Sold Short (Sidelined Book 3)

by Ainslie Paton

  Connor shook his head, dislodged his glasses and shoved them back up his nose with his index finger.

  Dev looked to Ana to see if she wanted him to weigh in. She’d half wanted him to wait in the car so he didn’t want to step in if she didn’t need him to. He couldn’t treat her like a kid anymore.

  “I’m having this baby,” Ana said, with such conviction it made Alex rock back in his chair. “I don’t need the father’s involvement, but he has a right to be involved if he wants.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” said Alex. “You waited to come to us with this. How is that fair?”

  “I waited because it’s my body, my decision and I wanted to be sure.”

  “Wasn’t planning on a kid,” said Gavin. “But you’ll need money, right?”

  “I’ll do fine and so will the baby.” She looked at Dev and he was so incredibly proud of her. “That’s why Dev is here. My brother will support us until I can do that myself. I don’t need money and you don’t need to worry about your kid’s welfare.”

  “Look, I don’t want to be the bad guy here, but Ana, this is, this is, me cago en la leche,” Alex finished with his head in his hands.

  “Not what anyone expected,” said Connor.

  “You’re sure you want to keep it, Ana?” said Gavin.

  “Your family aren’t forcing you into this,” said Alex. If he did hulk out he could break limbs easily. It was hard to imagine Ana and . . . stop trying to.

  “My parents aren’t speaking to me,” she said.

  “Shit, Ana.” The Dude got up and came to sit beside her. He put his arm around her. “We could do this together. I mean, we did already do it together, so you know, there’s precedent. We could make a pact, draw up a contract. Your baby is our baby.”

  Ana sighed. “None of us wanted this.”

  “Which is why we should all be involved. Don’t do the test. Don’t find out. What do you think, man?” Gavin said to Connor. “We could do this.”

  “You can’t fucking mi casa es su casa this, Gav,” said Alex. “It’s a fucking kid.” And Connor’s expression said never in a billion years will that work and that’s when Dev saw the last of Ana’s innocence peel away.

  There was a part of her who’d wanted the fairy story of the four of them making a family for the baby, where her own family had failed her. There’d been complete silence from their parents on the subject, as though Ana was a child they’d invented for fun and then put back in her box when she became tiresome. They’d all been avoiding Shush because they didn’t want to have to be the one who brought the Singhs into the issue. The situation was thoroughly borked.

  “Will you do the blood test, Gavin?” Ana said.

  With a slump to his shoulders, he kissed her cheek. “Sure, no worries. It has to be about what you want first. But you know you can trust us to be here for you.”

  And there it was, wisdom that Dev had lacked from a dude ten years younger, who didn’t cut his hair and liked woven wristlets a bit too much. If Dev had said something like that to Sarina, they wouldn’t be where they were today. Stalking each other and stumped by the barrier of the years between them when he’d been too much of a coward to go after what he wanted, and he was still wrestling with the decision she’d made.

  “I’ll do the test today,” said Connor.

  Alex stood. “Ana, if I’m the father, I can’t stand back. If you have my kid in your belly. I don’t know. Maybe we—”

  “Shut up, Alex. I’m not marrying you,” Ana said.

  And that was that.

  “I need to—” Alex threw his hands up and stalked out of the room.

  “Where’s he going?” said Dev.

  “To trash something,” said Connor.

  “We’ll have the test today, all of us. If I have to hold Alex down,” said Gavin. “Think he’s scared of needles.” He glanced across Ana at Dev. “Don’t hate on us. We all love Ana, we didn’t mean this to happen and we won’t abandon her.”

  Strangest meeting Dev had ever been to. He’d expected shouting and tears, some kind of refereeing he hoped he was up to; he got a lesson in maturity.

  Later over dinner, Rani made Ana speculate over her preferred candidate.

  “I wouldn’t choose any of them,” Ana said. She’d had two servings of pasta. All signs of her earlier illness had disappeared.

  “But if you had a preference?” Rani pressed.

  “I’d combine their DNA. Alex for his quick brain, but he has a temper.” Ana shook her head. “Scratch that, Alex for his body. Gavin because nothing fazes him and he’s impossible to dislike. He comes across like he’s not very sharp. It’s his secret weapon. Connor has been my friend the longest. He’s kind of quiet.”

  And Ana was kind of quiet about Connor.

  It’d been the Book who’d drawn Ana aside. Dev shouldn’t have listened, but no foul, it’s not like he was going to blast it out on social media. What the kid said made Ana cry, made Dev want to hug them both and call Alex back and be the something he trashed.

  Connor had held Ana’s hands and looked into her eyes with sincerity that was the bravest thing Dev had seen in a while. “Don’t look at the results, Ana. I’ve loved you since the day we met. Let it be me, and we can do this together,” he’d said.

  “Have to pick one,” said Rani.

  “How am I supposed to do that?” Ana said. Trouble was she’d already picked, and Rani would get that in a minute. “Plus it’s gross, like it’s a contest.”

  “Eenie, meenie. Wait.” Rani grinned.

  “Reid drew up a decision matrix,” Dev said, and in attempting to save Ana from Rani’s scrutiny, opened the window for a sharp-eyed assessment of his own business.

  “Is Owen doing IVF?” said Rani.

  If Sarina was pregnant they’d have to know anyway. “Not full-on IVF, just the artificial insemination part, and it’s Sarina.”

  Rani narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought Owen had another partner?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with Owen, it’s Sarina, on her own.”

  “Sarina wants to have a baby by herself,” said Ana, and then laughed a little hysterically. She had a point, it was a fuck my life moment. Me cago en la leche.

  Rani toyed with the remains of the Caprese salad. “Until you started up with Shush, I always wondered if you and Sarina had a thing.”

  “I haven’t started up with—”

  Ana pointed a fork at him. “Don’t even, Dev.”

  “We have to tell Shush,” he said. “You have to tell her,” he nudged Rani’s knee with his own. God help him, still a coward, but Shush needed to know from them before it got out some other way.

  She nudged him back. “Me? I’m the only one at this table with no reason to talk to Shush.”

  They both looked at Ana. “I’ve just faced down the three potential fathers of my kid. That’s my quota of hard for the day.”

  “I’ll tell Shush if you come to cricket this weekend,” he offered. He had to talk to Shush anyway; in the rush of change, he’d been a bad friend.

  “No.” That was Ana’s unshakeable answer on that topic.

  “You can’t hide from them forever.” She couldn’t let them win, and she was a great wicketkeeper.

  “But I don’t have to put myself in their line of sight.”

  Rani picked up her plate and stacked it on Dev’s. “Not that they’d look at you anyway. Oh, well Dad wouldn’t look at you, and Mom would look at you as if you killed her puppy.”

  Ana passed her plate. “I am the puppy.”

  It shouldn’t have been funny. They laughed until Rani pig-snorted, and Ana cried, but this time not because she was pregnant by accident and a guy she liked a lot had made her an offer she didn’t know what to do with.

  Or maybe because of all that.

  No time like the present. He sent Shush a text. Got time to talk? When he didn’t hear back, he cleaned up the kitchen and went to his home office to catch up on work. There was still no reply fro
m Shush when he got ready for bed. Right as his head hit the pillow, there was a tap on his door.

  He broke the bed to door open speed record. “Are you all right?” He went from resting to ridiculous in zero time with Ana; he had to get a handle on that.

  “I’m fine.” She pushed him back to the bed and sat cross-legged on the end of it.

  “So,” he said, settling in the same position facing her.

  “So, you were cool today. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” He’d entered a parallel universe in which Gavin, Alex, Connor and Ana were Owen, Reid, himself and Sarina and he was still coming to terms with it. What if he’d manned up with Sarina, taken a chance and declared himself, like Connor? He and Sarina could’ve been friends and lovers all this time, ready to start a family together.

  “What do you think about the idea of not finding out?”

  “Not knowing who the baby’s dad is?” That was Reid’s position, he knew his father’s name and what he looked like and didn’t want to know more. Sarina’s was the opposite. She’d know everything about her baby’s father but name and address. Reid had shown him Sarina’s donor shortlist. The detail on the candidates was impressively extensive. Enough to give your average luckier than most software engineer an instant inferiority complex. And that was before Connor schooled him in courage. “What do you think about it?”

  “For real, express an opinion, Dev. I just need to talk it out.”

  Hadn’t quite graduated from that school yet. “I guess I’m on the side of knowledge. But Reid couldn’t give a damn.”

  “Sarina selected off a list with lots of detail, right?”

  “From shoe size to favorite symphony. A scary amount of detail. And the donors are screened for all the things you’d rather avoid, like family histories of disease.”

  “I don’t even have that kind of detail.”

  “But you can find out if you ask.”

  She plucked at the bed covering, twisting her hand into the cotton. “I’m scared to find out.”

  He took a punt. “Are you into Connor?”

  She smoothed the cover. “I don’t know. I mean, Alex can be scary and he’s so focused it’s like he doesn’t have time for a life. Gav is so easygoing, he’s a sweetheart.”

  “And Connor?”

  “How do you know if you’re in love with someone?” Why didn’t she knee him in the nuts? It would be easier all round. “You’re not in love with Shush, but she thinks you are.”

  “She told you that?” Holy shit. That was worse, way worse than how he’d thought it was between them.

  Ana nodded. “I might be in love with Connor but he can’t mean what he says. It was just the shock, and I know you heard. If it’s not his baby, why would he care?”

  “I saw how he looked at you, Ana. Reid looks at Zarley like that. Owen looks at Cara the same way, as if there’s a whole part of them that’s more alive because they love each other.” Ana whimpered and Dev shuffled closer so that their bent knees touched.

  “I do love Connor, but I never told him and now I’m terrified he’s not the father, because I will have totally, utterly ruined my life.”

  “You think if you don’t find out, both of you can live with not knowing?”

  “No,” she said on a choked sob. He had no answers, but he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her into his chest. Her, “We might have been something,” was muffled by her tears and his t-shirt but thumped so loudly in his heart it hurt.

  Next morning, he had a text from Shush. You owe me lunch at Plus, and I’m collecting. Looked like he had a lunch date. He’d long promised her another visit to the office and it wasn’t like they’d have a public showdown.

  She arrived at midday and he gave her the standard tour, which included the development lab and a performance from Lego Leonard on the drums, and an intro to some of his team, including Arik who it turned out knew Shush from computer camp they’d gone to when they were eleven. Then they settled in the downstairs café where he’d have to take all the fun out of things.

  “You’re such a star, Dev.” She sipped a smoothie. “I mean I knew it, how could I not, but seeing this. No wonder Vikram wets himself over you.” She made a slurping sound through the straw and then hit him with. “What’s going on?”

  “You mean with us?”

  “With us, with everything. My folks say yours have fallen off the planet. And you’ve been avoiding me. What is it I don’t know?”

  “Ana is pregnant.”

  Shush put the empty smoothie container on the table so hard the lid popped off. “Holy, holy, holy shit. No. Wow. Oh, that explains it. Were you guys ever going to tell me?”

  “She needed time to adjust and the parents are basically shunning her.”

  “Oh Ana.”

  “She’s living with me now.”

  “Has she quit school? She can’t quit. Is it that guy she was keen on? What do I tell my ’rents?”

  “She’s not quitting. It’s complicated, talk to her, and I don’t know about your folks. Mine want to ignore the whole thing.”

  “I’m, wow.” Shush was recalibrating. “I thought you were angry with me because I keep pushing for us to happen.”

  “No, Shush. How could I be angry with you?”

  “I was angry with you.”

  “And you’re not now?” Things were complicated, he didn’t want to be on Shush’s shit list.

  “I didn’t know about Ana. That changes things. And I guess I always knew we were only fooling around.” She leaned over the table and ruffled his hair, knowing that would annoy him. “It was kind of cool to think how happy everyone else would’ve been about us though.”

  He finger-combed his hair back into place. “It can’t be about everyone else.”

  She groaned. “I worked that out.”

  “We’re still friends then?” The need for reassurance didn’t make him needy, did it? Probably. Crap. Courage school was still in session.

  “Yeah. I guess. Although maybe our parental units will divorce and then I might have to take a side.”

  “Take Ana’s side, she’s going to need you.”

  “All right, big shot. Us kids have to stick together, and besides you have the dirt on Arik.”

  He blinked at her. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, he’s cute. He was such a little smart-ass at computer camp but—”

  “No, I mean you’re over me already?”

  She kicked him under the table. “I saw your face at the restaurant. You came back to the table like you’d lost something important to you. Whoever you didn’t find at the hotel was the person who did that to you. And we don’t feel like that about each other.”

  Dev’s turn to feel the wow.

  “So Arik, is he single?”

  NINETEEN

  Sarina very nearly had sex with Dev in the front seat of a Hudson Hornet Super Hollywood a night ago, and now here he was having lunch with the girl he said he wasn’t involved with. Last time Sarina saw Shush was years ago at a party Dev gave for his parents’ wedding anniversary. She’d forgotten how attractive Shush was. She was an arty nerd with tomboy leanings, and truly beautiful.

  They looked good together. Sitting close and zeroed in on each other.

  Except Shush ruffled Dev’s hair and he hated that, unless of course other parts of him were being ruffled at the same time and then he seemed to like it a lot.

  Oh God, what was she doing, basically spying on him. She couldn’t look at Dev without feeling all stirred up. The whole big car, small dick thing wasn’t a thing as it turns out. She’d felt what Dev hid in his wrinkle-free chinos and wet board shorts. And it was good. That was not only bad for business, but bad for any semblance of a future professional relationship.

  And it was also strangely inappropriate for a woman who was due to take a pregnancy test tonight. She could simply wait and let nature take its course, but then she’d promised her family she’d come pee on a stick after dinner and t
hey could all know together. It was better than fielding all the individual calls. Of which Brian was the worst. He choked up every time it was mentioned, and couldn’t get the fact most women have three insertions before they get pregnant in his head.

  Dev and Shush were finishing up, they’d have to walk past her or she’d need to move.

  Maybe what she felt was hormones. That would account for wanting to jump him, even as he tossed the lunch trash and pushed their chairs back under the table. It’s not like there was anything poetic in those movements, but they were very Dev, tidying up after himself and everyone else.

  Maybe she was actually pregnant.

  Oh God.

  Or they should fuck and get it over with and go back to being friends again, because this state of affairs halfway between sex-fiends and enemies wasn’t good for her health.

  Did she imagine it, or did Dev’s face light up when he saw her? Now there was no getting away. He came across the café space toward her with an arm behind Shush to shepherd her through the lunch rush, and out of nowhere she wanted to hit him.

  “Shush, you remember Sarina.”

  Shush laughed. “Completely functional memory, Dev. No family history of Alzheimer’s.” That was said while Shush completed a top-to-toe inventory, which finished with, “Hi, Sarina, been a while.”

  That wasn’t awkward at all.

  Dev was such a goddamn gossip. He’d told her about Owen’s inability to get it up and he had to have told Shush she was trying to get pregnant. Who else had he told?

  She said, “Shush, nice to see you again,” after which there was an exchange of meaningless pleasantries that were not in the least pleasant, they all said goodbye and Dev walked Shush out.

  She hadn’t managed to pick up her lunch before he was back. “What was that?” he said.

  “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “I’m waiting for my lunch.” She gestured to the group standing around waiting for to-go orders.

  He called out to the café manager, “Inez, can you deliver Sarina’s lunch to her office,” and without waiting for a reply, he walked off.