“I’m sorry, but I’ve been dying to touch you since we broke up.” She leans forward and hides her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She shakes her head as she takes a moment to compose herself. Finally, she pulls her hands away from her face and wipes a few tears away.
“Claire, I love you and I just want you to be happy.”
She looks at me, her eyes are rimmed red, and it’s as if she’s seeing me for the first time. “How can you still love me after everything I’ve done to you?”
“How can I not? You’re the fucking love of my life. You don’t stop loving someone just because they’ve hurt you. Yes, what you did hurt me, but I gain nothing if I stay angry with you. But I might gain everything by forgiving you. You’re my everything. I just want you back.”
She gazes into my eyes and before I can change my mind I take her face in my hands and kiss her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Claire
HE TASTES MINTY AND I recognize the flavor of his brand of toothpaste—the toothpaste I had to stop using last year because it reminded me too much of him. I want to push him away. I don’t want to kiss Chris. But my curiosity gets the best of me.
Not counting the kiss that didn’t really happen two months ago, this is our first kiss in over a year. How can we still be so in sync? I can anticipate the movement and pressure of his lips, every graze of his tongue, and I respond exactly the way he wants me to. No one can kiss me the way Chris does.
This thought makes me sick and I instantly push him away. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to.”
He looks as though he can’t decide whether he should be pissed or understanding. “You felt that. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that.”
“Please don’t do this,” I say as I stand. “I came to talk to your mom.”
“Go ahead and walk away. You’re still mine, Claire, whether or not you admit it to yourself.”
I want to tell him to fuck off, but I can’t turn off the nagging voice inside my head telling me he’s right. Why else would that kiss have felt so good?
I leave his room, still attempting to make sense of this. I’m just feeling lonely. I miss Adam. Of course, I wanted to be kissed. And who better to do it than Chris? Someone who’s kissed me a million times. Someone who knows exactly what I want. But that’s all it was, just a kiss. We are not in love anymore. I love Adam.
Even if he did break his promise to never hurt me.
This is not exactly what I wanted to happen when I showed up here. I should never have worn this stupid shirt Senia bought me. I glance down at my chest at the gray T-shirt with a black silhouette of Chris playing the guitar and the letters CK behind the silhouette. I thought it would be kind of funny, but apparently I gave Chris the wrong idea. I should never have told him that Adam and I broke up.
I should have taken Linda Coldwater’s advice.
I think back to the conversation I had with my professor yesterday and I can’t believe I allowed myself to get so emotional in front of someone who holds such a large piece of my academic career in her hands. I’m a complete emotional wreck lately. Linda insisted that she didn’t quit her job as a caseworker because she didn’t enjoy it. She insisted that she loved the job, and the children she worked with, too much.
“It’s no secret that it’s a tough job. You can see that from watching any damn movie about orphans,” she said as she leaned back in her desk chair. “What you don’t see in movies and what most people who’ve worked in this job won’t tell you is that there is very little you can do for these children other than placing them in decent homes and performing thorough inspections. What happens the moment you leave a foster home or when they leave your office is not up to you.”
That’s about where I lost it. Then Linda handed me her business card with the name and number of a campus therapist scrawled on the back.
If I had had someone there to watch over me during the eight years I was shuffled through the system, I might have found a forever home sooner. I think back to all the homes I came through to get here, to Jackie and Chris.
When I was eight years old, I was placed with an artist, his wife, and their two young sons who were toddlers. They had a nice home in a quaint suburb where he painted mock-ups for large-scale murals. I was fascinated by these paintings, until he picked me up to set me on a stool, to watch him paint, and he accidentally touched my butt. I punched him and kicked down the stool and threw a hellish tantrum until they called my caseworker.
Eight years of these episodes. It’s no wonder my caseworkers hated me, and any wonder how Chris and Jackie got through to me.
Jackie sits at the table in the breakfast nook going over some paperwork, probably bills or something for the bakery. She looks up at me over her reading glasses and I feel like a child about to be chastised, full of shame and guilt over my indiscretions.
“Sit,” she says, pulling out the white wooden chair next to her.
I sit down and resist the urge to launch into a long apology. Jackie hates excuses and she doesn’t want to hear that.
“Jackie, I know you don’t hate me, but I can’t bear the idea of you being disappointed in me.”
She pulls her eyeglasses off and looks me in the eye. “I’m not disappointed in you. I’m hurt that you didn’t feel you could come to me.” Her eyes begin to water and my chest tightens. “Even if you and Chris aren’t together, you will always be like a daughter to me. You’re the little girl I always wanted but couldn’t have.” I make no effort to stop the tears once hers begin to fall. “After Chris was born, I had three miscarriages and it tore my marriage to his father apart. When Michael left, I gave up on finding unconditional love in a man, so I decided I would give unconditional love to those who needed it most.” She grabs my hand and my body shakes as I attempt to keep from sobbing. “I’m not angry with you. I love you, unconditionally.”
She stands from her chair and beckons me into her arms. I rise and we hug for a while as she strokes my hair and rubs my back.
“So are you ever going to bring this boyfriend of yours here to meet us?” she asks and I freeze.
“Boyfriend?”
She lets go of me and looks me in the eye. “You don’t have to pretend, honey. Rachel and Chris already told me you have a boyfriend. I want to meet him.”
Shit.
“I don’t have a boyfriend. Chris just assumed we were still together, but we’re not. He’s in Hawaii right now for business, anyway, so he wouldn’t have been able to come.”
“For business? How old is he?”
“Twenty-two.” It dawns on me that Adam’s birthday is coming in just a few days. October 10th. He’s going to be twenty-three.
She narrows her eyes at me. “So you don’t have a boyfriend?”
If I were being honest I would tell her that I don’t have a boyfriend, but that I desperately still want Adam to be my boyfriend. I miss everything about him. My heart and body ache for his voice, his jokes, his touch.
“He’s not my boyfriend anymore, but I miss him. His name is Adam.” I want to say that he brought me back to life, but I don’t want to drop too many bombshells on Jackie today. “I think you’d really like him.”
The look of sympathy in her eyes makes my heart squeeze in my chest. “Well, I hope for your sake that you two can work out your differences.”
I nod as Chris shuffles in on his crutches. I don’t tell her that Adam and I don’t have differences, we have distance—too much distance.
“I see tears have been shed. Does that mean I missed the good part?” Chris says as he passes me on his way to the fridge.
Jackie looks at me and I see a glimmer of something in her brown eyes. I think she’s silently asking me not to tell Chris that we were talking about Adam.
“I should get going,” I say and Chris immediately closes the refrigerator door.
“I’ll walk you out.”
/> “Walk?” Jackie says with a chuckle, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Real funny. Make fun of the cripple.”
He waits for me to give Jackie a hug and say goodbye before he follows me to the door. I grab my purse and keys from the table in the foyer and pretend not to notice how uncomfortable Chris looks when I open and close the front door for him.
I follow him out to where my car is parked next to the curb and he looks over my car. It needs to be washed, but I haven’t gotten my first full paycheck yet from my new job at the used textbook store.
We stand in silence for a moment while we both try to think of something to say. Finally, he looks me in the eye and I recognize that look. It’s the same look he gave me the day we broke up. The look that broke my heart and it has the same effect on me now.
“I’m sorry that I never called you after I left last year. I know I fucked everything up.”
“I think we both did a pretty good job of that.”
“No, this is my fault. If I had fought harder for us, we wouldn’t be in this situation with Abigail and everything would be different. We’d still be together. You know that, don’t you?”
I sigh then nod, because it’s true. It’s Saturday. If we hadn’t made all these stupid mistakes, we’d probably be lying in bed in my dorm or hanging out at Tristan’s house entertaining whatever girl he brought home that weekend. We’d be wrapped up in each other, two ribbons of the same color twisted and tied together, inextricable and indistinguishable.
He leans his crutches against the side of my car and holds out his hand. I stare at it for a moment, my heart pounding as I try not to think that this is one of those moments where everything changes—a turning point. I reach out and he takes my hand in his then pulls me toward him. I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face in his shoulder.
“Can I call you tonight?” he asks in that soft, sexy voice he uses when he’s on stage.
I try not to laugh. “Yeah, I guess that’s okay. You still haven’t heard anything from Tasha?”
“Not yet,” he says as he pulls his head back to look at me. “But I swear I’m working on it. I’m not giving up.”
“I should go.”
He kisses my forehead and I sigh as his fingers trail down the side of my face and land on my neck. “Drive safely, babe.”
He grabs his crutches and steps back as he watches me get into the car. I turn the key in the ignition then jump when he knocks on my window. I roll it down and he smiles.
“Please wash your car.”
“Way to kill the moment, douche.”
“I put some money in your bank account yesterday, which you probably didn’t notice because judging by the negative balance you probably never check your account.”
I don’t know if I should punch him or kiss him or cry from embarrassment. “That’s not funny.”
“I know. That’s why I took care of it. Please don’t let it get to that point again.” He smacks the top of my car. “And wash this thing.” He leans his head through the window and kisses my cheek then whispers in my ear, “I’ll always take care of you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Adam
AFTER THAT TEXT MESSAGE FROM Claire, I was about ready to completely give up on Claire, if it weren’t for the talk I had with Yuri last night. Sometimes I feel like Yuri’s the craziest person I know and other times I feel like he’s the only person I know who has any sense. His nuggets of wisdom come mostly from his upbringing. Both his parents were humanists and his mother was a surfer when she was younger.
“Dude, the quickest path to self-destruction is to push away the people you love,” he had said as he lay on the bed in the hotel room in Maui and I sat in the desk chair, both of us sipping beers and admiring the view out the hotel window.
“You sound like your mom.”
“Because my mom is the shit.”
I finish off my beer and pull another one out of the bucket of ice on the desk. “I think I fucked up majorly, but I don’t know how to fix it other than jumping on a plane and going back to her.”
“You can use my ticket and I’ll stay here and pretend to be you.”
“Do you think Lena would mind me pretending to be you when I get there?”
“She doesn’t like small dicks.”
“Then how the fuck are you two still together?”
“She doesn’t know about my inflatable implant.”
I can always count on Yuri to say what I need to hear, but now I’m faced with the biggest decision of my life. I can quit this project and go back to Claire. That means I’ll have to keep working for my dad and I’ll be tied to Wilmington and the secret that binds me to my father until I’m thirty. Or I can stick it out here for four more weeks and risk coming back to find that Claire can’t forgive me—or worse, that I’ve been replaced.
After driving Yuri to the airport at five a.m., I just want to get back to the hotel room and go to sleep before I make any important decisions. I have to take this rental car back tomorrow and catch a flight back to Kauai at eight p.m. But a text message from an unknown number changes everything.
Unknown: We decided not to catch the flight back because Lindsay was having some pain. We’re at Maui Memorial.
It’s Nathan. I don’t want to respond and I definitely don’t want to go. The odds of it being mine are so fucking slim, it’s not worth putting myself, or them, through it. I always used condoms with Lindsay. I did love her, but I’m not stupid. It’s not a trust issue. I just know I’m not ready to be a father.
Of course, this just makes me think of Claire. What if she does work out an open adoption agreement with Abigail’s parents? If I want to be with her, I’ll have to support that. I have no idea how open adoptions work, but I assume the parents wouldn’t want Claire’s boyfriend around their daughter mixing her up even further than she’ll already be by having two sets of parents. What if I’m not what’s best for Claire at all?
Fuck that. That’s the kind of thinking that got me into this mess.
I pull over to look up the directions to Maui Memorial Medical Center then turn my truck around. I pull into the parking lot a half hour later and find a parking space as far from the entrance as possible before I text back.
Me: What room are you guys in?
Nathan: I don’t know. Just ask for her name at the nurse’s desk in the waiting room.
I sit in my car for a minute and think about what I’m getting myself into. The past four and a half years of my life since Myles’ death have been a series of train wrecks. I quit competing. I got together with Lindsay. I nearly killed Nathan. I started smoking weed to calm down after I realized I was on a collision course. My life only started getting better when I met Claire. I feel like being here at this hospital is just a way for me to get sucked back into that old life. It’s another train wreck waiting to happen.
As much as I want to pull out of this parking lot and go home, more than anything I want to do what I think Claire would want me to do.
I find the nurse’s desk outside the maternity waiting room and the nurse wants to know if I’m family.
I look her in the eye and try not to sound too annoyed when I say, “I could possibly be the father.”
She raises her eyebrows as she leans forward and points down the hall. “Third room on the right.”
I make it within a few feet of the door when the realization hits me. If this baby isn’t mine, I’m going back to Wilmington and calling my dad’s bluff. I’ll quit my job at Parker Construction and take the job in Raleigh. I don’t think my dad will tell the cops the real version of what happened to Myles, but I wouldn’t put it past him to completely dissolve my trust account. I can live without the millions so long as I have Claire.
I knock on the door and Nathan comes out looking frazzled as fuck. “Lindsay doesn’t want you in there, but I already booked the paternity test for tonight ‘cause the baby’s coming soon. You can wait around for her to be born or you ca
n go home and we’ll call you on Thursday with the results.”
“Thursday? That’s five days from now.” And it also happens to be my birthday. I’d rather be in Raleigh on Thursday.
“It takes the lab three business days from the day they receive the blood to get the results. That’s three days from Monday.”
“Fuck,” I whisper. “When are you all going back?”
He runs his hand through his hair as a guilty look washes over his face. “I have a competition on Wednesday so I’m leaving Tuesday. She’s sticking around here until Friday. They won’t give the results to anyone but the three of us.”
I sigh as I realize where this conversation is going. “You want me to pick up the results on Thursday.”
The guilty look on his face is replaced by relief. “Dude, I know you’d rather do pretty much anything other than help me, but I don’t want her to have to stay here alone.”
“And you can’t miss one fucking competition?”
“It’s my last chance to qualify. You already made it. You don’t have to worry about this shit anymore until March. I’ve only got one more shot. I’m paying the entire $1,100 for the test.”
As much as I want to tell him to go to hell, I know that he and Lindsay probably didn’t think they’d have to deal with this because she wasn’t supposed to be due for more than a week. And they sure as hell didn’t expect to run into me here. If this is what it takes to get some peace of mind, I’ll do it.
I don’t even know if this kid is mine and I’m already stressed out. I can’t imagine what Claire has gone through this past year. I should be there with her right now, but I have to handle this first.
“All right. Text me the address for the lab and I’ll pick up the results on Thursday.”
“Thanks so much, bro. You don’t know how much you’ve helped us.” He reaches out to shake my hand and I can’t bring myself to do it.