurities when it came to Jared! Things could’ve been so different, and she might still be alive.
The disbelief in Jared’s tone settled on his face. He shifted slightly, his arm brushing mine. A hum buzzed through my body, radiating from that spot. I gasped softly, but not enough for him to realize what his touch did to me. He never needed to know that.
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