The Cad and the Co-Ed

by Penny Reid

  “I don’t blame you, Eilish, so stop beating yourself up. This was a rough situation for anyone to be in, let alone a teenager. And it was my fault for going after you in the first place. You were way too young, but I was obviously too shitfaced to realize or care.”

  She shook her head now. “It’s not like you forced yourself on me. I . . .” she paused, the blush deepening over her cheeks, “I wanted it.”

  Something in my chest unfurled. My voice was low when I spoke. “Really?”

  She only nodded in response, not meeting my gaze. I squeezed her hands to let her know she didn’t need to be embarrassed.

  “We have a lot to talk about, you and me,” I told her softly.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, her head shaking in a small, quick movement.

  I rubbed my thumbs over the insides of her wrists, a sense of rightness and necessity stirring my blood.

  Christ, I needed to stop touching her, because if I thought she was beautiful before, the fact that this woman was the mother of my child gave her a fucking halo. I swear, she glowed. She was radiant. As magnetic as before, but also something more.

  I let her hands go, because otherwise I was going to pull her across the table and devour her.

  Clearing my throat, I forced my eyes to my food. “First though, we’d better eat before the waiter drives himself into a state wondering if there’s something wrong with our dinners.”

  This solicited a small, breathy chuckle from her, and it felt good to make her laugh. We each took a few bites and a thoughtful silence fell over us, redirecting my thoughts away from her and back to the situation.

  I still wasn’t quite sure why I felt so good about all this. If anyone else had come to me with the same revelation, I’d probably have told them to pull the other one. But there was just something about Eilish, something about her earnest, open personality that made me believe her.

  I wanted to do right by her.

  And having a child wasn’t a bad thing. It was a great thing. A gift. I was old and wise enough to see that now. If she’d come to me all those years ago, when I was still drinking and out of control, I shudder to think of how I might’ve reacted.

  So maybe her keeping everything a secret for so long was a blessing. Maybe this was how it was always supposed to be.

  I glanced at her as she nibbled on a chicken wing. Her long, thick lashes shadowed her cheeks, casting her pretty features in a devastatingly beautiful light. Just looking at her sucked all the air from my lungs.

  Yeah, maybe there was a tiny, minuscule part of me that liked the idea of having a child specifically with Eilish. It meant I got to spend more time around her. Ever since I laid eyes on her at Will’s party I’d been captivated, almost like my subconscious sensed our connection. And it killed me that we’d met before, spent an entire night together, and I couldn’t remember a single second of it. I’d had my greedy, ungrateful hands on her—been inside her—but I was too wrapped up in myself at the time to appreciate how lucky I was. Her look of hurt. Had I hurt her? Physically? Or . . . oh shite. What would it feel like to be on the receiving end of being forgotten?

  She didn’t deserve to be forgotten.

  She deserved to be treasured.

  And I was going to do everything in my power to make up for what I’d done. But really, as delighted as I was to have this connection to Eilish, I was also incredibly eager to know everything about her son. Our son.

  “Do you have a picture of him?” I asked, unable to hold back my curiosity.

  She nodded and dabbed her lips before going to dig through her handbag. “Of course. Yes. Sorry.”

  She pulled out her phone and navigated to her photos. Her hand shook as she passed it to me across the table. I took it with barely concealed fascination. The picture showed Eilish with a little boy on her lap. He had light brown hair, bright green eyes, and a dimple in either cheek. That wasn’t what held me captive though. It was like looking at a time capsule of myself. My heart pounded as several emotions overtook me. I hadn’t been kidding that I enjoyed playing with some of the lads’s kids, but this . . .

  Was it possible to love him already when we hadn’t even met?

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the photo and had to inhale a few deep breaths just to keep from embarrassing myself in front of the entire restaurant. Nobody expected a six-foot-four behemoth of a rugby player to start welling up in public.

  Eilish must’ve noticed the shine in my eyes because she asked gently, “Bryan, are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” I sniffed. “It’s just . . .”

  “The resemblance?” she guessed. “It’s uncanny, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and swiped my thumb over her screen, then glanced up. My voice was scratchy when I spoke. “Can you send this to my phone?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  I held her gaze for a moment, unspoken feelings passing between us.

  Fear.

  Uncertainty.

  Anticipation.

  Excitement.

  I knew that for me the latter two outweighed the former. I just hoped it was the same for Eilish. My eyes traced the elegant slant of her nose, the curve of her rosebud mouth. She was so bloody gorgeous. This was going to be very fucking complicated, that was for sure.

  “Did you name him after me?” I asked.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?” I prodded gently.

  “I’m not sure why I did it. Maybe it was my guilt? Or maybe I felt like he should at least have some part of you.”

  I chuckled softly. “Have you seen him? He’s got all of me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone cloned my younger self.”

  A small smile graced her lips. “Yeah, it’s pretty hard to deny he’s yours.”

  Suddenly, Sarah’s words came hurtling back, urging me to take things slow, be clever, get a DNA test. I didn’t want to do any of those things, because there was something about this that felt pure. I didn’t want to dirty it up. Eilish must’ve read my thoughts because she started digging in her bag again, pulling out a small white box.

  She cleared her throat. “Obviously, I understand you’ll need definitive proof, considering the circumstances.” She paused and pushed the box across the table. “I brought a small lock of Patrick’s hair, if you’d like to have a DNA test done. Or, if you prefer, we can arrange to have a blood sample taken with you present, so you can witness the whole thing.”

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that she’d brought it along even before I asked. Maybe she thought I’d be suspicious, but I wasn’t. Not one bit. I still didn’t entirely understand it myself.

  Without speaking, I opened the box and glanced inside, where a small lock of hair sat on a piece of cotton wool. My chest clenched and I shut the box. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t really want to discuss it, so I simply dropped it inside my coat pocket and returned my attention to her.

  “When can I meet him?”

  She started fiddling with her torn napkin pieces again. I felt like shoving them all aside so she had no choice but to focus on me.

  “When would you like to?”

  “We don’t have any training this weekend,” I suggested. “I could meet up with you both somewhere you feel comfortable. You can even bring Sean along.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s a good idea. Um, may I have your phone number please? I’ll talk to Sean and touch base with you regarding the details.”

  Suddenly, the atmosphere changed, grew more formal, like she’d thrown a wall up. I didn’t like it. I also didn’t like the fact that my teammate had obviously known I had a kid all this time and never told me. It was different with Eilish. She didn’t know me. But Sean knew I was a changed man—reliable, responsible, trustworthy—and he’d still kept it secret. One look at the boy and he would’ve known he was mine.

  Yep, Sean Cassidy and I were going to have some serious words when the time came.

  After we exchanged phone numbe
rs, the waiter arrived with the bill. We both reached for it, her hands closing over mine.

  “Please,” she wiggled her fingers, trying to pull the check away from me, “please let me pay for dinner.”

  I wanted to say NO FUCKING WAY!

  Instead, I said, “That’s not necessary.”

  Her grip tightened, and something rigid entered her tone. “I insist.”

  I huffed a laugh and shook my head. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It is a big deal.” Her voice was like granite, her eyes stony and serious. “It’s a big deal to me. Patrick is your son, and my hopes are for the two of you. But I . . . I don’t want anything from you, Bryan.”

  I flinched, frowning at her, again feeling like I’d just been punched in the stomach. This last statement clearly referred to more than just dinner.

  She didn’t want anything from me.

  The sudden sinking sensation in my chest caught me unawares, pushed me off balance, and she took advantage of my stunned surprise. Eilish tugged the check from my grip, slipped cash into the sleeve, and held it out to the waiter as he passed.

  “Keep the change.” She gave him a tight smile, then moved her gaze back to mine, but she might as well have been gazing at me from behind an impenetrable fortress. Her walls were up, and they were very, very high.

  I reached for her. “Eilish—”

  “I can find my own way home,” she said firmly, adding as she stood from the booth, “I honestly can’t thank you enough for being so gracious and civil. The secret was weighing on me. I just want what’s best for Patrick. I appreciate how sensible and rational you’ve been, and I hope all our future interactions will continue in this vein.”

  Giving me another small smile that felt excessively businesslike, she turned and quickly picked her way through the tables, disappearing through the front door, leaving me staring after her.

  Civil?

  Sensible?

  Rational?

  The fuck?

  I breathed out the gust of air she’d knocked from my lungs, discontent warring with a dawning sense of determination.

  She didn’t want anything from me?

  Well, that was just too damn bad.

  She was the mother of my child, for Christ’s sake.

  I sucked in another breath, reality having both a sobering and intoxicating effect.

  I had a son.

  Amazing.

  Incredible.

  12

  @ECassChoosesPikachu to @JoseyInHeels: Lunch? Today? Please? #Emergency

  * * *

  *Eilish*

  “Shite.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t believe you told him.”

  “I know.”

  Josey stared at me from across the café table, her features ripe with astonishment. I’d called her that morning, the day after my dinner with Bryan, and told her the news. I’d confessed the truth about Patrick over chicken wings and Coke.

  She insisted on meeting for lunch, so here we were. Meeting. For lunch.

  Except neither of us were eating our tacos. I’d just related the entire story of my dinner with Bryan, and she was clearly too agitated to eat.

  “And he wasn’t upset?” she asked for the third time, her face scrunching.

  “No. Like I said, it was so bizarre. He wasn’t at all upset.”

  Her face scrunched further, wrinkling her nose and the space between her eyebrows. “He wants to be a father?”

  “Yes.” I laughed the word, still in shock. “Or, at least he doesn’t seem to be opposed to it.”

  Her features smoothed and she gathered a deep breath, her eyes moving over the table. “He’s what? Thirty-five? He’s probably ready to have kids.”

  “No, Josey. He’s thirty.”

  “Really? I thought he was older.”

  “Nope. He’s six years older than us.”

  “Huh.” She blinked, her eyes losing focus. “This is completely mad.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  We sat in silence for a stretch, both staring into space, lost to our own thoughts.

  Abruptly, she broke the silence. “This is so great.”

  “I know,” I said, because it was great. At least, I hoped it would be great, for Patrick’s sake.

  “And you don’t believe in happily ever afters.” Josey’s face split with a grin.

  “What?”

  My friend clapped her hands together. “You and Bryan, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G—except first comes baby in your case. Then love. Then marriage. Or maybe marriage, then love. Who cares, just as long as there’s lots of H-O-T S-E-X.”

  “No!” I rejected much too loudly, holding my hands up. My outburst earned me a few sidelong glances, which I ignored. “No, no, no. This isn’t about me. Nothing is going to happen between Bryan and me.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because it’s not.” Because I kissed him, and he rejected me. I made a fool of myself. Again. He doesn’t want me.

  She studied me, appearing disgruntled. Then, apropos of nothing, said, “Is this because of your father?”

  I stiffened, my gaze lowering to the table between us. I needed to clear my throat before I could respond; when I did, my voice was much too tight. “No. Of course not.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “It’s not.” I glanced at her, finding she’d narrowed her eyes.

  “It is. You’ve always had daddy issues—and mommy issues, not that I blame you—but, Eilish, you are not your mother. For one thing, you’re a lot hotter.”

  The laugh that escaped my lips was slightly hysterical. I suppressed it by rolling my lips between my teeth. “I know I am not my mother.”

  “Do you?”

  I met Josey’s piercing stare straight on. “Yes. I do.”

  “Good. Because she is unkind, controlling, and frosty as that snowman, except she’s got the corn-cob pipe stuffed up her arse. And we’ve already established that you’re too nice.”

  “You mean personality-less.”

  “No. Too nice.” She waved away my interpretation of her words from our conversation weeks ago. “Being a parent didn’t change your mother, didn’t make her nice. She used you and your brothers and sisters, and your hot cousin for that matter. Your dad left your mother because she’s a spiteful witch and he was tired of being controlled.”

  “Yes. He did. And he didn’t love any of us enough to stay, or—I don’t know—call on our birthdays.” These words arrived much more bitterly than I’d anticipated. To my surprise, I had to blink away sudden moisture stinging my eyes.

  Josey’s face softened, and she reached across the table to hold my hand. “Listen to me, sexy lady. You are not your mother. Bryan is not your father.”

  “I know Bryan is not my father,” I whispered, gritting my teeth. “My father didn’t forget my mother after sleeping with her once.”

  “Oh, honey.” Josey’s tone was laden with sympathy, and I pulled my hand away. “He was drunk.”

  “Exactly.”

  She sighed, it sounded frustrated. “Give him a chance.”

  “He doesn’t want a chance.” I sniffed, shaking my head. “He doesn’t want me, he wants to know his son. This isn’t about me, it’s about Patrick.”

  A small part of me—a very small part—had held out hope that Bryan would remember our night together once I told him. If not the full details, then at least some small glimmer of recollection. In my heart of hearts, I’d hoped that I’d made some impression.

  Silly, right?

  Pathetic, right?

  Crazy and stupid and selfish, right?

  He hadn’t.

  He hadn’t remembered me at all. I was . . . completely and utterly forgettable.

  But this isn’t about you, loony bird. This is about Patrick.

  “This is what I mean, Eilish.” She motioned to me, looking and sounding exasperated. “This is what I’m talking about.”

  “What?”

  “Y
ou’re too nice, too responsible.” She leaned forward, a hint of mischievousness entering her voice, and whispered, “Don’t tell me you don’t have the hots for this guy. He’s Bryan-fucking-Leech. He’s the total package. He’s always been charming and sexy as hell, but now he’s a reformed bad boy, and you’re the mother of his child.”

  “So what?”

  “So what?” Her eyes widened as they darted between mine. “So, get laid and report back. Seduce the man. If you don’t leverage the fuck out of this, then you’re dead to me.”

  I choked on nothing, staring at my friend, trying to figure out if she was serious. I couldn’t tell.

  “You’re nuts.”

  Josey leaned back, shaking her head at me. “Too nice.”

  “You’re like one of those devils sitting on my shoulder, trying to get me to do bad things.”

  “I am. I am exactly like that.” She nodded, grinning. “Go do bad things to him, do very wicked things. Enjoy yourself for once. Use him like he used you.”

  I leaned my elbows on the table and let my head fall into my hands. “He didn’t use me.”

  “He did. He used you, and he doesn’t even remember doing it. This time, make him remember. Make him sorry he ever forgot.”

  * * *

  During the rest of the week, avoiding alone time with Bryan became a bit of a game. I called the game, Keeping My Shit Together At Work. I even cancelled our Wednesday appointment. Every time I saw him I was overwhelmed by the urge to cry. And this time I feared I really would cry.

  In the end, I didn’t cry. Instead, I used the time avoiding Bryan to give myself pep talks. Every time I encountered a mirror, I mentally spoke to myself.

  This isn’t about you.

  You don’t want anything from him.

  Patrick is what’s important.

  So what, you like him? So what, you’re forgettable? So. What? I’m sure he’s forgotten hundreds of girls.

  Not surprisingly, this last mini pep talk didn’t make me feel better. In fact, it sent me face first into a pile of night cheese and canned sardines. As an aside, I learned a valuable lesson that night: keeping chocolate in the kitchen—for emergencies—was both wise and good.