“You don’t mean that,” Sophie says gently.
“No. I don’t. I’m just so new at this and have no clue how to operate, and…and it’s not me. Despite my raising her, getting up in the night with her when she was sick and her mom couldn’t, giving her baths, taking her temperature, feeding her, loving her. I’m not enough. They’d rather give her to this…this cockpecker instead.”
She snorts. “I’m sorry the law isn’t on your side, Carter. I truly am. But you are doing everything you can to give this baby the best life.”
“By coming to a foreign, crowded, rude city, and begging a guy who can’t even remember sleeping with Paige to take on his kid.”
“College is an…interesting time,” Sophie says. Cryptically.
I frown into my phone. “What does that mean?”
“It means some of us sleep with a bunch of people because we enjoy experimenting. You wouldn’t judge me for sleeping around. So, let’s not pull the trigger with Lachlan now.”
“You’d at least remember names,” I mumble, then slurp at my cooling coffee.
“Subject change,” Sophie says breezily. “So, you need to stay on a few more days. Got it. No problem.”
“I’ll email work, tell them I’ll be back Monday.” I put a hand to my forehead and lean in. “Thanks for taking care of things.”
“Always. Call me, text me, whenever you want, okay? I’m here holding down the fort.”
“You’re the best,” I say, and we click off.
My phone had blipped with a text when I’d been on the phone, so as I take another sip, I check my notifications.
It’s an unknown number, one I’d…hang on…
I bring the screen closer.
One I’d sent a picture of Lily to? I don’t remember—
Can you meet me tonight? There’s a place close by.
Locke. And he’d sent himself Lily’s picture. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed or bolstered by that. I decide on pissed. I reply.
Yes, but can you meet near my hotel instead? I’m exhausted, want to rest a little.
Locke: Sure. Where you staying?
I type Times Square, and it takes a curious amount of time for him to reply. And when he does, it’s a simple ok.
Fine. I text back, wear more than a towel this time.
I flip my phone over on the table and finish my coffee, glad I’d called Sophie, sort of glad Locke texted me so soon after I shit all over his bachelor livelihood.
When I’m outside, I call a car via my app. It arrives within minutes, a nice perk to this overcrowded city.
I open the door and get in on a sigh, beginning the long trek back to the middle of Manhattan, where the bright lights and the allure of rainbow colors are lessened by the light of day.
6
Locke
That evening, when I get to midtown, I find Carter waiting at an overly plump booth in the back of an insanely saturated, burns-the-retinas neon tourist bar.
Stepping out from the subway into Times Square is brutal enough. But this girl expects me to navigate masses of people on the sidewalks—worse than any Los Angeles traffic jam—before walking down the most popular avenue known to the world—Broadway. Then completing my journey by entering a door with lightbulbs framing its exterior and a flashing jumbo shrimp on top.
I’m conscious of the stares as soon as I step in, from the hostess to the teens scattered throughout the restaurant. All are squinting at me, then rushing to their phones for verification.
News travels fast these days, infamy even more so. I’d always chased fame but was too dumb to understand it could come in the form of a dude twice my size sending my kneecap to the other side of the field just as efficiently as winning a Super Bowl Championship.
Thank you, internet.
“We’ve got a rookie on the field, Lachlan Hayes…” I hear on someone’s phone as I pass.
Jesus, kids are still watching that?
I try to ignore the feel of the flashback on my leg, and the whispers following its path.
I’m sweaty, but that’s nothing new. As I approach Carter, I lift up my shirt to dab at my forehead, showing off my abs. Usually, the sight is enough to soften any woman.
I should learn. Not this one.
“Hey,” she says, setting her phone down.
I nod a greeting, sliding into the bright red vinyl and searching for some kind of manliness in the squeal of my ass against the plastic.
The waiter hasn’t arrived yet, so there’s no break in the awkwardness. I say, “Are you homesick?”
She unfreezes from her stare over my shoulder. “What?”
“Are you missing Florida?” I include the entirety of this bar in my question. “Is that why we’re in some pretend wooden boat, filled with tiki lights and over-priced Pina Coladas?”
Her stare hardens. Uh-oh.
“I don’t know the area very well,” she says. Obviously. “And since this is next door to where I’m staying, I thought it was the best choice. It was either this or drinks in my hotel lobby.”
“Probably the same price there, too,” I mutter.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” I reach for a giant glass of water that was left on the table, drinking as if bored.
“So, you texted,” she says, and I suppose my pathetic attempt at small talk is over.
“I did.”
I’m about to say more, but the waiter comes. Carter is—unsurprisingly—not hungry. She looks at me as she says to the guy, “But I’ll take a Pina Colada. It’s on him.”
I smile back at her with all my pearly whites. “And I’ll have a beer.”
“We only have Bud Light,” says the waiter.
“Fine. That. And…hang on.” I cluck my tongue as I peruse the menu, viscerally aware of the woman across from me, her flames growing higher the longer I take. I smother a smile. Yes, the two of us are in a very serious situation. Yes, she’s the first woman who’s ever hated me outright. But there’s something irresistibly inappropriate about it like the devil tempts me to do bad things.
I say, “Double cheeseburger with onion rings.”
The waiter nods and departs. Carter looks like she’s about to throat-punch me.
“What? I stress eat.”
She taps her fingers against the laminate covered table. Unmanicured. Short, square nails. I’m used to seeing the sharpened, neon talons that have been leaving their marks on my back for months.
“You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” she asks.
I lose my grin. “I am, I promise. I have a bad habit of making light of tough situations.”
“That’s a terrible coping mechanism.”
I think of my father, then hold my hands up in a shrugging gesture. “Can’t help it. It’s inherited.”
She plays with the straw in her water. “Fine. Let’s pretend for a minute. I’ll cater to your inappropriate banter. Why did you want to meet me?”
“So soon after we met the first time, you mean?”
“It wasn’t the first time,” she says flatly.
Fuck. She’s right. There was at least one previous evening, in college, the night I apparently impregnated her best friend who has since died. She’s dead. I have to tread carefully because the sadness that emanates from Carter practically has a taste. It makes me uncomfortable and…sad for her. Like I want to do something about it and make her smile. And hell, I bet she has a smile that melts if she knows how to use it.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I say, even though I know how lame it sounds.
“You really don’t remember?”
Her eyes lift from the table, so big and round and vulnerable. They’re golden up close, and they catch me like a scope. I clear my throat. Look away.
“Sure, I remember.”
“Liar.”
“I do,” I say in defense. “All day, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out when I could’ve been so careless as to not wear protection with a girl. See
, I don’t do that kind of shit.”
We both lean away so the waiter can place our drinks down, then I lean back in.
“I make sure, every time, that I suit up,” I say.
“Figures,” she scoffs, rolls her eyes.
I find the hairs on the back of my neck are skittering like I’m annoyed. “Okay, yeah, I sleep around, Carter. So, what? Point is, I don’t do it recklessly.”
“How many girls have you slept with?” She catches her bottom lip and picks up her cocktail. “Sorry. Not my business.”
“Maybe it is.”
She pauses with the straw between her teeth. “Excuse me?”
“Maybe it is your business,” I repeat. “You’re trying to figure out if the best place for a baby is with me.”
She has nothing to say to that. Probably because I agreed with her. I cover my twitch of a smile with a long pull from my bottle. I like getting to her.
“Answer is, a lot,” I say after I swallow. “I don’t know how many. And I don’t know how I got your girl pregnant. So we’ll wait on the paternity results for that.”
She opens her mouth to argue—
“Don’t hate me for being smart about this,” I say before she gains momentum. “I’m waiting for the confirmation.”
She closes her mouth. Thinks. “I understand. I wouldn’t go by my word alone, either. But does that mean…?”
I take this moment to finish half my beer and avoid thinking about being under her study. Like I have to pass her test to be considered a good guy.
“It means,” I say when my bottle hits the table, “the moment you showed me that picture, you knew what you were doing—the second you stepped foot in NYC. You were going to change my life for good, whether or not I decide to meet this baby. And how can I, as a man, as a potential father to this kid, go on living, knowing my child is growing up somewhere away from me?”
Her shoulders smack against the back of the booth. Her features move with a supple wave of conflict before they settle. “I didn’t do this to ruin your life.”
“Not saying you did.”
The waiter passes by again, and I signal for another drink. “What I’m saying is, I’ll try.”
She blinks at that. “Try? You can’t try as a father. It’s not a suit you don’t like that you can get re-tailored when it doesn’t fit you.”
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “What do you want from me?”
“What I want,” she says, emphasizing by smacking her palms on the table, covering the mascot shrimp’s ahoy matey grin, “is for you to sack up and help Lily. And don’t get me wrong, I’m just as pissed as you are that shooting your wad in a girl gives you more rights than someone who’s been with Lily since day one, but that baby needs a home, and I’ll be damned if I lose her to some family that—”
“Won’t want you around?” I finish for her.
She’d halfway risen from her seat at this point, and in small millimeters, she sits back down. But I did it. I got her. Hurt her.
“What makes you think I’ll want you around any more than they would?” I ask.
“I can’t…I don’t know that.” She covers her emotion with a sip of her drink, but her hand is shaking.
It affects me, her fear, but damned if I’m going to submit to this chick who’s judged me before she even knows me. “You come into my city, my home, on fire with accusations that I’m a shit person who doesn’t deserve a chance with a baby I didn’t know I had. You reduce me to a sperm sample. You yell at me like I deliberately missed opportunities with my daughter.” I stick on the word daughter. “What the hell makes you think you have any better chance of keeping Lily in your life with me? Because that’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it? You don’t care that Lily could possibly go to a family who loves her—she’s young enough to be adopted and not grow up in foster care. All you’re focused on is your time with her. Your ability to stay in her life. Your selfishness.”
Her mouth opens and closes, and I blink out of my rant long enough to notice that her cheeks are shining, that her giant goblet of neon yellow slush has disguised the fact she’s crying.
Shit. Shit. I didn’t mean to make her eyes leak.
“I…I don’t,” she chokes out in answer, and when she pins me with those gold-carved eyes, my fingers clench around my beer. “I don’t know any of that. And I deserve everything you just said to me.”
Oh, fuck. Now she’s all trembly and agreeing with me. I’m an ass. I’m such a dick ass.
“I love her like her mother did,” she continues, her voice husky. She massages her throat like it’s not supposed to sound that way. “And I miss her every day I’m not with her. Some lady in a suit shows up at my apartment and says Lily has to come with her, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Three days after Paige’s funeral. But you’re wrong in assuming I don’t want what’s best for Lily. I’m trying to do what’s right for her while also honoring my best friend’s wishes. Paige wanted you to have a chance with Lily.”
I draw back at that and close my mouth when I realize it’s unhinged.
“Her last wish was for me to bring Lily to you,” Carter repeats, and with that flash in her eyes, I can tell she’s gearing up for something. It forces me to smother my surprise. I can’t, for one second, look weak in front of this chick.
“And it’s not like it’ll be easy for you to get her,” Carter continues. “You’ll have to go through official documents, home visits, social workers going in and out of your apartment until it’s found suitable for a toddler. Even after, CPS will visit you, make sure Lily’s in safe hands, now that her mother’s dead and didn’t give you any rights on official paper.”
“Okay, so what?” I’m dismissive, but it’s only to cover the waffling going on inside. The—what is that? Shit, right. Fear. Fear of measuring up. “You don’t think I can accomplish any of that?”
“I don’t think you have the balls, no.”
After a cool swallow, I peel my lips back while I slam my empty bottle down. “Then get ready, because Challenge is my middle name.”
She stares pointedly at my two empty beer bottles. “You’ll have to stop drinking.”
“Easy.”
“You can no longer bring random chicks into your apartment.”
“Can do.”
“And clean. That place you’re living in is—”
“All right. I get the point.”
“And a crib. And baby things. Diapers, bottles, changing station—”
“Fine. I can do it. She’s my kid, I’ll figure it out.”
I refuse to give her any more ammo by asking her what a fucking changing station is.
Carter won’t break her hold on me. “This isn’t a game, Locke. Not something you can win.”
I break our staring contest and utter, “You have no faith.”
She barks out a humorless laugh. “I lost my faith a long time ago.”
Carter stands. “And I’ll wait for your text telling me you’ve changed your mind and can’t handle it.”
After that parting shot, she makes her way out of the booth.
“Hey! We’re not finished yet, Carter,” I say.
The waiter has picked this time to place my meal on the table, but I still have room to get out if I elbow him out of the way. I ignore his grunt of surprise and sprint after Carter.
She’s near the entrance, and I have to dodge more than a few squealing families and rainbow cocktail gallons, but I catch her by the arm. She looks back with a glare containing lava, but I don’t back down. I lean in so close I can feel her hot breath on my jaw.
“Consider this your first mistake,” I say, and only she can hear. “Underestimating me.”
I let go and don’t leave her room to reply. Storming back to my table, I run into a helium balloon of the mascot and end up tangled in its string. All the pent-up emotion, the frustration, the fucking uselessness I’ve felt all day, culminates into this one mocking, floating cartoon prawn closing in on me.
I get an arm loose and punch it in the face.
Below me, someone starts screaming. Then crying, then hiccupping. Awesome. I’ve deflated a child’s balloon.
“Yeah, great father material,” I hear Carter say behind me, and I don’t turn around and give her any satisfaction, because now I want to punch the fucking wall.
7
Carter
ONE MONTH LATER
“Ba-ba.”
“What’s that, sweetie?” I bend down, so Lily’s cupid bow lips are closer to my ear.
“Ba-ba!”
Yikes. That went from a polite request to a screech in one-point-two seconds.
I loop an arm around her as much as I can while I reach to the floor, pulling out the diaper bag I’d stuffed underneath the seat in front of me.
“Let me help.”
The lady in the plane’s seat next to me, Eden Munch, uncrosses her legs and pulls the bottle out of the side of the striped bag.
“Thank you,” I say, still unsure how I’m supposed to interact with the social worker. I’d rather spend this time alone with Lily, holding her forever on my lap, cherishing each squirm, and yes, adoring each scream. I only have two and a half more hours with her.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” the speaker drawls. “This is your pilot speaking. We’ll be starting our descent in about ten minutes, and I’ll be putting the seat belt sign on to encourage you to stay in your seats. We can expect to land in about thirty-five minutes.”
Correction. Make that a little more than half an hour with her.
Lily whines and I realize I’ve tightened my grip on her. It physically hurts as I release and give her the bottle, to which she grabs as if she’s been stranded on a desert, and begins chugging.
Eden seems to sense my unease because she pats my elbow. “It’ll be okay, honey.”
“Oh, I’m not a nervous flyer.”
“I know,” she says, and her warm brown eyes trained on mine. She doesn’t have to say anything more. The lump in my throat won’t dislodge from sympathy, empathy, or anything resembling kindness. Not if, at the end of it all, I still have to give up my heart, beating in a small, warm body nestled on my lap.
Trusting You Page 4