Ava

“More ice cream?” Ellie offers me the tub of chunky monkey peanut butter something-or-other. “Or more vodka?”

I push away the carton and groan, rubbing my stomach. “God, I can’t. There’s no more room.”

I called her when I left Jake’s apartment, and she met me at my house. After I tearfully confessed everything leading up to and including my breakup with Jake, we spent the entire day binge-watching old Grey’s Anatomy episodes and eating comfort food.

Her gaze drops to my hand, and she frowns. “What happens if you’re pregnant?”

The word makes my chest twinge, but I shake my head. “I won’t be. I tried to get pregnant for two years with Harrison and never managed. It’s pretty unlikely that one weekend with Jake is going to leave me knocked up.”

“But what if it did?” Ellie asks softly. She’s been really good about listening and not sharing her opinion today, so I’m unreasonably irritated that she’s pushing this.

“Then I’d have a baby and wouldn’t need to pay a fertility clinic.” I pull my feet onto the couch and wrap my arms around my legs. “I’ll never see a child as a mistake, Ell. No matter what.”

Her expression softens. “Of course you wouldn’t. I just mean Jake would want to be part of the kid’s life too, right?”

I swallow hard and look away. When did my life turn so dramatic? Molly has a baby she didn’t tell anyone about that might be Jake’s, and I had unprotected sex with Jake and might be carrying his child. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge if I get to it.”

She leans her head on my shoulder. “Give yourself time to hurt, to be angry, but then talk to him. You can’t cut Jake from your life. You love him.”

“He broke my heart,” I whisper. “The night they slept together, I was trying to decide if I should give Harrison his ring back so I could try being with Jake. I was ready to flip my life on its head, and he was jumping in bed with Molly. That makes me feel like a fool.”

“But he came to you first, right? He was drunk and upset, and that’s the only reason he ended up with her.”

I nudge her shoulder and scowl at her. “I’m not ready for you to defend him yet.”

She nods. “Right. He’s a jackass who did a bad thing. It’s true. We don’t need to discuss the nuances of his choices for at least a couple more days.”

I reach for my water and take a sip. “Thanks.”

“Have you called Molly?” Ellie asks. “Maybe you’d feel better if you heard about the kid from her.”

I shake my head. “I’m pretty mad at her, too.”

“For sleeping with Jake, or for keeping her son a secret from you?”

“Both,” I whisper. I thought I was done crying, but hot tears prick the backs of my eyes again. “But mostly, I’m angry because it hurts to know she already has what I might never have. And that might mean she gets Jake, too.”

Jake

When I texted Brayden to see if we could talk, he said he was at Ethan’s having coffee with Mom. I find them at the kitchen table and kiss Mom on the forehead before pulling out a chair to join them.

“Where’s Ava this morning?” Mom asks. She looks good today. There’s color in her cheeks, and a light in her eyes that, a short month ago, I was afraid was being snuffed out.

“She’s at home.” It’s only a half-lie. Ava is likely at home, but I don’t know that for a fact, since she still isn’t talking to me. I don’t want to worry Mom with our breakup. Not when I’m still clinging to the hope that I can fix this mess somehow.

Mom nods. “Well, I sure enjoyed having her with us at the cabin again. It was like old times.” She pushes out of her chair and grabs her crutches. Brayden and I both stand at once to help, but she waves us away. “I’m going to go read for a bit and let you boys talk business. You’re making your father’s dreams come true.”

We watch her leave, neither of us bothering to sit again once she’s disappeared into the apartment behind Ethan’s garage.

“I need you guys to cover the bar for me for a couple of days,” I say when we’re alone. “I need to take a trip.”

“No problem. Is everything okay?”

I shake my head. My world is in shambles and he asks me if everything’s okay. “It will be.” I sound more confident than I feel.

Brayden walks over to the coffee pot and refills his cup. “Did you talk to Molly?”

I draw in a breath. “Yeah. I called her this morning.” When he looks at me expectantly, I shake my head. “Was Levi serious? Did something happen between you and Molly when you went up there?”

Brayden takes a sip from his mug and seems to ponder this. “I’m usually more professional than that, but we’d had a long day and a few drinks with dinner. One thing led to another. She’s stunning, you know. Not just beautiful but . . .” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me about the kid. Is it true?”

Guilt sits heavily on my chest. I hate this. It doesn’t bother me that Brayden slept with a woman I had a drunken night with, but I don’t think he’ll feel the same. “I called her this morning, and Noah is her son. I don’t know who the father is, though, and she wouldn’t tell me. I’m going to go up there and see if I can get more out of her in person.”

He makes a face. “Why do you care who the kid’s father is?”

“I need to know.”

“But why—” I see the moment it clicks for him, and he blinks at me. “Fucking hell, Jake. You slept with her?”

“It was one night.” I wait a beat, then force myself to say the rest. “One night in August five years ago.” I can practically see him doing the math in his head, and he closes his eyes. His mug clangs as he slams it on the counter.

“I’m sorry. The kid came as a shock to me too, and—”

“Stop talking.”

“I don’t even know if he’s my—”

His fist connects with my jaw. The right side of my face explodes with pain, and I grab it.

“Go be a fucking man and take care of your kid.” He storms out of the house, and I let him. There’s nothing else to say.

When he’s gone, I grab a bag of peas from Ethan’s freezer, press it against my jaw, and pull out my phone to book my flight.

The sun is setting when I knock on the door to Molly’s Brooklyn apartment. I close my eyes. Every step that got me here has felt like autopilot, and my brain hasn’t stopped spinning. When Molly asked me not to tell Ava about our night together, I thought it was because she didn’t want to hurt her relationship with her stepsister. Now, I see her request for secrecy in an entirely different light. Why didn’t she tell me she was pregnant? Even if she was sleeping with someone else at the time, there’s a chance the kid could be mine. Why didn’t she tell me she might have had my fucking baby?

Her reasons don’t matter. Ava’s right. At the end of the day, if I have a kid out there, I’m going to be part of his life. So here I am. Because I might have a child. Because this is the right thing to do.

Molly opens the door, and her brow wrinkles in confusion as she looks at me. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

She lifts onto her tiptoes and looks over my shoulder. “Where’s Ava?”

“She’s at home. She broke up with me and won’t answer my calls, so bringing her along would’ve been tricky.” I sound pissed, like all this is Molly’s fault, when it’s not. Some of it is, sure. But if this kid is mine, I have to own up to the part I played in that. What a mess.

“Broke up with you? Does that mean you two finally got together?”

“Yeah. Briefly. Until she found out about my night with you and your son within a couple of days of each other.”

“Mommy?”

My chest clutches so hard and tight at the little boy’s voice. I brace myself on the doorframe. I’m not sure I believed he existed. Don’t think too much. Just do the next right thing.

Molly looks over her shoulder and calls into the apartment, “Noah, honey, Mommy will be back in a minute. I need to speak with someone in the hall. You can watch cartoons.”

“Even Pider-Man?” he calls back.

“Even Spider-Man,” Molly says.

I feel like the floor has disappeared from beneath my feet.

Molly steps out of her apartment, and I move out of the way so she can shut her door. She tilts her head to the side and studies my face. “You didn’t need to come. I’m sorry about you and Ava, but like I told you on the phone, this has nothing to do with you.”

I stare at the apartment door, thinking of the little voice from inside. “You didn’t give me much reason to believe you.”

When I look back at Molly, her eyes are wide. “Reason? You need a reason? He’s not your kid. Be happy. You’re off the hook. You and Ava can live happily ever after.”

“Then whose is he?”

“He’s mine.” It’s gotta be pushing ninety out here in the corridor, but her words have the bite of the winter wind.

“Who is the father, Molly?”

She meets my gaze with fiery eyes. “I don’t owe you this. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Do a DNA test, then. Prove to me he’s not mine. I can’t walk away until I know.”

She throws up her arms. “You want to waste your money like that, then why not? Must be nice to have cash to throw down the drain.” She waits a beat, then says, “You seriously don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Jake, the night we were together, we didn’t even have sex. We were both drunk, but you were toasted out of your mind. When we went up to your apartment, I thought we were headed for your bed, but instead . . .” Her shoulders sag as she exhales. “We messed around for a while, then you stopped us. You said Ava wouldn’t forgive you.” She holds my gaze as she says this. “Noah can’t be yours because you and I never slept together.”

There’s a special place in hell for assholes like me, because I’m swamped with nothing but relief. I don’t have a kid with Molly. Her little boy isn’t mine.

Please let this be true.

Her eyes are pleading. “Now would you please forget you know anything about this?”

“I don’t understand. If you weren’t keeping this baby a secret to protect me, then who . . .”

She laughs, but her eyes fill with tears. “You really think I’d have been hiding in New York if I’d had a Jackson’s baby?” She clutches her stomach, and I can’t decide if she’s trying to hold in a belly laugh or if she thinks she might be sick. Tears spill onto her cheeks, and she wipes them away. “Will you please leave?”

“Whose is he? I’m not walking away until you tell me.” Ava won’t believe me until I have an answer to that question.

“I can’t.” Her voice is hard, brittle at the edges, her words faltering. “It doesn’t matter.”

The door opens, and a little boy steps into the corridor. My breath leaves me in a rush when I see his wild, dark hair and smiling brown eyes. He doesn’t look a thing like his blond-haired, blue-eyed mother.

“Hi,” Noah says, waving to me.

“Noah,” Molly says, pointing into the apartment, “I need you to stay inside.”

“It’s a girl cartoon.” He pouts. “I wanted Pider-Man. I don’t like My Wittle Ponies.”

“Then play with your trains until I get in there.” Her voice is stern, and she spares a panicked glance in my direction before pointing into the apartment again. “Please, Noah. I only need another minute.”

“Bye,” Noah says before scurrying into the apartment and shutting the door behind him.

“He’s a McKinley.” No wonder she didn’t want me to see him. Holy shit. It’s so clear.

“Of course he is. He’s my son.”

I shake my head. That’s not what I mean, and she knows it. Molly is only a McKinley because Ava’s father adopted her. Noah is a McKinley by birth. It’s all over his face.

“It’s none of your business, Jake. Please stay out of it. Go home to Ava. Tell her you’re madly in love with her and make beautiful babies together. Don’t worry about me and Noah.”

“You’re sure you don’t want his father to know?”

“Noah doesn’t have a father,” she says firmly. “Just a mommy, and he and his mommy are doing just fine.” She takes my hand, and vulnerability creeps into her eyes for the first time when she says, “Please don’t do anything that might change that.”

It’s the desperation in her eyes that makes me understand her secret. Holy shit. “The secret is yours to keep or tell,” I promise. “You don’t have to worry about me, but soon enough, word is going to spread that you have a child.”

“Let it spread.” She shrugs, but I see the worry on her face. “Don’t do that. Don’t look at me like you feel sorry for me. I don’t want your pity.”

She has it whether she wants it or not. “Let me help you.”

“You already helped when you gave me a job.”

“But surely you need more than that. Let me get you caught up on rent, or—”

She shakes her head as she laughs. “Ava’s right. You are a fixer, aren’t you?”

“I’m not offering anything she wouldn’t.”

She sighs heavily. “Not every problem is yours, Jake. This one is mine, and mine alone. I made my choices, and I’ll deal with them.”