Not About Love (This Love Book 2) (24 page)

When she finally looked up and saw me, she stopped in her tracks for a moment. I gave her an uneasy smile as I shoved my hands in my pockets. She smiled back and held my gaze until she reached me.

When she got near, she didn’t say anything, just kept staring at me.

We hadn’t had time to talk that morning and I knew I owed her a big, fat apology, but now I was blanking.

“I fucked up.” That seemed to be a good, self-explanatory opener.

“Yeah, you have—a lot,” she said, cocking one eyebrow up. The tone of her voice was so low I could barely hear her, but her face gave away enough. She wasn’t happy with me. I had disappointed her. I’d never even tried to talk to her about
our baby
.

I let out a long breath. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get my ass over here. I’d like to be here for you, if you’ll let me.”

She nodded, looking down. Her hair covered her face, and I couldn’t see her eyes.

“What took you so damn long? And why didn’t you call me?” she asked, getting closer to me, pulling on the lapel of my leather jacket. Her voice was strained and as I brushed the hair out of her face, I saw her eyes were filled with tears. She was hurt. I had hurt her.

Great job, jackass. You did this.

I tried to hug her but she pushed me away. I wrapped my arms around her again. She didn’t push me away the second time, but she didn’t reciprocate.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I should have called you. I was making plans to come here all along. I just…I didn’t know what to say to you over the phone.”

“Just about anything would have been better than nothing.” She was bitter, and she had every right to be.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I fucked up. I’m an ass. But now I can stay, if you want me to. I’m here to stay.”

She gave me a confused look. “What do you mean you’re here to stay? How? How long?”

“The gym. I talked to the investors, and I explained the situation. I told them I needed to be able to stay here in Amsterdam, so they helped me get a work visa. This way I can stay here, you know…for longer.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “What? Why didn’t you ask me to help you out with that? I could have called someone. I’ve done it for Ella…I could have done it for you, too.”

“I know.” I nodded. “I know you could have, but I wanted to take care of it on my own. I’m the one who put you in this mess.” I tried to get her to look at me, and when she finally met my eyes, she gave me a small smile.

“Give me a chance, and I promise you I won’t let you down.”

She shrugged. “I guess. What have I got to lose, right?”

“I’m going to be here for you, Ally. We’re going to raise this kid. You and me, together.”

“I’M JUST TRYING TO HELP
Shane out. I know you can’t understand why. You probably think it’s stupid, but I’m doing it for old times’ sake.” I tried to say the words with conviction, but it was a lie. That wasn’t my real motive.

“Let me ask you something…how did it end between the two of you? Who dumped who?” Boyd and I were finally having the talk we hadn’t been able to have that morning, and so far we’d covered everything from our child to his business to my job. He needed to know about Shane and Grant, but I really didn’t want to dig up the past.

I remained quiet and didn’t answer his question. I looked outside, at the lights on the canal. We were dining at a small Italian restaurant I was fond of. They had the best fresh pasta in all of Amsterdam. It was run by an elderly couple who had moved there back in the ’80s, Tonino and Concetta. They had been married more than thirty years, and they were just the cutest. They had two kids who used to help run the place, but they were both attending college out of town. The restaurant was small, and the table for two would barely fit plates, glasses, and silverware. Boyd’s imposing figure dominated the whole space; he looked even bigger in the cozy restaurant.

Maybe I should have picked a different place, one where he wouldn’t look so ominous.

“It didn’t end well, did it?” he asked, seeing I wasn’t answering his previous question.

“Does it ever?” I replied, locking eyes with him.

He shrugged. “Rarely. Sometimes.” I thought he was going to drop the subject, but then he said, “You want him to owe you, don’t you? He let you go and now he needs you. You’re getting your payback, aren’t you?”

“What if I am?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Nothing wrong with that; I just need to know where you stand. We’re having a kid together, and I don’t want to get screwed over a second time.”

“A second time? What happened the first time?”

He flinched when he realized he’d said too much. He let out a deep breath and looked around us. He tipped his chin up and said, “Later.”

* * *

When we left the restaurant, we exchanged a few words, but then he grew quiet. We walked in silence for a little bit, and I waited for him to be ready to talk.

“Her name was Portia. We were high school sweethearts, and we stayed together through college. I know you asked me about the picture at my parents’ house. Yes, that was her. We were in a band together in high school and college.”

“You played the saxophone,” I said matter-of-factly, thinking about the picture.

“Yes. I did,” he said as the corner of his mouth curled up. “I don’t play any more, though.”

“That’s too bad.”

He shrugged. “Debatable. I really don’t think we were that great. Stubborn and ambitious, yes, but not that great of musicians. Portia had a great voice.”

“What kind of music did you play?”

“Ah! Wait for it! We were convinced we’d bring soul music back, kind of like in that movie
The Commitments
.”

“I love that movie.” I smiled, a bit surprised we were having this conversation, and he didn’t seem to be too torn up about it, but I knew the worst was yet to come.

“I do, too… In hindsight, America wasn’t ready for a soul revival back then. If we had stuck together a few more years, we maybe could have made it…but we weren’t as good as we thought, really.”

I laughed. He smiled, but too soon his smile fell. His brows furrowed, and his eyes grew dark.

“Anyway…we were going to get married at the end of college. That was the plan all along. We had been together for an eternity already, and it seemed to be the right thing to do. We loved each other…or so I thought.” He exhaled a deep breath and stopped in his tracks, turning to look at me. I saw the hurt on his face and in his voice when he spoke again. “A few months before the wedding, she found out she was pregnant. We were scared, but happy. We were going to be a family. I was going to do whatever I needed to. I was going to get a real job and take care of her and the baby.”

His lips pressed in a hard line, and he swallowed. He looked away as he said the words. “A couple weeks before the wedding, I found her sleeping with my best friend, the guitar player in our band.”

“Oh, Boyd.” I looked at him, but he was still looking away in the distance, his jaw taut as he tried to get the words out. I could see what it was doing to him to talk about it.

It was making him sick. His whole body was tensed up, his fists clenched.

I took one of his hands in mine, opening his fist.

“That’s not all. We fought for days. I was heartbroken and angry. I yelled some terrible things at her, and she kept begging for forgiveness, telling me she had made a mistake. I was torn. I didn’t know what to do. I had almost talked myself into getting over my pride for the sake of my son when…she confessed that the baby wasn’t mine.” He held my fingers, giving them a squeeze, and inhaled deeply.

“Of course, at first I didn’t believe her. I thought Portia was doing it out of spite because I’d said I wouldn’t take her back. I wanted to kill my
friend
, but my father and my brother stopped me. If they hadn’t, I probably would have killed the motherfucker. We canceled the wedding and as if that wasn’t humiliating enough, I had to have a court order for a paternity test. She kept insisting the child wasn’t mine, but how was I supposed to know? I just couldn’t believe…any of this. I had loved this girl, this woman. She was my entire life, and she turned out to be a liar and a cheater.” He let go of my hand and ran both of his through his hair, ruffling it up even more.

It should have been illegal to look that handsome. He looked beautiful even when he was angry, and my heart ached for him. This woman had broken his heart, and the pain inflicted had been so much that he never wanted to tie himself to anyone else.

“As you can imagine, the child wasn’t mine.” Only then did he glance in my direction. The lost look in his eyes was heartbreaking, the sudden need to comfort him, torture.

“I’m sorry, Boyd. That’s awful. No one should have to go through something like that.”

“When you told me you were pregnant, I slipped into a black hole. I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t deal with it. It brought back years of heartbreak,” he said in a gruff tone. His jaw locked, and he closed his eyes. A moment later, he looked at me and gave me a tight-lipped smile.

“So, are you ready to tell me about Shane now? Is it worse than my story?”

I hesitated. “Hmmm, no. Traumatic, but not as bad. Unfortunately, not much can top
that
.”

“You’re right about that, Bertie. So, what happened?”

“Are you familiar with the term ‘ghosting’?”

* * *

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.

A couple days later, we watched our bean-shaped baby on the small black screen of the ultrasound machine. We were quiet; we didn’t need to talk.

Our baby’s heartbeat filled the whole room.

We held each other’s hand, and he squeezed mine when my doctor pointed out the baby’s heart on the small screen.

“Isn’t that something?” he asked, eyes wide, a beautiful smile stretching across his face. He looked happy. I felt my heart swell in my chest, and my eyes filled up with tears.

That was our baby.

The tiny thing who made me a mushy, emotional human being.

We went to lunch with a pocketful of photos. We stared and stared at them as if it was the most magnificent white dot to ever appear on a black screen.

Well, it kind of was. It was our dot, after all.

“The doctor said we’ll have another one around the five-month mark. She said you can see everything by then. Head, arms, legs…and the sex.”

His eyes lifted from the pictures and met mine.

“Do you want to find out?” I asked him.

He shrugged, his eyebrows pulled together in a pensive look. He stared at the pictures again. “I-I don’t know. I kind of want it to be a surprise.”

“Really? I want to know!”

“You do? Well, then…how’s that going to work?” he asked in a tone of amusement, leaning toward me from across the table.

“I can keep a secret,” I teased.

“Oh, you can, can you? Good to know. Can you keep another secret?” he joked.

“Of course.” I nodded and took a drink of my water.

“I’m an asshole.”

I choked on my water and started coughing uncontrollably.

“Are you okay?” Boyd asked, getting up from his chair. He started patting me on my back trying to help. After a few interminable seconds, the cough stopped.

“I’m…I’m fine,” I said, once the cough subsided. He sat back down across from me. “You took me by surprise. What was that for?” I asked him, a hand on my chest, still trying to get over my water-choking experience.

“I just wanted to say again that I’m sorry.”

“Boyd, stop this. Yes, you messed up—big time—but we’re past that.”

“Are we?” he asked, dubious. “Sometimes I still feel like you want to rip my ass.”

I laughed. “That’s because of my resting bitch face—and these crazy-ass hormones that keep messing with me,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

He let out a loud laugh, giving me an amused look.

“So you’re not mad at me?”

“Not really.”

“But you were?”

“Of course I was, Boyd! But…not any more. I understand…sort of. It took me a while to get used to the idea myself.”