by Hart, Rye
My phone buzzed in my hand and I looked down to see another text from Tate, begging me to talk. I nearly threw the damn thing out into the street. My stomach lurched again and I had to roll down the window so I didn’t puke in Rain’s car.
She patted my leg and looked at me sympathetically when I was finished. “You really do love him, huh? You weren’t even this bad after Devin.”
Tears coursed down my cheeks as I shook my head. “Yeah Rain, I really do love him.”
We arrived home and I climbed the stairs to my apartment. I looked around and felt incredibly sad. Just yesterday, I was planning on leaving his place behind and starting a new chapter with Tate in his home. God, how had I let myself get so swept up in him.
I ran straight to my bed and laid down, not even bothering to take my clothes or shoes off. I cried myself to sleep and when I woke a few hours later, I felt no better. I got up and went to the kitchen to fix myself a little something to eat, but the minute I opened the refrigerator and looked at the leftover casserole Aunt Helen had sent up with me yesterday, my stomach lurched again.
As I ran to the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of the calendar on the wall.
Wait. What was the date today?
Oh, holy fuck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – TATE
I was at my computer tweaking photographs when my sister burst into the room. “Great news, brother!” She plopped down on my bed and tossed a pillow at my head.
I ducked and spun my chair around to give her a dirty look and toss it back. “What the hell?”
“I found a house!”
“The one down the street?” I had hoped my sister would stay closer to me rather than move across the city where I couldn’t keep an eye on her.
“You wish! It’s only a few minutes from here, but the house is perfect, and I already put down some earnest money. I just have to come up with the rest of the down payment, and then I’ll use my next trust check to pay the closing cost.”
“Here, take this.” I passed her the check from Hazen, and her eyes bugged.
“Wow, is this what Hazen gave you to be super-stud on his silly website?”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I want you to have it.” Megan’s expression grew softer. “Still haven’t heard from Kami?”
I shook my head. “No. She won’t answer any of my texts. I thought about going down to her work, but I don’t want to be that guy and cause a scene. I just don’t know what to do, Meg.”
“Do you want me to try?” she asked. “I mean, I know she and I don’t know each other well, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”
I shook my head and smiled at my sister. “I really appreciate that, but I need to fix this myself.”
Megan opened her mouth to speak but the sound of knocking at the front door cut her off. I scrambled to my feet and all but ran to the door, hoping against hope that Kami had come to talk. When I threw the door open, however, it was Rain that was standing on the other side. And boy was she pissed.
“Rain—” I started, but she held up her hand.
“No, you don’t talk, asshole. You listen,” she said, her voice harsh.
I shut my mouth and stood helplessly while she let loose on me.
“You are a sorry excuse for a man,” she began. “Kami is the best thing that has ever happened to you, will ever happen to you, you threw it all away? Why? So you could fuck a bunch of whores who send you pictures of their fake tits?”
“It’s not like that Rain,” I tried again.
“I said you don’t talk!” she yelled. “My best friend is hurting because of you; because of your selfishness and your need to get your dick wet. You are a disgusting piece of shit.”
“Hey!” came Megan’s voice from behind me. “My brother may be a lot of things, but he is not a piece of shit.”
“It’s OK, Meg,” I said, holding up my hand.
“No, it’s not,” she argued. “I’ve had about enough of this. He made a mistake, a really big one, but he doesn’t deserve to be talked to like this.”
“A mistake?” Rain asked, incredulously. “He was fucking several other women at the same time that he told my best friend that he was in love with her!”
“No, actually, he wasn’t,” Megan said.
“Listen, I get that you are his sister and you want to protect him but—”
“Oh, for the love of Christ. Would you please come in off the porch and let him explain? The neighbors don’t need to know our business.”
I stood between my sister and Kami’s best friend, not quite sure what to do, but knowing I had to do something. “Yeah, Rain. Please come in.”
Hesitantly, she stepped over the threshold and into the living room. Megan turned to go back to her own room, but added, “I’ll let you two talk, but know that if I hear you berating him again, you and I are going to tangle.”
I shook my head and motioned for Rain to sit on the couch. “I’m sorry about my sister. She can be a bit overprotective. Can I get you something to drink?”
Rain perched on the edge of the leather sofa and shook her head. “No, I don’t want anything from you but an explanation of why you would do something like this to Kami. And be forewarned, that my bullshit detector is a lot more sensitive than hers.”
I sighed and sat down. I was going to tell Rain everything and hold zero back. I couldn’t let anything stand in the way of winning Kami back.
“It’s true that I have been talking to women on Matched Solid, but I swear to you, I have not been sleeping with any of them. I haven’t even met any of them.”
She regarded me with an air of disbelief, and so I continued.
“The site is owned and operated by my best friend Hazen. He needed some help boosting traffic on the site and he asked me to help him out. The job was that I would send messages to newcomers as well as the women who weren’t getting as much attention, to keep them coming back.”
“So you were baiting them?” she asked, her lip curled in disgust.
“Yeah, I guess I was. But I swear to you, that’s all it ever was. I came across Kami’s profile the very first day I started helping out. I thought she was beautiful and had actually seen her at her coffee shop months before. I sent her the standard welcome message. I never expected it to go anywhere further, but then she responded and we actually started to talk. That’s the truth.”
“So you did all that for your best friend, just as a favor?” Rain asked unconvinced.
“Well, that actually leads to another topic.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “I have a hefty family inheritance, for which I will only be given the lump sum if I’ve settled down and conceived one heir by my thirty fifth birthday.”
“So you used the dating site to find the girl you planned to knock up, and my best friend was one of hundreds of girls you flirted with before you found your perfect baby mama?”
I cringed, hating how that sounded. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. Listen, I know how awful that sounds, but the minute I actually spoke to her and got to know her, I was committed. I will swear to you, to her, to anyone who will listen, that I never met up with or did anything with those other women. It never went past a few harmless messages. I love her, Rain. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
“You can see how your reputation makes that a little hard to believe, right?” she asked me.
I sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’m the first to admit that I’ve been a dog in the past. I’ve been selfish and immature and stupid before, but all that ended when I met Kami. I want to be the best person I can be for her. I want to be the man she deserves.”
“I’m not sure that even exists,” Rain said softly. “She deserves the world.”
“I know. And I promise to spend the rest of my life to give it to her. Do you think she could ever forgive me?”
“I don’t know,” Rain admitted. “And I don’t know if she should.”
I got up and went to my room, returning with my laptop and a folder of paper
s with the terms of my inheritance. I handed all them to Rain.
“Go ahead, look through it all.”
After about ten minutes of reading and poking through my computer, Rain looked satisfied. “Ok, I believe you.”
My heart swelled with hope. “You do?”
“Yes. You made her happy, Tate. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. You’re going to have to do a lot of work to get that back.”
I nodded my head vigorously. “I know and I’m willing to do whatever it takes. Will you help me?” I asked, hopeful.
Rain regarded me with a look before finally nodding her head. “I’ll see what I can do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – KAMI
“Kam?” I heard footsteps approaching as I rolled over, still in bed. After I’d looked at the date on the calendar, I’d run to the drugstore and got a test, which confirmed my worst fear. I was pregnant with Tate’s baby. Those two unprotected times were all it took to change my life forever.
I never expected to get myself knocked up by a man I’d fallen so deeply in love with, only to have my heart smashed into bits by him.
I’d cried myself to sleep again afterward. That weekend had been filled with so much hope and love, and now I was left with a permanent reminder of it. I found myself totally lost.
Rain sat down on the edge of my bed and smoothed my hair away from my face. “Are you still sick?” she asked, feeling my forehead?
I shook my head, and the motion made me queasy all over again. I bolted up and out of bed, slapping my hand over my mouth as I ran to the bathroom. Rain followed me and held my hair as I puked, then offered me a cool cloth for my forehead.
“No,” I said, when I regained my composure. “I’m not sick.” I opened the drawer and pointed to the stick that lay in the bottom. I watched Rain’s eyebrows knit together as she leaned down to look, and then shoot up almost to her hairline when she realized what she was seeing.
“Oh my God, Kam!” she shouted.
“What am I going to do, Rain?” I asked her, tears falling down my cheeks.
She grabbed my hand and led me to the living room, pushing me gently down onto the couch and sitting next to me. “It’s going to be ok,” she said reassuringly.
“How?” I asked her. “I’m so stupid. I went and got myself knocked up by a liar and a womanizer. I’d wanted to get pregnant so badly and it happened in the worst way. How is it going to be ok?”
“Yeah, about that,” Rain said. “Look, don’t be mad, ok, but I went over to Tate’s house earlier.”
“What? Why” I asked her.
“Because I wanted to give him a piece of my mind,” she said.
I couldn’t help but smile. I loved how much Rain loved and protected me.
“Listen, Kam, there’s a whole story that you don’t know—”
“Oh God, not you too,” I groaned. “Please tell me that you didn’t fall for his bullshit, Rain?”
She shook her head. “No way, you know me better than that. I listened to what he had to say, and then I went and got my own proof.”
“Proof of what exactly?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“It seems that though Tate was working on the Matched site, he wasn’t on there to meet anyone. The site is owned by his best friend who hired him to help increase traffic by engaging women who were either new to the site, or weren’t getting a whole lot of attention.”
“Ew, that’s gross,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. And actually, Tate felt the same way, but he saw it as a way to kill two birds with one stone.”
“Two birds? What does that mean?”
Rain took a deep breath before diving into the story. “He told me how he came to have his money. Apparently, his grandmother left him a trust when she died, but it came with a stipulation. In order to get the full amount, he has to be settled down and have a kid by his thirty-fifth birthday. His friend convinced him that he could both help him out, and find someone to have a kid with.”
“Oh my God, that’s disgusting,” I said. “But at least it explains the comment his dad made. I can’t believe he was just using me to get his money.”
“Maybe that was his first intention, but he really does love you Kami. And he’s really sorry that he hurt you. Like he’s pathetic right now. Super pathetic. You should see him, he looks like shit.”
“Good,” I said, trying not to smile at his discomfort.
Rain laughed. “Seriously though, Kam. He knows he should have been honest from the beginning but he didn’t want you to think he was using you.”
“So the messages to the other chicks were just to help out his friend?” I asked.
“Yeah. He wasn’t even getting paid to do it. His role was to reach out to these women, send a message or two and move on. He never met up with any of them.”
“Never?”
“Apparently, no. I talked to Samantha after I left his place and she confirmed that other than a few harmless messages, nothing else happened. She had also found out that another friend of hers had talked to him too, and said the same thing. His responses were pretty generic actually.”
“And you believe him?” I asked her.
“I do,” she said. “Plus his sister was there, and she vouched for him. I mean, I get that she’d probably have his back either way, but she doesn’t strike me as the type who would lie for him.”
“No, she’s pretty straight with him,” I said.
“See? Listen, Kam, I don’t agree with what he was doing. I think it’s pretty sleazy and demeaning, but as far as you are concerned, he loves you and he’s not been unfaithful to you.”
I sat and absorbed everything she’d just told me. So Tate had been faithful to me. If Rain believed him, I knew that I could too.
But what about the baby? That was a huge game changer. He might be ready to give up his playboy lifestyle for me, but would he be ready to be a father?
“So what are you going to do about the baby?” Rain asked softly.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet I don’t think. I mean, of course I’m going to keep it, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten.”
“You have to tell Tate,” she said.
“I know.”
Rain leaned over and gave me a big hug. “No matter what, you’re going to be OK.” She bent her head down and patted my belly. “Auntie Rain is gonna spoil you rotten, little one,” she said with a huge smile.
I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Just promise me that he or she won’t come home with purple hair one day.”
“I make no such promises,” she declared as she rose to go.
I sat for a few minutes after she left just thinking about everything she’d told me. Though what Tate had done had been gross in its own right, he had never cheated on me. He really did love me. The realization flooded me with relief. Now I just had to tell him about the baby.
I got up and walked over to the counter where the mail was sitting from the past couple of days. I picked up an envelope with a familiar address and turned it over in my hands. I knew exactly how I was going to tell him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – TATE
The Gala was packed when I walked in with my sister on my arm. Steven Pratt welcomed me as the others gathered clapped for me. I gave a polite nod and introduced Megan to the crowd.
“Where’s that lovely girl you were seeing?” asked one of the women from before.
“She might be here later.” I didn’t know what else to say and felt too strange to explain that we’d broken up. The wound was too fresh to pick at, and I wanted to just get the night over with, so I could go home and crawl back in bed.
The woman walked away satisfied, and Megan gave me a reassuring pat on the back. “Show me your work.”
I led her around the gallery, nodding and saying hello to the crowd who all seemed to like my photography and wanted to chat about it. After a while, I made small talk with some of the other members of the committee, I flagged down a
waiter and took a drink from his tray for my sister and then two for myself. I downed the first and placed the glass back on the tray and gave him a pat on the back as he walked away.
“Easy, there. They won’t ask the lush back next year.” Megan chuckled, but it was half-hearted.
“I don’t know why I’m nervous. She’s not going to come. I really fucked up with her.”
“Well at least dad seemed interested when I left the invitation with him.”
I gave her a withering glare. That didn’t sound accurate.
“OK, fine. His new girlfriend is the one who seemed interested. He just rolled his eyes and played it off. I think he was a little jealous that she liked your picture.”
“Great.” I hated most of my dad’s girlfriends, and it sounded like I wouldn’t like the new one any better. I don’t know why they had to put my face on the invitation. My photographs would have been sufficient.
As I stared off into the other room, where the murals were covered for their unveiling, my sister nudged me.
My mouth fell open as I turned to see Kami walking into the room.
“I’ll just leave you a minute. Go to her.” Megan gave me a pointed look and scurried away.
I walked over, and Kami took a deep breath as I stopped in front of her. “Thank you for coming.”
She rocked back and forth on her pumps and looked around, smiling and waving to the ones who’d been looking for her. “I know how much this means to you,” she said in response.
“Nothing means as much to me as you do,” I said to her.
She regarded me with a look I couldn’t quite read before responding. “Rain told me everything,” she finally said.
I inhaled a breath. “And?”
“And we have a lot to talk about,” she said. “But not right now. Enjoy your show.” She turned to walk off into the crowd.
“Kami.” She stopped and looked over her shoulder before turning to face me. “I’ve missed you.”.
Before she could say anything in reply, Steven tapped his glass and called the room to his attention. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a great honor to be here tonight to share the love, passion, and science of astronomy with our friends and beloved guests. As you know, we’re always on the lookout for ways to improve our observatory, and this year, in honor of our fiftieth anniversary of the Galaxy Gala, we commissioned a talented artist and photographer, Tate Evans, whose astral photography will now grace the walls of the observatory’s event room.” He swept a hand, and the veils came off the pictures I’d sold and made into wall-size prints. The crowd cheered, oohing and ahhing at the unveiling, and Steven asked me to step up.