“Gilly…” I stood up too, and my heart sank when he didn’t answer.
My whole body tensed up when I saw that the door was open and outside, I saw his pants hanging from the oak tree in the yard.
His frown deepened when he saw them too.
“Gilly…”
He looked at me now, his eyes filled with something I didn’t recognize.
“I don’t remember what happened,” I told him, as if that was a good enough excuse.
He winced and released a deep sigh. “I don’t remember either.”
“Do you think we—?” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say the words because somehow, deep down, I knew it would break me if we’d slept together and now that he’d woken up, he thought it was a mistake. That was the look on his face.
“I don’t know…” The light silver of his eyes held an air of sadness that gripped me. “I …think we did. I think so.”
Mistake. That was the tone of his voice. The dread that hung heavy in the deep timbre.
Mistake… mistake with me. Mistake.
Of course, it would be because we were best friends. We were best friends, and just days ago, he’d told me no when I asked him to be the father of my child. It all sounded so damn bizarre.
What did I do?
How did I do this? How could I think this was right, and it was worse too… I could be pregnant. I’d had unprotected sex with my best friend, and I could be pregnant.
I’d messed everything up. I’d messed us up.
A tear ran down my cheek when it dawned on me that this could be the end of us.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and something seemed to soften in his eyes. He stepped forward, and a lock of his hair fell over his eye.
He was about to say something, but his words retracted into the ether as things took another turn for the worse.
Footsteps sounded, and the kitchen door burst open. In came not just Mia but Vanessa too.
Both stopped short when they saw us. Their mouths fell open.
Gilly tensed next to me, and in that moment, I wished like hell a black hole would swallow me whole. Doomed didn’t even begin to describe the look that now filled his face.
* * *
He left after that, and as I heard the front door close, my heart sunk into the ocean.
I got dressed and went to the sitting room while Vanessa retreated to the kitchen to make cookies. Mia had come into the sitting room with me and sat next to me. She didn’t ask any questions, she didn’t make any comments or anything, she just sat opposite me and waited for me to be ready to talk.
The thing was, I didn’t know when that would be. There were so many things running through my mind. Too many.
I had an idea, acted on it, and somehow made everything a colossal mess. I’d slept with Gilly. I’d slept with Gilly, and I couldn’t remember anything.
I must have been in here for at least an hour now, and I couldn’t remember anything past the memory of kissing him. I thought it was a good idea to make sure I told him the kiss I was about to give him wasn’t the one a friend would give. Then we kissed and the fire from the kiss scorched me clean. Burning me inside out.
We kissed. He kissed me, and I kissed him. Seeing the tattoo of my name flashed through my mind, and then nothing. I couldn’t remember anything else.
Nothing… nothing at all. Like I was watching a film and someone switched off the TV just as it got to the climax. I couldn’t say the good part because that kiss was…
Kissing him was the stuff dreams were made of. It was the kind of kiss you dreamed of before your first kiss and hoped to have forever. And… if I could think that about him, then Taylor was right.
Taylor was absolutely right when she said I wouldn’t have asked Gilly to be the father of my child if some part of me didn’t see myself with him.
I brought my hands to my cheeks, and Mia reached for my arm, giving me a reassuring squeeze. I had to give her credit for sitting with me for a whole hour in silence.
“Talk to me, Abby… come on. We’ve been in here together all this time, and I’m watching you sitting there, suffering in silence,” she said, rubbing my shoulder.
I pulled in a sharp breath, and tears ran down my cheek. The tears I’d been holding back since Gilly left.
“I messed everything up, Mia. I really messed everything up. I can’t remember anything, or how it all happened, but I slept with Gilly. I can’t remember, but we must have.”
She bit the inside of her lip. “Abby, I know this must be hard for you, but I don’t think you should blame yourself.”
“Really, Mia? Come on. It’s not like we haven’t gotten drunk together before. And this time we sleep together? It has to be because of my foolish request days ago.” This really was the week from hell.
“Okay, so I’m gonna say yes… it had to be that, but, sweetie, you didn’t make him sleep with you. He decided to. That’s if you actually slept together.”
If…
I wished I could be certain. I wished like fuck I could be certain. It was killing me that I didn’t know. How could I not know what happened? How could I not have any memory of a thing like that?
“Mia, I don’t know what to do. We woke up naked, and I felt like we did sleep together. My body felt like we did, so we must have. I just can’t remember it actually happening.”
She frowned. “What if it didn’t? There’s a chance it didn’t. What if you just woke up naked and… well, we just subtract the sex?”
“Then there’s still the part before that I actually remember. We kissed, a lot, and I wanted to kiss him.”
“Oh God, Abby, you know what this is… it’s called pent-up lust on another level. There’s a reason why people give you guys hassle about your relationship. It’s because we’ve all been able to see something you two have repressed forever.”
If this were even days ago, I would have shrugged that off, but now it felt like she was calling me out on the truth.
“Mia, I never thought he would see me like that.”
“He has, Abby. It’s just good that you guys are friends.”
“I messed it all up. I have.” I nodded.
“You don’t know that. I personally don’t think you did. And hey, I sort of noticed he got your name tattooed on his chest.” She smirked. “You never told me that.”
“I didn’t know.” He never told me, and it was definitely the kind of thing you wouldn’t leave out.
“He got a tattoo of your name and never told you? I’m pretty certain that wasn’t a last night thing.”
I sighed. I would have loved to indulge in the mystery of that, but it was so far down the scale of importance it actually didn’t matter. We had bigger fish to fry. When I started drinking at the wedding, I’d had no intention of getting so wasted. Those guys I was talking to at the reception were friends of a friend from work. God knew why I thought it was a good idea to talk to them, and only God knew what would have happened to me if I’d gone with them.
Based on what actually happened with Gilly, I was starting to wish I had gone with those guys. I wouldn’t have felt like this now if I had.
“What am I going to do?” I said more to myself than to Mia.
“Talk to him.” She nodded.
Talk…
He was the one person in this world who I could always talk to about anything and everything. Talking to him after this encounter, however, seemed like sending me to a death sentence.
I could be pregnant.
I never got to the part of my crazy idea where I would have told him I had gone off the pill. Mia was the only person I’d told that.
Gilly didn’t know that part. I could be pregnant.
How would he feel if I was?
He’d be the father of my child.
Chapter 8
Gilly
* * *
Think…
Damn it. Think…
I willed myself to remember how I could have ended up having sex with Abby last night, but
nothing was coming. Nothing past the point where I’d taken my clothes off.
What I recalled was enough, and I probably remembered all those parts because they were the parts before I lost control and lost my mind.
I’d been sitting in the park outside my house now for three hours. It was just after lunchtime, and I’d been out here thinking and willing myself to remember if I actually did sleep with Abby.
All that came to my mind was kissing her and indulging in her breasts.
All I had in my head was her with her perky tits in my face and me sucking on them while she moaned in pleasure.
Even when I traced back to the wedding and tried to start from the part where we left the building, went to her place, drank the rum, and talked, my mind fast-tracked to the kissing and the tasting.
Kissing and tasting…then what came next?
I remembered falling to the floor, and that was it. Cut scene. It was like someone cut the scene from my mind.
Fuck. This was so fucked up, and now I actually didn’t know what to do.
I know I didn’t use a condom, and I was guessing that since she was on this baby mission, she might not be on her pill either.
So, I’d fallen right into the web of …
The web of something that was bigger than me.
Better to call it that. That was what it was because the truth of the matter was, when it came down to it, I couldn’t resist her. It didn’t take much for her to melt my resolve, and being drunk didn’t matter either. It just enhanced it.
This saga was the result of days ago when she asked me about making a baby with her. It came about from that moment when that thing snapped inside me. Back at the diner, when she put the question to me, something gave. I was right to call it an awakening because that’s what it felt like.
Then it came into fruition the night she went to Vegas and she told me she picked the only guy who wouldn’t want her. It came to damn fruition when I admitted to myself that I did want her.
Last night showed how badly I did. I was sure we definitely had sex. I just wished I could remember. It was the same as getting the tattoo. I still couldn’t remember that either.
Both things had nothing to do with each other, but both were Abby related.
Why the hell couldn’t I remember?
I winced and kicked a stone into the pond.
Feeling defeated and frustrated, I walked back home. I went home and worked out, hoping to work off some steam and also get my mind in order.
I had to speak to her later. Even if it was a text.
I wouldn’t know what I could say, but it had to be something. No matter what happened between us, it would be wrong to leave this in the air and not talk about it.
When my doorbell rang at six, I thought it was her – I hoped it was her – so I rushed to answer it and never bothered checking through the peephole.
I opened the door and instantly regretted it. Giselle stood before me looking ready to take on the runway. Her bright blue eyes looked me over with wild seduction.
“Hi, Gilly,” she cooed and walked inside without an invite.
“Giselle, I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?” I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her, and I wasn’t sure what game she was playing.
“Come to see you, silly. It’s Sunday, and that always makes me think of you.” Pure sex lit up her eyes, taking me back to the days we’d spent together. It had been wild, and because she was the first woman I’d really allowed myself to let down my guard with, I’d given her my all. Still, it was nothing in comparison to what I felt last night with Abby.
“I’m busy,” I told her.
“Doing what? You don’t look that busy to me.” She grinned. “Remember Sunday morning sex? It was a great follow-up to Saturday night sex.”
“Giselle, I’m not sure what this is or what you’re playing at, but I’m not interested.” I frowned.
“Oh, please. You would never turn me down. Me, of all the people. I know I hurt you, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Cruel to achieve the goal. I’d bet me leaving you made you harder and more focused. Look at you, Super Bowl star. You may have been hot shit before I left, but now you look like a god.”
Our breakup did make me hard and yes, hardened my heart. It also made me wiser. Stronger. At least when it came to her.
She stepped closer to me. “We were wild together, Gilly. You and me. I want that back. I want you back.” She ran her fingers over my chest.
I stared at her, and something sparked in my mind.
A memory and a thought… then a feeling.
The memory of Abby naked before me and watching her come undone in my arms as I kissed her neck. Then the thought of being inside her. The thought of being inside her, skin to skin, and making her mine for real. Then the feeling… I remembered it was the feeling that changed everything because it made reality pierce right back into my mind as I watched Abby fall asleep.
She fell asleep. That was what happened and what stopped us. What stopped me.
I remembered.
We didn’t have sex.
Giselle ran her finger over me again, and I stepped out of her reach.
“No. We’re done, Giselle. We’re done,” I told her, and she looked like she couldn’t believe it.
It didn’t faze her though. Not the woman who was never told no and always got what she wanted.
She gave me that cunning smile again. It was filled with mischief this time. “Can’t say no forever, Gilly. Can’t say no, and you never could to me.”
She sauntered past me and walked back through the door.
She might have been right. I’d never been able to say no to Abby either, yet I’d said no to her days ago and no to Giselle just now.
I watched Giselle get in her sports car and drive away, hair billowing out in the wind.
She was a problem for another day I wouldn’t acknowledge. For now, she knew I was done with her, and that was all.
Who I needed to focus on now was Abby.
I remembered what happened. We didn’t sleep together. I needed to tell her. I just wasn’t sure if she’d be happy or sad about it. However she felt, we needed to talk. I needed to talk to her.
As I left a crazy idea formed in my head.
* * *
It was Mia who let me in again when I got to Abby’s place.
Most times, the door was unlocked, and I could just walk right in. Most often to an empty house, except when Taylor had lived here. These days, either Mia or Abby was home, and as this morning showed, Vanessa.
This morning wasn’t something I wanted to remember. Me naked in the kitchen with my shirt hiding my dick, then me in my boxers trying to get my pants out of the tree, which I remembered throwing outside when we crashed into the door. That was just before we hit the floor.
Abby was upstairs in her room. The door was open. She was writing something in a notebook but stopped when I walked in. The beginning of the usual smile she would normally give me tipped the corners of her mouth but faded, and fear filled her eyes.
“Hi, um… I was going to see you, or call,” she stuttered.
I walked up to her and crouched down.
“No lip ring today,” she noted.
“If I wear it every day, it won’t look cool. It’ll lose that effect when people first see it.” I was the only guy I knew who had a piercing. It was as far as I would go. Piercings didn’t tend to go down well while playing football the way I played it. I’d seen many instances where something got ripped.
“It always looks cool,” she breathed.
“Thought you hated it.”
She shook her head. “I lied.”
“You said that last night.” I grinned, but she looked down at her fingers, cheeks flushing.
“I’m sorry.” When her gaze climbed back up to meet mine, her eyes glossed with tears. “Is this …goodbye? You came to tell me goodbye? I’d understand. I know I crossed the line with the whole baby thing, an
d it was selfish of me. You just won the Super Bowl. We should have been on some island somewhere going crazy with happiness because that’s a lifetime achievement. Instead, we were here dealing with my stupid idea. It was my fault we slept together.”
I never thought she would blame herself. I doubted it was the type of thing anyone could cast blame on, and not when I was here looking at her and wondering the same as last night and twenty years ago.
What would it be like to be with her?
I covered her hands with mine.
“I think the worst thing you ever did to me was give me chicken pox the day before football camp.” I smirked.
“What? That was the worst thing?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“Yes, I’d planned for that damn camp all year, and you, Abby Cartwright, gave me chicken pox. You made sure I got it because you didn’t want me to leave you all diseased for the whole summer. Crazy girl at twelve years old. I never forgave you for that, and I never left you then. Abby…” I paused for a moment and looked at her. “We didn’t sleep together. You fell asleep.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”
“Yeah, I remembered earlier.” I nodded. “The… sleeping together part never happened.”
“Oh… well, that’s great.” She nodded and smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
If I were someone else, I would have believed that she genuinely thought it was great. I knew though that what she was saying and what she was feeling were two different things. The tear that made its way down her cheek confirmed my thoughts.
As did a glance at her notebook and the pregnancy magazine that was next to it. On the notebook was yesterday’s date with a circle around it and fourteen days after along with some notes.
I picked up the notebook, and her cheeks flushed again.
“Please don’t call me stupid, or crazy.” She winced. “Not right now. I was just keeping a check. It would have been the only good thing that came out of last night and knowing I forced you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
I set the notebook back on the bed.
Pregnancy Scandal: Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County BK 2 Page 6