by A. M. Myers
“I don’t want to fight with you, Wyatt. I know that I hurt you and I don’t have any excuses for you but I do want to tell you how sorry I am… losing you… leaving you is my biggest regret.”
I consider coming back with a snappy remark, something designed to hurt her in return but as she looks up at me from across the table, I can see the truth in her eyes which only leaves me with more questions. Shaking my head, I suck in a breath.
“So, what do you want, then?”
Her teeth sink into her full bottom lip. “I don’t want anything.”
“Liar.”
“I didn’t even know I was meeting you here today so truly, I don’t want anything from you.”
I tilt my head to the side, studying her. “You could have just left, stood me up.”
“Well… I didn’t want to do that, either.”
“So you’re just here to torture me then?” I ask and she flinches, unshed tears shining in her eyes. Fuck. I always hated it when she cried. Her hand shakes as she presses it flat against the table and I can see her warring with herself before she looks at me with a determined expression on her face.
“I want you to help me have a baby.”
Blinking, I stare at her as my lips part in shock. “What?!”
“I want you to help me have a baby,” she repeats, her gaze unwavering and strength reflected in her gaze.
Holy shit.
That’s new.
Where the hell is the scared girl I grew up with? The one that would jump out of her skin and start crying if you snuck up on her, the one who never made it through a week without, at least, three nightmares that woke us both up and the one that I loved so fucking much in spite of all that. Watching her, I can’t help but wonder who she is now and how much I would like to get to know her again before I shut that thought down and press my lips into a line.
“Is this why Eden set this whole thing up?” I fucking hate feeling like I’m being played right now and I don’t know how she thinks the two of us having a baby together is a good fucking idea. It’s insane. At best, she and I are a mess of pain and resentment and she wants to bring a child into this? She shakes her head.
“I’ve been looking into how to have a baby on my own lately and when I realized how expensive it was, she joked that I should ask you but it was never something I seriously considered until I walked in and saw you.”
“Oh, good,” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest. “‘Cause here I thought you had thought this all through and still thought it was a good idea. What was Eden’s plan then when she messaged me?”
She sucks in a breath and her nerves flash through her eyes for just a second before she shuts it down. “No… She seems to think that there is still something between us.”
“Did you tell her she’s fucking insane?” I ask with what I know is a condescending laugh but my chest aches as I force the words out of my mouth. Sitting here across from her, staring at the face of the woman I fell in love with at thirteen years old, I’m not so sure that’s true anymore. She lets out a breath and shakes her head, sadness creeping into her green eyes and I’m back to a teenage kid who just wanted to make her smile.
Fuck.
I have to get out of here.
“The answer is no,” I force out through gritted teeth as I grab my phone off of the table and stand up. She reaches out and grabs my arm as I try to pass her and I swear to God, my heart stops for a second as I look down at her. His gaze pleads with me and my gut turns as the ache in my chest grows.
“Please just think about it, Wyatt. I don’t ever expect you to forgive me for what I did but I think you might be my last hope.” Her eyes hold me prisoner, wrapping chains around my heart and my anger drains away, forcing me to confront what lies beneath.
I can’t do this.
I can’t let myself go there.
I can’t even let myself think about it because up until this moment, I didn’t realize that I was balancing on the edge of the cliff overlooking a ravine but now I’ve looked down and seen the jagged rocks on the bottom and if I reach for her, I know it will destroy me.
“Good-bye, Piper,” I say, pulling my arm from her grasp and walking away from her. Fuck, it hurts like hell. I’m halfway to the door when I hear her hushed sob and it takes every ounce of strength I possess to keep on walking but I know better than to turn back. The only thing waiting for me back there is more betrayal, more pain, and more lies. I am supposed to be moving on with my life, finally, and I can’t let her pull me back.
By the time I get to my bike, my anger is returning full force and I almost slam my fist into the seat before shaking my head and swinging my leg over. It rumbles to life beneath me and I try to ignore the pain in my chest as I pull out of the parking lot. It’s fucking baffling to me why she thought any of what just went down was a good idea.
Her and I have a baby together?
I scoff and shake my head as I weave through traffic. It’s moronic. Plus, I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about her just wanting me to be her sperm donor after everything we’ve been through. That is the cherry on top of the pain sundae courtesy of Piper Robichaud… or Landry?? Fuck, I don’t even know if she ever changed her name. No, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything if she still has my last name. Then again, I have to wonder what happened to the “someone new” she found if she is coming to me to give her a baby. Why the hell doesn’t she go to that fucker and beg him to knock her up?
Just the thought of someone else’s hands on her body makes me see red. Fuck. She’s not mine, I know that, but goddamn it if she doesn’t still feel like mine. Especially with the feeling of her hand still imprinted on my arm. My stomach twists with the rival emotions battling inside my chest. I want to turn this bike around and pull her out of her chair, throw her on the floor, and fuck her so hard that she’ll realize everything she’s been missing and never think of leaving me ever again.
Wait, what?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I don’t want Piper back.
A red Fiat cuts me off and I slam on the brakes as my body tenses and flushes with heat. Grinding my teeth together, I speed up and slip into the other lane before riding right up next to his little piece of shit and smacking my hand on the window. He looks over at me with wide eyes and rolls the down the window. Big mistake, fucker.
“Why don’t you learn how to drive, motherfucker?” I bellow at him before punching the door frame and pulling ahead. Once I’ve merged over in front of him, I hit the brakes just enough to make his heart stop for a second before racing away from him. The speedometer hits one hundred before I feel calm enough to slow down and I sigh as my townhouse comes into view.
After parking in my spot, I climb off my bike and clench my fists as I march up to my place, trying to push all the thoughts from my mind. Fuck. I need something… a beer? Maybe. To punch a hole through a wall? Possibly. I’m still undecided. Hell, maybe I’ll make a real night out of it and do both. Once inside, I toss my keys onto the kitchen counter and throw myself into the seat in front of my desk as I lean my head back against the headrest and cover my face with my hands.
“Fuck,” I groan, dragging them down over my jaw before dropping them into my lap as someone knocks on the door. “What?”
The door opens and Cleo steps in with a sly smile on her face. “Hey, Fuzz.”
“Cleo,” I answer with a nod as she walks over to me and braces her hands on the arms of the chair, leaning over me just enough that I can see down her shirt. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, come on, Fuzz. Don’t play games. You know why I’m here.”
I shake my head. “I’m not in the mood tonight.”
“I think we can get you there, big guy,” she whispers, leaning forward and pressing her lips to the side of my neck. My eyes close and in my head, it’s Piper in front of me, her cherry lips against my neck and I moan. Her hand strokes my cock over my jeans and I groan again as it hardens and p
resses against my zipper, the teeth biting into my skin. “That’s what I thought.”
“Stop talking,” I growl as I slip my hand into her hair and give it a tug. Cleo laughs as she drops to her knees in front of me but behind my eyes, all I can see is Piper. She unbuttons my jeans and I lift my hips on the chair so she can pull them down. A sexy little hum slips out of her lips as she wraps her fingers around my length and I groan, massaging the back of her head as she takes the tip into her mouth.
Oh, fuck.
That’s fucking perfect.
I open my eyes and my mood sours instantly when I look down and Cleo meets my eyes, grinning around the length of my dick in her mouth. Piper’s face flashes through my mind again, her pleading look in the restaurant as she begged me to help her have a baby and the strength that flashed in her eyes - so goddamn sexy. God, as much as I loved her even when she was broken and damaged, seeing her hold her own and be strong makes my heart swell no matter how much I don’t want it to and the image of a baby in her arms pops into my head. Turning my head, I catch sight of the damn divorce papers again and clench my teeth as I shove Cleo away from me, feeling all kinds of wrong as I stare at Piper’s name signed at the bottom of the page. My mind screams, rage and a desperate need for relief ripping their way through me as I try to make sense of the last ninety minutes.
“Are you okay?” Cleo asks and I look down at her. She arches a brow in question as she releases me and I shake my head as I stand up and pull my jeans up.
“No. You need to go.”
She balks. “What?”
“You heard me. You need to leave. Now.”
“Oh my God,” she hisses as she stands up and shoves my shoulder. “You’re a real fucking asshole, Fuzz.”
I nod, watching her as she walks to the door. “Yeah, you’ll get over it.”
As the door slams behind her, I sink back into the chair and grab the papers off of the desk. My mind churns as I think about our date and Piper’s request but when I look down at the papers in my hand, I shake my head. What’s that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me and I’m sure as hell not letting Piper pull me into her shit storm ever again.
Chapter Ten
Piper
“Piper,” Dr. Brewer calls as she pokes her head out of her office and I look up from my magazine, returning her smile as I set it down on the table next to me and standing up. She stands back to allow me to walk into the room before shutting the door behind me. Her smile is kind as she sits across from me and places her notebook on her lap. “How are you today?”
I nod. “I’m good.”
“We missed you at group last week,” she muses, studying me in that way she does as her pen hovers over the paper, ready to write any notes she feels are important. I nod.
“Yeah, I had a rough day and I couldn’t deal with the whole group so Lillian and I went to get some food and talk.”
“And that helped?”
I think back over that night and how bad my belly hurt from laughing so much as I nod. As unconventional as Dr. Brewer might think it is, it was exactly what I needed. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about what put you in a bad headspace that day?” she asks, jotting down some notes before glancing up at me again.
“Sure.”
She nods for me to continue and I take a deep breath before nodding to myself. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want out of my life, you know… all the things I had planned before everything fell apart.”
“Mmhmm,” she hums, writing down some more notes as I take another deep breath. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been seeing Dr. Brewer for seven years, I still find it difficult to open up and talk about my feelings, especially from that time in my life.
“So Eden was encouraging me to go after the things I want…”
Dr. Brewer holds her hand up to interrupt me. “What exactly are we talking about here? Love?”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Love is… complicated and not my focus. I do still want the family, though and she’s been encouraging me to look into ways I could make that happen without a man in my life.”
“I see,” she answers with a nod, writing some more notes.
“Anyway, that day she came over with information and I realized how expensive it all was and I just felt so defeated. It wasn’t something I was ready to talk about in front of the whole group, though.”
Dr. Brewer finishes her notes and leans back in her chair, narrowing her eyes as she studies me. “You seem less defeated today, though. Has something changed?”
“Um,” I whisper, my mind slamming me back into a memory of seeing Wyatt yesterday as I shake my head. “I’m not sure.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Sucking in a breath, I nod. “I saw Wyatt yesterday.”
“Oh,” she breathes, dropping her gaze to her notepad as her pen scratches furiously across the paper. “Did you just run into him?”
I shake my head. “No. Eden found him on a dating site and she started talking to him. When she realized who he was, she set up a date but sent me instead.”
“And were you in on this deception?”
“No,” I scoff. “I didn’t know who I was meeting until I showed up and he was sitting at the table.”
She peeks up from her notes. “That must have been…”
“Yeah,” I answer, interrupting her. Whatever word she was going to use, seeing Wyatt again with no warning was exactly that. “It was a lot to deal with and I almost stood him up.”
“But you didn’t?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?” she asks and I shrug. Truthfully, maybe it would have been the smart thing to do but I just couldn’t force myself to get back in my car and drive away from him. Not again.
“I don’t know. I just… couldn’t.”
She hums to herself as she scribbles some more notes onto her notepad. “So you spoke to him for the first time in ten years?”
I nod.
“How did that go?”
“It was tense,” I admit, remembering the blanket of pain and anger that draped over us as we sat across from each other in that restaurant. I knew he would be hurt. I knew he would be angry but I still wasn’t prepared for it to smack me in the face as soon as I sat down. Closing my eyes, an image of him pops into my head and my chest aches.
“What are you thinking right now?” Dr. Brewer asks and my eyes open as I wipe away a sneaky tear and shake my head.
“Nothing.”
She holds up her finger in warning. “Remember, you’re not allowed to do that. If you don’t feel like talking about it, that’s fine but quit calling your emotions in this moment nothing.”
“Okay,” I whisper as I nod. One of Dr. Brewer’s biggest rules is not invalidating my feelings in any way and something I always struggle with but after a lifetime of telling everyone around me I was fine when I had chaos raging through me every day, it’s almost second nature. It’s one of the biggest things that got me in trouble in the past and something I always have to be careful about. “I just… I miss him so much and every day that I have to continue without him, feels impossible. I hate the mistakes I made and I wish, more than anything, that I could take them back. I want him back in my life.”
By the time I’m done, tears are streaming down my face and Dr. Brewer nods as she passes me a box of Kleenex with a sympathetic expression on her face.
“Did you tell him that?”
I shake my head. “No. He wouldn’t want to hear that. Not after what I did.”
“You mean what he thinks you did,” she points out, jotting down some more notes and I nod as I wipe my nose with the tissue.
“I don’t know that it matters that I never cheated on him now. He’s lived with that for ten years and it’s almost like it’s become a part of him.”
She glances up, tilting her head to the side. “Why do you say that?”
“It was obvious as soon as we sta
rted talking. He’s angrier now, rougher in a way he never used to be, and maybe it’s just because he was talking to me but I don’t think so. It feels like I ruined his life.”
“And you don’t think that is your own guilt talking?” She jots more notes down, glancing up at me as she writes as I think through my response. I know all too well the way your emotions can influence the way you see the world but something about the look on Wyatt’s face revealed to me the damage I’d done when I walked away from him. I could practically see the walls being erected around his heart as we talked…
I shake my head. “Yes and no. Maybe my guilt amplified it but he’s definitely closed himself off from the world and that blame lies with me.”
“So,” she muses as she finishes up some more notes and looks up at me. “If you didn’t talk about any of that, what did you talk about with him?”
“Oh, that…” My eyes widen as I drop them to my hands and fiddle with my thumbs as my mind drifts back to what I blurted out at the restaurant yesterday. I didn’t mean to ask him to help me have a baby but when he insisted I tell him what I wanted and the only thing screaming through my head was the word, “You”, I panicked. Sucking in a breath, I look up. “I asked him to help me have a baby.”
She jerks in her seat and her gaze snaps to mine. “What?”
“I asked him to help me have a baby,” I repeat, refusing to meet her eyes. I don’t have to see her look of disapproval to know it’s there. She’s quiet for a few seconds and my heart pounds as I glance up. With her mouth slack in shock, she stares back at me before shaking her head.
“Piper, it’s been a hell of a long time since someone shocked me but I honestly don’t know what to say…”
I nod. “I know… I don’t even know why I did it except that when he asked me what I wanted, I panicked and blurted it out.”
“I see…” she muses, jotting down a few more notes before looking at me again. “But it’s not entirely a lie, is it?”