The Trouble With Before (27 page)

She still looks guilty, then her eyes widen. “You seriously need to write a book. This is a lot. I can’t believe you’re not in some psych ward. You and Chris’s dad, him and his wife raising your baby, then you getting back with Brett, and now you and Aidan practically living together and you falling for him. Wow!” She heaves a dramatic sigh.

“The craziness of my life,” I say with a dry chuckle.

Her face softens, and she takes my hand. “I’m really sorry about the baby.”

I fight the tears welling up in my eyes.

“I’ve had a miscarriage. I was only nine weeks, but Isaac and I had been trying.” She’s looking off in the distance and her voice is low, and I hate that I’ve brought her back to a place it looks like she’d gotten away from.

“I’m sorry for bringing this up. I didn’t . . .”

She gives me a look to shut me up. “We named the baby Peyton, since it could have been a boy or a girl.”

I squeeze her hand.

“Did you have a name picked out?” she asks.

I blink away the tears. “I never said it out loud, but if it was a girl, I was going to name her London, and if it was a boy, Marcus.” I stop, feeling my throat tighten. I quickly wipe away my tears, remembering that I’m still at work. I don’t need anything else to make me a topic of conversation here.

She takes a napkin and wipes her eyes as well. “Lisa, you should talk to someone about this. You have to. I did for almost six months, and I had Isaac with me every step of the way. You’ve been holding all of this in?”

I pick up my rum punch and take a sip. “I just . . . I felt like since at first I didn’t want to be pregnant, it was my fault.”

She gets up and comes to give me a big hug. “This was not your fault; you stop thinking that this minute. You do not let this make you feel like you can’t be a good mother, or aren’t meant to be one. We’re human. Every one of us on this planet has made a mistake.”

Her words and the comfort she’s giving me make me want to hug her and never let her go.

“You
need
to talk to someone.” She reaches across our table and grabs her phone. “This is the doctor I spoke to afterward. It really helped. I can’t imagine healing while keeping it all bottled in.” She hands the phone and makes me key the doctor’s contact information into my phone. “She’s out of the state, but she can refer you to someone here or maybe offer Skype sessions or something like that.”

I nod.

“You still have a beautiful little girl who needs you. Don’t take what happened as a sign to close her out, but as a sign to let her in.” She hugs me again.

Her phone begins to ring. It says Hubby, and there’s a really adorable picture of the two of them that makes me smile.

She answers as she gets back into her side of the booth. “Yeah, I’m good. We’re having a blast. Another hour before they close, then you can head back. Love you babe.” She hangs up.

I look at her, and she beams.

“What’s it like to have that?” I ask. She smiles in a way I’m a little jealous of.

“It’s amazing, and worth all of the toads I had to kiss and bugs I had to step on,” she says. “So you and Aidan . . .” She smirks.

I roll my eyes at her.

“I knew it. In high school, I sensed the chemistry then,” she brags.

“There was no chemistry then, and there is no me and Aidan now.” I say the last part with melancholy that surprises me.

She pouts. “But you want there to be.”

“I don’t know . . . it’s just right now, he’s the only real friend I have. I can’t risk telling him how I feel, not to mention my feelings have never helped me make the best decisions.”

She frowns at me. “Well, girly, now you have
two
real friends, even if I’m a few states away.”

I have to admit that makes me feel better.

“And then you were a teenager, and that was just a really bad situation,” she admits, but her expression is forgiving, not full of contempt. “Now you’re a grown woman who has learned from her mistakes, and Aidan has known you longer than even I have. What if this is real?”

Her question gives me butterflies. I shake my head. “Aidan’s my best friend, and that’s sort of the problem. I know how he is with women; I know that the idea of commitment or someone professing their feelings for him will send him running in the other direction. Aidan is the quintessential playboy. Plus he knows everything I’ve done. How could he love me after all of that? I’m still surprised he’s even friends with me.”

“Lisa, would you stop convincing yourself that you deserve to die alone and unhappy? Do you really believe that?” she asks, sounding irritated.

I shrug. “I hurt a lot of people. What if that is my fate?”

She frowns at me. “I believe we make our own fate. I bet Aidan believes that too.”

The rest of our night isn’t so heavy. We reminisce about high school. She tells me about all of the people who annoy her at work and updates me on her snobby sisters. I give her some of the gossip from the restaurant, and she rolls her eyes at all the right parts and smiles when I do, and I feel as if we’re back in her room ten years ago. My one earlier shot and watered down rum punch did nothing for me, but she’s more than tipsy when her husband comes in to walk her out. She fusses at him that she’s not drunk, and he agrees with her but gives me a knowing smile. She hugs me tightly before she makes me promise to call her and to come visit before the end of the year. I promise her and mean it.

Before they’re out the door, she tilts her body halfway back into the restaurant. “And don’t let those sluts get their hands on Aidan.”

Isaac affectionately pulls her outside.

I go to the back and grab my stuff, then I head out with a real smile. I pull out my phone before getting into my car and pull up Will’s name. I text him, asking if I can pick up Willa from school on Monday and have a girls’ day, and my night literally feels complete.

I
HAD PLANNED
on going to the bar to wait until Lisa got off work, but when she sent me the text saying to not come, it kind of stung. Especially after what happened this morning . . .

I want to see her. I hate her working at Ardeby’s—it just seems like a step back—but I can’t lie and say I hate the way she looks there. She’s always in outfits that cling to every curve on her body, and she does herself up in a way that makes her look like the definition of sex without showing much. I’ve always thought that girls with more clothes on make you want them more, when they reveal just enough that you can’t stop thinking about what they’re hiding under there. With Lisa walking around the house in oversized T-shirts and baggy shorts, it gives me a lot of time to think about what she’s covering up.

Today when she gets home, I’m going to talk to her. I’m going to suck it up and tell her that she needs to see a shrink or something and start seeing Willa again and she needs to figure out what she’s going to do for a real job because she can’t work at a bar when she’s fifty. Well, she can, but she might not get such good tips.

I pull up to the house and see Mr. Scott sitting on my porch. My chest clenches, and I feel anger bubbling up in me. What is he doing here with Willa nowhere in sight? I push away the thought that he’s here for Lisa. My hand balls into a fist, and I make myself unclench it. I won’t read too much into this. There’s no way Lisa would be so stupid as to backtrack with this dude, and even if she did, he wouldn’t sit on my front steps flaunting it. I make myself calm down as I approach the steps and he stands.

“Where’s Lisa?” he asks, his voice coming off as authoritative and hard.

It’s laughable. I give him respect when I’m picking up and dropping off Willa just because she’s there, but I lost every ounce of respect for this dude the day Lisa told me he screwed her.

“Why?” I ask.

He looks at me indifferently. “I’ll just wait until she gets back.”

He starts to walk past me, and I grab his arm. He pulls away from me angrily.

“Keep your hands off me,” he says pointedly.

“Tell me why you’re at my house and what it is that you want with her,” I demand.

For a second, he looks amused before matching my scowl. “Look, I know Lisa’s staying here, but this has nothing to do with you.”

“Oh, it has nothing to do with me? I think it has a lot to do with me seeing as I’m the one who has to play the middle man since you don’t have the balls to let people know that she’s your little girl’s mother,” I say.

“Her mother’s name is Gwen. That’s who takes care of her, tucks her in at night, and cleans up her cuts when she falls,” he growls.

“Bullshit. You know exactly what I’m talking about!” I spit.

He looks at me as if he could set me on fire if he glares long enough. “Okay, how about this? You tell her that my daughter’s not a game. She’s not going to play hopscotch in and out of her life like it’s a fucking joke.”

“What are you taking about?”

“I’m talking about her texting me asking to see Willa next week like she hasn’t been missing in action for the past month. She gets Willa used to seeing her and being involved, then she just disappears with no explanation at all? I won’t let her do that again! Willa’s not a toy, and she won’t play with her like one!”

I hide my surprise that Lisa reached out to him and try to swallow my anger. I know kicking his ass won’t do anything to help her and Willa’s relationship and would just make things a hell of a lot harder.

“Look, Lisa’s been going through a lot,” I say, trying to be calm.

He scoffs. “Poor Lisa, always poor Lisa. She has so many problems and what she does is everyone else’s fault: her mother’s fault, my fault, the universe’s fault. No, not this time, she’s not the victim. I don’t care what the hell she’s going through. Leave Willa out of it until she’s gotten her shit together!”

The fist I unclenched earlier has instinctively balled back up. I close my eyes and have to laugh. Man, he’s asking for it, and he really doesn’t get how long I’ve been itching to give it to him. He’s not wrong, but how smug and self-righteous he’s being, as if I won’t knock out his teeth? It will happen.

No, it can’t . . . he’d use that as a reason to keep Willa from Lisa. But I’ve got to knock him off this high horse he’s sitting on as if he’s forgotten she isn’t the only villain in their story.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve.” I chuckle angrily.

He folds his arms and stares me down.

“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, man. You come to my house and make threats and throw out proclamations like your shit doesn’t stink, like I didn’t get the full story of what happened? You want to stand here and act like Lisa played the victim? She
was
the victim! She was a kid; you were the adult. I don’t care if she hopped on your lap and put her tits in your face. You should have stopped what happened, but you didn’t. You used her. You knew she came from a shit family, you knew that she had daddy issues, but did that stop you? Nope, you were too busy having the time of your life in some alleged fucked up midlife crisis.

“You
say
you were going to stop it, but how the hell should we know? You didn’t stop until you were caught. And let’s not forget you were
never
going to say anything about what happened. You were going to take that secret to your grave. And after all of it, things turned out perfectly for you. You kept your marriage, your son is still talking to you, and you got the daughter you always wanted. Looks to me like things turned out just fine for you. Lisa lost everything! She’s not perfect in all of this, but you for damn sure aren’t, and even to this day, she never blames you for anything. She has never pointed the finger at you, so you better not point it at her. I see through your bullshit, Will. When you’re around me, keep in mind I haven’t forgotten what a scumbag you are.”

He walks toward me, and I chuckle. “I swear to God, old man, if you come any closer, I will give you the ass-kicking Lisa’s dad should have given you.”

He stops in his tracks. I look at his clenched fist, and he looks at mine. I won’t lie, he looks to be in pretty good shape for a guy his age, but he doesn’t want to see what five years in the army and every morning in the gym will do to him.

He takes off his jacket as if he’s ready for a fight. I grin and start to take off my shirt. He really wants to try it? Okay then, bring it on!