Chapter Twenty-Six
Devon
The fire was crackling happily behind the frosted glass, and the crystals beneath the flames were sparkling radiantly, casting flickering amber light on the carpet on the living room floor. Music was thumping out of Ethan’s wall-mounted speakers, and I was dancing like a fool in my bare feet and pajamas. I could feel the bass from the music in the soles of my feet with each and every beat, and as I shimmied my shoulders and shook my butt like a Go-Go dancer who needed to be fired, I realized something that froze me in place.
I had never felt so damn happy before.
This epiphany only made me dance like more of a fool, and as I spun around the living room, I was grinning like a madwoman. I put both hands on my belly as I started to sing along to the song and continued rocking out until I heard the front door close.
I hurried to the coffee table to grab the remote to turn down the music. Just as the volume adjusted to a more appropriate noise level, Ethan emerged from the hallway. He was dressed nicely in dark denim and a black jacket that framed his broad shoulders well. A dark gray shirt was tucked into his jeans, and a silver watch flashed on his wrist beneath the cuff of his sleeve.
He gave me a smile that wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was used to seeing and then went straight to the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge. He popped it open, returned the bottle opener to its home in one of the top drawers, and then leaned one hip against the counter as he took a sip.
“Hey,” I said, waddling over to the island to join him in the kitchen.
He was still leaning against the counter and didn’t turn to face me like he normally would. He took another mouthful of beer, sloshed it around his mouth a bit, and then after he had swallowed, lifted his gaze to finally meet mine. “Hey,” he said, “were you dancing in here?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, wiggling my shoulders playfully.
“I could hear the music from the elevator. Be a little more careful about the noise. The neighbors downstairs won’t appreciate it.”
“Oh,” I said, my cheeks getting hot. “Sorry. I got a little carried away, I guess. I didn’t realize how loud it was.”
He shrugged, remained quiet, and sipped his beer again.
I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was acting weird. Quite weird. Normally, the first thing he did when he got home was ask me how I was feeling. He wanted to know about my day, about how the baby was doing. What had I eaten? Had the baby kicked at all? Had I slept well the night before?
But now he was distant, closed off, and would barely meet my eye.
I slid off my barstool and padded around the island to join him on his side. He remained where he was, stiff and still, one hip still pressed to the counter.
I reached out and rested a hand lightly on his elbow. “Is everything okay, Ethan?” I asked.
He pulled his elbow away from me, stepped back, and put his beer down. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, why?”
I followed his retreat. Something was definitely up. Had I done something? I ran things over in my mind.
No, I couldn’t have. Everything had been so good lately. Actually, things had been pretty magnificent. Now that I had Heather back, I felt like I was living on cloud nine. Ethan had been as thrilled with my reunion with my best friend as I was. I couldn’t understand why he was having such a shift in behavior.
“Did something happen at work today?” I asked.
He shook his head, his eyebrows drawing together as he took another sip of beer. “No, nothing happened.”
“Was your night with Liam not a good time?” I asked.
Ethan shook his head. “No. It was fine. What’s with the interrogation?”
“It’s not an interrogation,” I said defensively. “You seem upset about something, and I want to make sure you’re okay. Since when is that such a big deal?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Ethan sighed. It wasn’t a small, end of the day kind of tired sigh. It was an annoyed sigh. It was the kind of sigh that basically yelled “shut up.”
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked. “Besides listening to music too loud? What did I do that’s making you treat me this way?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation right now,” Ethan said, waving me away like my question didn’t matter.
He made to walk around me, but I caught his sleeve and turned with him. “Ethan. Enough. You are a grown ass man, and I’m carrying your child. I don’t care if you don’t want to talk right now. We’re talking. End of story. Spit it out already.”
He stood there staring at me for an agonizing thirty seconds before concluding that the gig was up, and he had to put words to his thoughts. I wasn’t going to put up with this cold shoulder treatment. There was no way in hell.
“I just think I need a little bit of space right now,” he said.
“Space?” I asked, feeling a cold hand clamping around my stomach.
Ethan nodded. “Things feel like they’ve been moving really quickly, and I don’t know where my head is at. It’s all a little overwhelming.”
“Is this because of Liam? Did he say something to you?”
“No,” Ethan said crossly. “It has nothing to do with him.”
“I don’t understand where this is coming from,” I said, the hand around my stomach tightening even further until I felt like I could be sick right then and there. “I thought everything was going well. I thought we were happy. I thought—”
“I get it,” Ethan said, holding up his hand to get me to stop talking. “But this … all of a sudden, this became ‘us.’ I need to take a step back. We both do. Things are going to change in a couple months.”
I stood there like a fool blinking at him while I tried to get the words in my brain to my mouth. “You haven’t said any of this before. I had no idea you were feeling this way. How long have you been needing space?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan said.
“Yes, it does!” I said, feeling like a complete idiot. How had I let myself get so caught up in him? How long had he only had one toe in?
“No, Dev, it doesn’t. We both need to be practical, here, and—”
“You’re sure Liam didn’t say something to you? Because it sure feels like this came out of nowhere, and Liam is always spewing moronic bullshit out of his mouth.”
“This isn’t about Liam,” Ethan sad flatly.
“Then where is this coming from?” I pleaded. “What is all this really about?”
“It’s about you sleeping in my bed almost every night,” Ethan snapped.
I stared at him. He stared evenly back. Those perfect brown eyes of his were startling to stare into now. The warmth I was so used to seeing there was gone.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” I whispered.
“It isn’t.”
“Liar.”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. We stood there separated by only two feet of space that felt like miles until he let his hand fall from his face, and he regarded me with a neutral expression that I couldn’t read.
“I’m going to go stay in a hotel room for a few nights,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
He nodded, polished off the last few gulps of his beer, and left the empty bottle on the counter. Then, he went to his room where he started packing a bag. I lingered in the doorframe, watching as he tucked a pair of jeans into a duffel bag. He grabbed a small bag of toiletries and put those in the duffel bag as well.
I tried to think of something to say to change his mind. Nothing came to me. I felt empty and hollow and weak and terribly hurt. What could have happened in one day that made him feel so put off by me?
He squeezed past me in the open doorway to his bedroom and made his way to the front door. He stepped into his shoes, looked up once at me, and then opened the door.
“Bye,” I said quietly, my voice hitching in my throat.
He paused, his back to me and his hand still resting on the door handle. He turned his face to the side so that I could hear him, but he didn’t look at me. “Bye,” he said, before closing the door behind him.
As soon as the door closed, I crumpled to the ground. There was nothing I could do to hold on to the emotion that poured out of me. I buried my face in my hands as I sat on his floor and sobbed. My shoulders shook, my back ached, and within minutes, I had that all too familiar headache one suffered from after a really hard crying session. My nose was running, my eyes were swollen, and all I wanted was for Ethan to come back through that door telling me he was sorry and that he had made a mistake; I wanted him to tell me he had only been scared, but he knew what he wanted now.
I wanted him to want me.
How had this all become so one-sided? Twenty minutes ago, I had been feeling like everything in my life was going right. I knew I loved Ethan Garrison. I’d known deep down for a couple of months now. I loved who I was when I was with him. I loved how he made me feel.
I felt powerful and sexy and smart when I was with him. He built me up and complimented me, and I thought I complimented him. The way he looked at me sometimes had been enough to convince me I wasn’t the only one falling in love.
But it was all clear to me now I had been the only one who’d let my feelings take over. He had kept to the contract. This relationship was, at the end of the day, just a business deal. My role was to carry his child. After that, I would return to my normal solitary life, get an apartment back by NYU, and continue focusing on my career and building my own life.
My own life without Ethan.
I surprised myself by sobbing harder than I thought I physically could.
It had been so easy for him to walk away from me. He hadn’t even looked back. He didn’t need to. I was a business partner that he happened to have sex with on a near-daily basis. I was the one who had let myself get too caught up in him.
And now I had to pay the price.
My heart was broken. My soul was crushed.
And his child was still inside me, his little feet pushing up against my bladder, forcing me to stand on wobbly knees and make my way to the bathroom.