I wait for her to say something else, and when I’ve been here longer than a few minutes, I jog down the steps. My head spins the whole time, and I mean the whole time. Even getting into the car I don’t turn the music on, I don’t call anyone, I sit in the silence and hear their voices over and over in my head.
Did you get lost?
I don’t talk to my parents.
I had to choose.
I honestly don’t know how I make it back to Matty’s house. I park the car and put my head back on the headrest and take a huge exhale before opening the door and making my way to the front door. Opening the door, I hear the television coming from the family room, and instead of just going upstairs to clear my head, I walk over to the family room. Her parents threw her out of the house when she needed them the most. Because of me.
I look into the family room. “Who else is here?” I ask, not sure if anyone else followed them home. With my family, you just never know.
“Just us,” Matty answers, sitting up, probably taking in the look on my face. Or maybe the fact that I’m shaking. Making my way into the room, I sit down on the couch and put my head back and rub my face. The voices from the television are shut off. “Are you okay?” Matty asks, his voice filled with worry.
I open my eyes and look at them, seeing Matty sitting up while Sofia just lounges next to him. “You know?” I ask Sofia, and all she does is roll her eyes at me.
“I think the question you should be asking is, how the hell did anyone else not know?” She sits up now and looks over at Matty, who now has a confused look on his face.
“What’s going on?” he asks, looking at me, then back at Sofia.
Sofia doesn’t say anything, instead she looks at me and waits for me to say something. “Um,” I start, but I’m not sure what to say. I sit forward, folding my hands together. “Avery—” I start to say but then Matty gasps and jumps out of his chair.
“You?” He points at me before he puts his hand on his mouth, then putting both on top of his head. “How?”
Sofia laughs at him. “Well, if he has to tell you how.” She winks at him. “I don’t know how we are going to have a baby, especially since we just did that before he got home.”
“Okay, eww.” I jump off the couch. “Was it here?”
“No,” Sofia assures me, getting up and I look back at the seat I was just sitting on. I’m almost about to sit back down when she adds in, “Well, not this time.” Her laughter fills the room.
“Okay, everyone needs to stop talking,” Matty demands as he points at me. “You, explain.”
“Should I get something to drink?” Sofia asks, and Matty just glares at her but all she does is laugh at him.
“That look doesn’t scare me, Matthew Petrov.” She points at him. “So direct the look at him. He was the one who did it.”
“Out with it,” Matty orders me.
“It was one night,” I finally say, my feet moving as I pace their living room, back and forth in front of them.
“You don’t do one-night stands,” Matty reminds me, and I groan.
“Well, obviously I did,” I exhale. “It was after that one time I said I will never have another one-night stand. I had just finished my first-ever merger, and I was flying high.” I run my hands through my hair. “She bumped into me at a bar, and then we went to grab something to eat, and she just, fuck, I don’t know. She just made me forget my rules.”
“Can we circle back to how you didn’t see?” Sofia looks at Matty.
“How was I supposed to see?” Matty puts his hands on his hips. “Now I see it, but you think I walk around with a picture book, and I’m like do any of my cousins look familiar?” He throws his hands up in the air. “Oh, you have no father for your daughter. Here, take a look at him. Does he look familiar?”
“Can you be more dramatic?” Sofia asks, laughing at him, and he tilts his head to the side. “Okay, wrong question.” She holds up her hands.
“Anyway,” I say, looking back at Sofia, “what can you tell me about her parents?”
It’s Sofia’s turn to glare at me. “Nothing.” She folds her arms over her chest. I know she is not going to tell me anything when it comes to Addison. I know this because she’s loyal to a T, and her loyalty will be with Addison before it is with me.
“You know what I do, right?” I ask her, and this time, it’s me putting my hands on my hips. “I can find out everything in two minutes flat.” I stare at her.
“Then why haven’t you?” She asks me the loaded question I have been asking myself since I found out about Avery.
“Because I wanted her to tell me,” I admit to her, “and I felt like I was invading her privacy.”
Sofia gasps. “How are you related to this family?” She points at Matty, who rolls his eyes at her.
“We are all not like my uncles,” he retorts, “or your grandfather.” He smirks at her.
“She just told me she raised Avery on her own.” I fill Sofia in on the little part that she gave me. The statement made my blood run cold in my body. The statement that when she walked away from the table, I thought I would break the glass in my hand from how hard I was squeezing it.
“She did, and she did a great job.” Sofia almost glares at me.
“No, she didn’t do a great job,” I correct softly, and I talk fast because she looks like she is going to throttle me. “She did an exceptional job, I know that.” I shake my head. “I just don’t get it.”
“I don’t really know the details,” Sofia says softly. “All she told me was they haven’t spoken to her since she walked out and said she wouldn’t get rid of her baby.”
It’s then that Matty grunts, “What the fuck?”
I ignore him because if he is feeling even a quarter of what I felt, it’s a lot. “How long has she been working for you guys?” Surely, that question isn’t invading anything.
“Not that long, but she’s busted her ass the whole time.” She stands with her shoulders back and I’m almost thankful, knowing even if I wasn’t here, she had someone who would go to war for her and for Avery.
“Okay.” Matty holds up his hands, sensing we are going to go toe-to-toe. “What does this mean?”
“What do you mean?” I ask him because his question is loaded.
“Well, you have a kid,” he points out, and I don’t know why, but I can’t help feeling proud, especially since she’s the most amazing kid I’ve ever met.
“I do.” I smile at him, and if I could puff out my chest, I would. “I need to get a house.”
I grab my phone out of my back pocket. “I have to call your mom.” I thought I would be able to get a house on my own, but after searching and driving around for the past two days, it’s clear I need help in that department.
“Are you finally setting roots?” Matty asks, and I throw my head back and laugh.
“You’ve been in the South too long,” I say, then look over at Sofia. “Is there anything I should know?”
“Is there a specific question you are asking?” Sofia counters but then holds up her hand. “Doesn’t matter, I won’t tell you.”
“Great.” I shake my head. “Good talk.”
“Don’t you ‘good talk’ me, Stefano,” she hisses. “I’m not the one who had sex without a condom.”
“We used protection. Do you think I would be that careless?” I throw back at her. “Look at Michael and Jillian, it’s not one hundred percent.” I mention my cousin Michael, who had a one-night thing with Jillian, only to find her four months later when he went to pick up Mia and Emma.
“You think?” She smirks at me, and I just shake my head.
“Go to your room,” Matty urges me. “When are you telling everyone?”
“The question you need to be asking is, did you tell your girlfriend that you are now a father?” Sofia asks me. I don’t answer her that she is a non-factor. Instead, I answer Matty.
“I don’t know. Why?” I ask him.
“Because when you do, they will all be descending,” he teases, making me laugh. “It’s going to be a Bat Signal to end all Bat Signals. Then everyone, and I mean everyone, is going to descend.”
“I’ll let you know,” I assure him before I walk up the stairs to the spare bedroom. Pulling up her number, I think about texting her instead of calling, but something in me just makes me press the blue phone button. I look down at the phone and put it on speaker as I kick off my shoes and throw myself on the king-size bed.
It rings three times before she answers in a whisper, “Hello.”
“Did I wake you?” I whisper back into the phone.
“No,” she replies, and I hear the sound of sheets rustling. “I was just checking on Avery to make sure she was okay before heading to bed.” Her voice goes up a touch.
“Can you meet me tomorrow for breakfast?” I ask, holding my breath, hoping she says yes.
“I don’t know,” she answers. “I have to have her at daycare, and then I start work by nine.”
“What about lunch?” I ask her, hoping she says yes to this.
“I try not to take lunch,” she admits, “so I can leave early and get Avery.”
“Why did you sneak out that morning?” I want to kick myself the minute the question comes out of me. It was a question I knew I would ask her eventually. It was the question I’ve asked the universe time and time again when I would think about the beautiful stranger who made me forget all my rules. The beautiful one who made me laugh like no one else, and the one who made me go from zero to a thousand with just one look.
She lets out a deep breath. “It was the first time I ever had a one-night stand.” I don’t know if I should be happy about this or not. “I was mortified you would think I did it often.”
I close my eyes at the way her voice dipped at the end. “Did it matter?”
“To me, it did,” she says. “I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t that person.” I want to tell her I know she isn’t. I knew that night she wasn’t that person, and even if she was, it didn’t matter to me. “I went back to the hotel six weeks later.” I gasp in shock at her declaration. “Told them what room you were in and everything, but they wouldn’t give me your information.” I sit up in bed, my heart beating a million miles a minute as it rises to my throat, and I feel like I’m going to throw my phone at the wall.
I’m shaking that she did that. I’m shaking she put all of her pride aside to look for me. I’m shaking because it was my job to protect her and Avery, and I didn’t do my job. I’m shaking because she probably went to look for me out of desperation, especially after her parents kicked her out. I’m shaking because now I’m going to do everything in my power to make her whole again, even if I have to destroy people to do it. I don’t tell her this. Instead, I whisper, “I’m so sorry.”
