Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ethan

I had gone through all the miniature bottles of liquor in the bar fridge in my hotel by Sunday afternoon. Rain was pattering on the window as I stared at the television. I didn’t know what show was on despite having been watching it for the last forty minutes. My mind was elsewhere, and it had been all weekend.

My mind was on Devon.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since leaving the penthouse on Thursday evening. I also had not heard anything from Devon, not that I’d expected to. I was the one who had packed up and left, not her. If anyone was going to reach out first, I knew it had to be me.

I also knew there was a timeline involved. I was going to have to confront her at some point. She was going to have my son soon.

Our son.

I blew out a breath. Everything was so much more complicated than it had been just days ago. I thought back to the Hamptons. Everything had felt so right. I was so at ease. Devon had been happier than I had ever seen her. Then, she and Heather had reconnected. All the pieces had fallen perfectly into place, and then I’d realized that I was in love, and that was something I wasn’t ready for.

Liam had helped me realize that.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. My dad was calling.

“Hey, Dad,” I answered, holding the phone to my ear.

“Hi,” my dad said. “You busy today?”

My only plan for the day was to order room service and avoid having to talk to anyone. I tried to think of something I could tell my father I was doing, but no ideas came to mind. I came up empty. “No, not busy,” I said.

“Good, come on over this afternoon. I need some help moving some stuff around in the garage.”

“Right,” I said. “Moving stuff in the garage. Got it.”

We ended the phone call, and I continued to watch the stupid cop show on the TV until it was noon. Then I called Eddison, and he drove me to my parents’ place.

When I got out of the limo, my mother opened the front door of the house. She greeted me warmly, pulling me in for a hug. I could see what she was desperately trying to hide from me in her eyes. Disappointment. I knew she had wanted me and Devon to work out. I knew telling them of our break-up at this stage when the baby was just around the corner would devastate her.

But it was what was best.

Wasn’t it?

“It’s good to see you,” my mother said, patting my cheek maternally. “Your father is already in the garage. Hurry along and go give him a hand before he hurts himself, will you?”

“No problem,” I said. “I’ll come back in before I go.”

“Okay, sweetheart.”

I joined my father in the garage. He was pulling boxes down from the attic and piling them in the corner behind his toolbox. When I stepped under the raised garage door, I knocked lightly on his ladder, peering up into the open space in the ceiling.

“Dad?” I called.

“I’ll be just a second, Ethan,” my dad called back. I could hear him pushing something heavy toward the opening. “Can I pass a box down to you, son?”

“Yeah,” I said, waiting as he inched closer to the opening, his whiskery face appearing over the edge. He gave me a smile and then eased the box through the opening. I grabbed it, surprised by how heavy it was, and walked it over into the corner with the other boxers.

“What is all this?” I asked, peering at the boxes.

My dad climbed down the ladder and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Just old stuff your mother wanted me to get down. She’s in one of her cleaning phases. You know the ones.”

“Where she goes through every room and throws out a bunch of junk?” I asked.

My father nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m familiar with it. Last time she did this, you were laid up in bed with a broken leg, and I had to do all the work.”

My father grinned. “That wasn’t such a raw deal on my end. By the time I was on my feet again, the house was clean, and she was filling it up with more shit from her shopping addiction. Don’t tell her I said that.”

I pretended to pull a zipper across my lips.

“Good lad,” my father said, slapping me on the back.

“So,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Where do you want to start?”

“Actually, let’s have a seat. I’ve been working my fingers to the bone all morning, and I need to take a breather.”

I followed my father into an addition he had built on the side of the garage eight years ago. It was a heated room with windows, and it was his official man cave. It had a television mounted on one wall with two couches on either side. I dropped down into one, and my father went to the mini-fridge he had in the corner. He grabbed us each a beer, tossed me mine, and sat down across from me.

After popping the tab on his can, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “So,” he said officially. “Give me the scoop on what all went down with you and Devon. Heather told us about the mess you made.”

I should have known there was an ulterior motive to cleaning the garage. I sighed and leaned back on the sofa. “There’s nothing to tell. Things aren’t working out, and we needed some space, so I’m staying at a hotel for a few nights.”

My father raised his eyebrows and sipped his beer. “So, she’s all alone in your penthouse? What do you imagine she’s doing with her time?”

I shrugged. “Watching movies and hanging out with Heather. I don’t know. She spends a lot of time reading, actually. She’s probably curled up on the couch with a book right now with the fire on. I’d bet money on it,” I said, unable to help the small smile that tugged the corner of my mouth.

“Why did you need space from her?” My father asked.

“It’s complicated, Dad, I don’t really want to get into it right now. It’s still fresh.”

My dad leaned back and shook his head disapprovingly at me. “You don’t want to talk about it because you can’t understand why you’ve done it.”

“What?” I asked.

“Listen, Ethan, you’re a smart man. No, you’re a brilliant man, and I’m so proud of you. You’ve built an incredible life for yourself strictly out of sheer will and determination. But what you have isn’t what you need. You’ve been missing that final piece, that piece that makes you whole and makes everything feel small. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“So what? Devon is my piece?” I asked, a little irritated at the analogy.

“That’s not my call to make. All I know is she makes you incredibly happy. I see the way you look at her when she’s around, and I see the way she looks at you. The love you have for one another is obvious to everyone but you. Even just now, when you told me Devon was probably at home reading, you lit up like a Christmas tree. I’m not blind, and I’m not stupid. You’re in love with the girl, Ethan.”

I looked at the beer in my hands.

“If you’ve nothing to say for yourself, I’ll keep going,” my father continued. “If you don’t man up and tell her how you feel and tell her what you want, you’re going to lose her. Women like that don’t come around often. You’re lucky one came around even once. And not to mention, she loves you, Ethan. Not your money or your house or your cars. You. Now you have to decide what you’re going to do. Staying at a hotel for a few nights is not a solution. It just delays the inevitable. Step up. Talk to her. Tell her what you want. Stop lying to yourself.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and finally met my father’s eye. I could feel the truth of everything he had just said in my bones.

“I’ve never felt this way about someone before,” I said, “and it scares the hell out of me.”

“It should,” my father said with an assertive nod. “This is an all hands on deck kind of situation. We don’t talk much about your other female pursuits, for lack of a better word, but those are a crutch, Ethan. You can’t get hurt when you only give someone two percent of yourself. Giving one hundred percent is a lot. It’s terrifying. But believe me, it is so worth it. If you let this girl get away, you will regret it for the rest of your life. I know you.”

“How do I even know if this is real?” I asked, standing up and pacing back and forth.
“What if I only feel like this because she’s carrying our son? What if this is temporary? What if the baby is born, and all of a sudden, everything goes back to how it was and we’re just friends?”

“I don’t know,” my father shrugged. “You tell me.”

I rubbed my temple. “She moves out. I raise my son. I go back to how things were.”

“And if you end things now?”

“Same thing,” I said quietly.

“Exactly,” my father said. “Go for it. The outcome is the same regardless of whether you try and fail or don’t try at all. You both deserve to give this a real fighting chance. That girl is head over heels in love with you, my boy. She isn’t going anywhere. Not if you fight for her.”

I sat back down and rested my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hands. We sat in silence together for a while until my father cleared his throat, stood, and joined me on my couch.

“This right here,” he said, “this feeling of anxiety and fear and doubt? This is proof enough that Devon is the one for you. This is how you know it’s right. When you’re so scared, you can hardly think straight, but you’re so damn excited that you want nothing more than to tell the girl you love her.”

He was right, of course. He was always right.

“I can’t just walk back into the house and tell her I’m over it. I can’t say I was just freaking out and hope she’ll understand,” I said.

“No, you can’t,” my dad said. “I guess you’d better start thinking of some ways to make it up to her. You left her alone at your place for three days when she was pregnant with your son.”

“What should I do? I’m no good at romantic gestures and big surprises.”

My father shook his head. “You’re overthinking it. In my experience, the best way to make it up to a woman who’s too good for you is to tell her exactly how you feel. Don’t hold back. Show her your soul. She’ll forgive you before she remembers she was ever upset with you.”

I arched an eyebrow.

“Ask your mother,” my father said, before giving me a wide, whiskery grin and slapping my knee with a laugh.