Jake

“Jake! I’m so sorry I couldn’t talk this weekend. How are you?”

I drag a hand through my hair and pace my apartment, not sure if I can honestly answer that question. On the one hand, I spent the weekend with Ava and have never been better. On the other hand, I’m on the phone with Ava’s stepsister so I can ask her if she had my child four years ago. The idea is so insane that I laugh. “I’m good, I think.”

“You think? You’re helping the love of your life get pregnant. You should be grand.” Molly grunts, obviously unamused by the idea. “So, what’s up?”

“Listen . . .” I clear my throat, unsure where to start. “We were going over your health insurance enrollment and saw that you claimed a dependent.”

“What?” I hear the shock in her voice and know immediately that she understands the reason for my call. “I filled that out on the insurance company’s website. I thought that was confidential.”

“No. It doesn’t work like that.” Fuck. I pace across my living room and back, letting the silence grow between us and waiting for her to explain. “Molly?”

“Is there a problem with me being a mother? Does this mean I can’t work for Jackson Brews?”

I close my eyes and sink into my chair. “You know that’s not why I’m calling.” Another beat. She’s silent. “Ava was there when Brayden asked me about your kid. Even your stepsister didn’t know about him. What the hell is going on?”

“You told Ava? Jesus, is it unreasonable for me to expect that the information I put on confidential forms remains confidential?” She blows out a hard breath. “What a disaster.”

“You could have told me you ended up pregnant. You don’t keep that from—”

“It’s not your business. This is private.”

“Isn’t it? We were together in August.” I shake my head and tug on a fistful of hair. I’ve been telling myself all weekend that it’s ridiculous to assume that a child born four years ago to a woman I slept with once is mine, but it was easy to tell myself that when I was sure she’d jump right in to name the father. “His birthday is May second.” She is quiet too long. “What am I supposed to do with this information?” I sound as desperate and panicked as I feel.

“Ignore it? Forget it? Never bring it up again?”

“Is he mine?”

She sighs heavily. “He’s my child, Jake. Not yours, and not anyone else’s.”

“How can I believe he’s not mine?” Please give me a fucking reason to believe.

“Noah is mine. I’m his parent, so please don’t ask me any more questions and please don’t talk about it.” She’s silent for a few beats, sighing as if the fight’s gone out of her. When she speaks again, her tone softens. “Can you tell Ava it was a mistake? That I screwed up the form or something?”

“I can’t lie to her about this.” I won’t. I’ve already fucked up enough.

“Why not? You went years without telling her how you feel and then years without mentioning our drunken mistake.”

“Things are different now. Ava and I—”

“I don’t want to know, Jake. Please. You live your life. You enjoy it, but don’t make me listen to details about how special the two of you are together. Just don’t.” Her voice cracks, and I feel it in my chest. I know that ache she’s feeling and wish I’d never done anything to make it worse.

“You can’t keep a child a secret. The father has a right to know.”

“You’re full of assumptions, and I’m done with this conversation. I’m asking you as politely as I know how to forget about this. If I need to find another job, I will.”

And leave her alone and jobless to raise the child? “I didn’t say that. You have to admit that, given the timing, I have a right to ask questions.”

There’s a scrape in the lock. The door swings open and Ava walks in, her face drawn tight. She was so happy when she left here this morning. So was I.

She looks at me and then the phone in my hand.

Molly exhales heavily. “I need to go. I’m not going to talk about this anymore.”

I open my mouth to object, but the call ends before I can say a word. I take the phone from my ear and stare at it.

“Who was that?” Ava asks.

The anger in her eyes feels like a punch in the gut. “Molly.”

She nods and turns away, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “So have you known all this time about her kid, or was it a surprise to you, too?”

I toss my phone onto the coffee table. That call was supposed to give me answers and make me feel better. It did neither. “I found out when you did.”

She rubs her arms. “I should have realized something was going on when I saw how much the news affected you.” She laughs. “I thought you just felt sorry for me. Poor Ava has such a screwed-up relationship with her sister that she didn’t even know she had a nephew.” She tosses her purse on the couch and paces between the front door and the kitchen. “But the joke’s on me, because you fucked my sister nine months before she had this secret baby.”

Everything inside me feels like it locks up at those words. “Who told you that?”

“Harrison.” She stops pacing, her back to me, and releases a sardonic laugh. “God, you’d think I’d get to learn something like that from someone other than my ex-husband, but no. What fun would that be?” She turns slowly and meets my eyes. “And you can’t deny it, can you?”

I swallow, but the lump in my throat refuses to budge. Standing, I cross to Ava and take her hands in mine. “I was upset that you’d rejected me. I was drinking, and she was there and . . . it was one night.”

She tugs her hands away. “One night is all it takes. One night was all it took for Harrison to ruin our marriage, and one night was all it took for you to give Molly a baby.”

“Don’t compare me to him. I was with Molly after you shut me down and sent me away. I would never cheat on you. I wouldn’t betray you like that.”

“And yet you’ve had five years to tell me that you slept with my stepsister, and you’ve never said a word.”

“I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t know about Noah. Molly never told me she was pregnant or that she had a kid.” I turn up my palms. “I still don’t know anything, honestly. She didn’t want to talk about it. She said he wasn’t mine, but . . .” But she wasn’t very convincing. “Ava, we’ll figure this out together. I promise.”

She wraps her arms around herself. “Do you know why I realized I couldn’t let you give me a baby?”

My jaw hardens. “I like to think it was because you loved me and wanted more than my sperm.”

She shakes her head. “No. That’s not why.”

“Why?” The word is raw, just like every inch of my heart.

“Because I know you, Jake. I know that you do the right thing. If I’d gotten pregnant, you would have been right there by my side, helping, and fathering, whether that was the life you wanted or not. I know you’ll do the same now for Molly and Noah.”

“She said he’s not mine.” I’m desperate. Panic and confusion twist inside me like snapping fuses creeping toward an ugly explosion.

“Do you believe her? She’s kept this child a secret from everyone for four years, and you’re going to believe he’s not yours just because she said so on the phone?” She studies me, and her expression falters. “You don’t believe it. I see it in your eyes. You think she was lying to you.”

I close my eyes. A few days ago, the only child on the horizon was the one I might make with Ava, and now I’m contemplating the logistics of making Molly do a paternity test on her son. “I don’t know what to think.”

“I can’t see you anymore.”

At first, I’m not sure I heard her right, and then once the words register, they hit me like a sledgehammer right to the chest. It’s a wonder I’m still standing. “Don’t say that.”

“I can’t work at the bar anymore either. I can’t do any of it. You have shit to figure out, and so do I.”

“So we’ll figure it out together.”

“We aren’t any good for each other.” The words vault out of her like rocks thrown at a window. I crack at the impact.

“You’re angry and confused right now, but we’re going to figure this out.”

She nods, her face pale. “I know you will, but not with me. I’m sorry.”

I reach for her, and she steps away, dodging my touch. I don’t have much of a temper, but the little I do have is brewing like a dark storm in my chest.

I can’t lose you.

When she looks up at me, there are tears rolling down her cheeks. “I think you’re amazing.”

Shit. I shake my head, my desperation and panic morphing into anger. “Are we beginning the it’s not you, it’s me conversation? Because I’m really not in the mood to hear that bullshit right now.”

She holds up a hand. “Let me finish.”

I force myself to take a deep breath.

“Thinking about you touching her makes me want to crawl out of my skin.” She shakes her head and squeezes her eyes shut. “Maybe I can get over that eventually. I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t be the second family. I already told you that. I can’t, Jake.”

I’m not even sure where to start. She just carved out my guts. Am I supposed to be empathetic? I understand how hard her teenage years were on her—living with her asshole father and being made to feel like she was a guest in his home. To nod along while she throws me into a category with the man who cheated on her and confirmed all her insecurities? “Do not compare me to the two worst men in your life.” My words snap with anger and desperation. “You’ve never been second to me, and you never will be.”

She shakes her head and presses a hand to her stomach. “I can’t be second, and I can’t be the reason you don’t do what you know is right.” She steps around me and grabs her purse, heading for the door.

“I would never hurt you like they did.”

“You already did.”

Those words hit me center mass and take the fight from me. I already did. “Don’t go. Don’t leave like this.”

She stops with her hand on the knob and looks over her shoulder. “I have to.”

The door closes with a quiet thunk, and I feel like she just buried me alive. What am I supposed to do with all this anger and frustration and helplessness clawing at my chest?

I walk to the window and watch the sidewalk until Ava appears and walks away. I prop my hands on my head, as if that might give my lungs the room they need to expand when they’re being compressed by all this shit.

It doesn’t work. I want to run after her and demand that she undo what she just did. I want to drop to my knees and beg her to stay.

But I can’t do that until I talk to Molly, and I know now that the conversation we need to have isn’t one we can have on the phone.

I need to go to New York and find out if I have a son.