As I laid in bed staring up at the ceiling, I tried to sleep. I tried my damndest to get some rest because we all had a very long day ahead of ourselves tomorrow. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Summer, sleeping right down the hallway. I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl in that picture, Cheyenne, and how we looked so much alike.
The hurt I felt deep down inside was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.
I still didn’t know why Summer left me. I still wasn’t sure why she stood me up when we talked about running away together for months beforehand. And for the life of me, if she had been in Santa Cruz all this time, why the fuck didn’t she track me down and tell me about our daughter? About the fact that I was a father?
God knows I would’ve stepped right up to that plate and done whatever I could to help.
But instead, she kept all of it from me. Our future, our daughter, her life. What the fuck was wrong with her? When the hell did I piss her off so badly that she felt the need to rip my future away from me and leave me with absolutely no hope?
I just didn’t understand any of it.
I didn’t understand how Summer had so many damn opportunities to pick up the phone and tell me she was pregnant. Even after she stood me up. Even after we went our separate ways. She had to have known she was pregnant before my graduation. She had to have known she was effortlessly keeping my own damn child away from me.
Did she really think me to be that bad of a person?
No wonder she left, then.
I slid my hands down my face and groaned as I sat up. I swung my legs over the bed and tried changing out of my jeans and leather jacket to see if getting more comfortable might help me sleep. I slid into some pajama pants and put a raggedy t-shirt on. I went and splashed some warm water in my face, hoping that it might relax my brain long enough to turn off.
But the anger swelling within me was much too powerful.
Eleven years. That was how much time and effort Summer put into hiding Cheyenne from me. And no matter how many times I turned it over in my head or tried to rationalized it, I always came back around to the same damn conclusion.
I wondered why the hell she had even been with me in the first place if she thought I was such a bad guy.
Maybe she never even loved me. That might explain things.
I dried my face off and headed back to bed, but the clock on the wall boasted of the fact that it was already two-thirty in the morning. If I was lucky, I’d get three hours of sleep before someone woke me up with intentions to make plans on what we’d do about getting my daughter. But I laid down and tossed my arm over my eyes anyway, trying my best to block out the world around me.
And while darkness didn’t pull me under, my thoughts did.
Shoving memory after memory to the forefront, as if to torture me further.
“Come on, where are you?” I murmured.
As I leaned against my car with the trunk bungee-corded shut, I crossed my arms over my chest. With my head on a swivel, I kept an eye out for the most beautiful woman in the world. She had been cheering me on in the stands at my graduation. She had been by my side for the past three years, making sure I passed my classes and making sure I didn’t get held back. I owed my high school diploma to her, and I had every intention of building a life for us that we could both be proud of.
But the longer I stood there, the more worried I became.
“Come on!” I exclaimed.
I whipped around and punched my car, denting the door before I pressed my hands against the cold, foggy glass. I’d been standing here for over an hour, and she was at least thirty minutes late. I wanted to whisk us off into the sunset. I wanted to take her out of town, get dinner somewhere, and then take her to a little one-bedroom place I found that was perfect for the both of us. I already had it rented out and furnished. All we had to do was arrive at our new home and start looking toward the future.
That was what a life with the Dirty Misfits afforded me. Money. Luxury. A future I couldn’t have ever dreamed for myself.
And yet, Summer was nowhere to be found.
“Summer!” I exclaimed.
I cupped my hands over my mouth a couple of times and called out for her, but nothing shot back at me. Just the echo of my own voice and the cawing of a few birds I had pissed off in the process. Three-thirty, in the parking lot of the stadium where we held our graduation. That was the plan.
So, where the hell was she?
“Maybe I should call her,” I murmured.
I wasn’t a stranger to the shithole of a life she had. I wasn’t a stranger to the insane ideologies of her over-conservative parents. Maybe they had caught her, so she had to wait until sundown before sneaking out with her things. Or maybe she had gotten into an accident trying to get here.
I dialed her number and held the phone to my ear, ready to hear her voice. Ready to hear her reassurance that she was going to be here, but that she had run into some snags.
However, the phone simply rang and rang before going to her voicemail.
“Hi! This is Summer Madson! If you’ve reached my voicemail, that means I’m—”
“Damn it,” I growled.
I hung up the phone and tried again as the sun officially began setting. I turned my back to it, unable to take in its beauty as it blinded me with the reminder that Summer still wasn’t here yet. I called and I called. I called and left at least five voice messages before her phone stopped ringing and went straight to voicemail.
“Is she ignoring me?” I murmured.
The idea was so far-fetched that I wasn’t sure how to process it. And yet, as I turned around and watched the sun set over the stadium that had handed me the rest of my adult future for me to fuck up, the truth stared me right in the face.
“She’s not coming,” I whispered to myself.
My eyes slowly opened as wetness dripped down the sides of my face. The nape of my neck felt cool, yet clammy, and I eased myself up while my joints popped with my movements. I tossed my legs over the bed as an all-over ache swallowed me whole, leaving me breathless and in need of something I couldn’t have.
“Fucking hell, Summer,” I growled.
I pushed myself up from the bed and didn’t bother looking at the clock. I knew it was still the middle of the night. I knew I hadn’t been down more than an hour. I walked back into my bathroom and splashed cold water in my face this time, trying to get the sweating and crying to cease and desist. She didn’t deserve my tears. She didn’t deserve my time. Hell, the only reason why we were interacting was because we had a daughter in the thick of all of this.
If it was only her, it wouldn’t have been nearly this difficult.
“You’re fooling yourself,” I said as I stared at my reflection.
I ripped a towel off the wall and wiped my face off. Then, I threw it at my reflection and stormed out of the bathroom. I ripped my bedroom door open and stomped down the hallway, heading straight for the kitchen as my stomach growled. I needed food. I needed to cook a luscious meal to try and get my mind off what was to come.
And when I found myself in the kitchen, I knew exactly what to cook.
I hated myself for even thinking about it. I hated myself for even wanting to try the recipe. But pasta alfredo with cajun shrimp and hot sauce was Summer’s favorite meal. At least, it had been when we were kids. And the idea of having a hot, piping bowl of fresh noodles and spicy shrimp made my mouth salivate as I pulled everything out that I needed.
Including the flour and eggs to make the noodles myself.
“Can’t be too hard,” I whispered.
I dug through the recipe drawer that Finn had put together in the kitchen and came across a basic noodle recipe. Finn and Porter were the two guys that had it going on in the kitchen, but I had picked up a few things while watching them over the years. Porter was the one that always came by to cook me shit back when Summer first left me. He always came over with fresh meats and vegetables and new recipes to try out on me, and while I knew he was worried about leaving me alone back during those days I knew I’d be forever grateful for his company.
Because had it not been for him, I probably wouldn’t have done what he was scared I’d do.
“Well, here goes nothing,” I grumbled.
I dipped up the flour I needed and created a little pocket to crack the eggs into. And little by little, I swirled it all together. The process was slow, and I had to knead that noodle dough a great deal. But, once it became the texture I figured it needed to be, I rolled it out as thinly as I could before using Finn’s noodle press to get it the exact thickness and cut it needed to have.
Then, once that was done, I put some water on the stove and turned my sights to the sauce.
I lost myself in the monotony of it all. My nose gorged itself on the smells and I kept taste-testing everything to try and settle my stomach down. However, once the entire meal came together, I tossed it all into a clean saucepan, topped it with parmesan and hot sauce, and then toasted some bread before slapping slabs of butter on it. My bowl overflowed with food and there was still enough for at least two more people to eat.
And after grabbing a couple of beers from the fridge, I made my way out into the living area. I resolved myself to spending the rest of the evening eating myself into oblivion while watching reruns of sitcoms we had on DVDs. We couldn’t have a lot of modern technology in this place since most of it could be tracked. However, that didn’t stop us from building what was probably the largest collection of DVDs this side of Santa Cruz.
When I finally navigated to the room, however, I paused just beyond the doorway. I blinked a few times, just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Then, when I was sure it was really her sitting there, I held my breath.
Watching, and waiting, to see if Summer noticed me while she sat on the couch with an apple and stared off at the wall.
