Hook Me Up (Business Of Love Book 3)

by Ali Parker

  I knew it wasn’t food related. It was Jackson related. But I was grasping at straws here, and emotional eating had always been a loyal crutch for me.

  I’d polished off the sandwich and accompanying broccoli and cheese soup by later that evening when Hannah came home. She knocked before she cracked open the door and poked her head in.

  Her eyes darted around the place and landed on me. “Is it safe for me to come in?”

  I wiped my lips with my napkin and tossed it in the bakery bag, along with the rest of my garbage from the meal. While Hannah took off her shoes and shrugged out of her sweater, I slumped back in the sofa cushions and stared at my now full and firm belly.

  “He hates me,” I said.

  Hannah left her purse on the kitchen island and came to join me on the sofa. “Jackson doesn’t hate you. He never could. He’s too good for that.” She reached over and put her hand on my thigh. “But I understand if you hate me.”

  I blinked at my sister. “Why would I hate you?”

  She scoffed. “Oh, come on now. I blew it. If I hadn’t walked in here like an ass talking out of my mouth about your pregnancy cravings, this never would have happened and things would have gone differently with Jackson.”

  She wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t blame her for how it had all come out. She hadn’t intentionally told him my secret. It was just bad timing.

  “I’m not upset with you,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  My sister’s shoulders slumped and she threw her head back to look at the ceiling. “Oh thank God! I was worried. I feel so bad.”

  “Don’t. I fucked it up all on my own.”

  Hannah pursed her lips and sighed. “What did he come here for anyway?”

  My throat immediately felt tight as emotions gripped me once more. I gave my head a shake and cleared my throat. I didn’t want to cry again. I’d spent the half hour following Jackson’s departure sitting on the kitchen floor with my back against the cupboards sobbing my heart out. Now I was spent. I had no energy left for more tears. “He came to tell me he wanted to try with us.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Just like that?”

  “Just like that. He said he was sorry that he never acknowledged that things were different after we hooked up the first time. And he said he wanted to go for it with me.”

  “Holy shit. What did you say?”

  I licked my lips. “I didn’t get a chance to say anything before… well, you know.”

  Hannah groaned. “Before I came in and blurted out that you were pregnant?”

  I winced. “Yeah. But seriously. Don’t think anything of it. Shit happens. Jackson and I are perfect examples of bad timing.”

  “You can say that again.”

  I let out a long-winded, self-pitying sigh. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I go and break my best friend’s heart. What’s wrong with me, Hannah?”

  “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re in a tight spot. Everything is unknown right now. Jackson will understand that. I’m sure he needs some time to process, too.”

  Hannah didn’t understand.

  She spent the next fifteen minutes trying to cheer me up but none of her wise-ass jokes lifted my spirits at all. My mind was constantly pulled back to Jackson and the look on his face when he left. I’d never seen that expression on him before. He truly looked shattered. Like he was made of glass and I’d blown all his pieces apart with a baseball bat.

  I felt like that was what I’d done, too.

  Talk about worst friend of the year award.

  “Where do you think he’s staying tonight?” Hannah asked after she made herself comfortable under a fluffy white blanket and propped herself up against a plethora of throw pillows. “And how long is he in town?”

  “He didn’t say.” I shrugged. “I suppose he’s staying in a hotel?”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Should I go after him?”

  Hannah’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  I frowned. “Is that a no?”

  My sister picked at a loose thread on the edge of the blanket. “I don’t want to give you bad advice.”

  “Then just tell me what you would do.”

  “I would…” She trailed off and I had the sense she was trying to think of the right thing to say and the right way to say it. “I would take some time to get my head on straight so I could make a clear decision on what I wanted to do next without leaping into something I don’t actually want. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so.”

  How long was I supposed to take? That was the question. This constant back and forth of trying to decide what I wanted was going to be the death of me. On Monday, I was going to return to the Nashville office for work. How was I supposed to handle any of my calls and do my job when my head and heart wouldn’t be in it?

  Should I confide in Azira?

  Or would it be best to keep this all to myself until, as Hannah said, I knew what I wanted?

  What if you never know what you want? What if you don’t make a decision and you just let time pass you by, and the next thing you know, you’re a terrible mother and your child is unhappy and you’re living the exact life you always feared you would have?

  Hannah tucked the blanket under her thighs and feet to turn herself into a little blanket burrito. “This is a big deal, Hailey. There is no requirement on how much time you need to take. You’ll know when you feel ready to move forward with whatever decision you’ve made. And regardless of what it is, you know I’ll have your back. But you’re right to be unsure and frightened. You just can’t let that paralyze you. At the end of the day, you have to make a decision, and that’s when you should talk to Jackson.”

  I fidgeted with my thumbs. “Shouldn’t I ask him what he wants?”

  Hannah shrugged. “It’s up to you. But at the end of the day, you have to want this, Hailey. What if things end badly between you two? What if he bows out? What if a year down the road when there are dirty diapers and bottles overflowing in the sink, he realizes he doesn’t want this? I’m not trying to be a downer. I’m just saying. You have to consider how everything will change and if you can handle this alone if you have to.”

  I gnawed on the inside of my cheek like it was a chew toy.

  I’d never been one of those women who dreamed of motherhood. I never wanted the car seats in the back of my pearl-white SUV or the closet in a nursery filled with tiny clothes and shoes and boxes of diapers. I never dreamed about telling my family I was pregnant. I never fantasized about what it might be like to look down into the face of a child that was my own.

  Never.

  In fact, I was the polar opposite.

  I was the girl at baby showers who got bored within the first forty-five minutes. I was also the girl who never wanted to hold the baby. I got a lot of flack for that kind of stuff but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t grown up around kids. I had an older sister and we had no younger cousins. All of my friends were the younger siblings too, or they were only children. My exposure to kids was slim to none. Even being around Vanessa and her new little babe made me uneasy.

  And all of a sudden, I was growing one of said babes in my tummy.

  The thought made me feel like an alien.

  “Hailey?”

  I looked up at my sister and blinked to clear my foggy thoughts. “Sorry. I zoned out.”

  “It’s okay. I feel like I need you to hear this.”

  “What?”

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to go through with this. It’s okay if you don’t want it or you aren’t ready. I mean it. Nobody else has to live with this choice but you. Don’t let anyone else’s opinions or needs or wants impact your decision. Okay?”

  My sister’s words came from a place of love. I knew this was my choice. And a few days ago, the idea of ending this pregnancy seemed like the safest option. It seemed like the route with the most certainty and the least amou
nt of obstacles. My life would be able to stay the same. I could keep working. I could fight to be the career woman I saw my future self as and I wouldn’t be slowed down by a family.

  But now?

  Well, things had changed. Seeing Jackson’s eyes light up for that brief second when he first found out I was pregnant had lit something in me, too. A beacon of hope and joy and the promise of a future I never knew I wanted but suddenly felt like I needed.

  There was magic inside me.

  I massaged my temples. “It’s not supposed to be this hard.”

  “Not for everyone. And you know what? It might not be this hard if things were different between you and Jackson.”

  “Different how?”

  Hannah shimmied in her seat to wiggle her butt deeper into the cushions. “Well, you and Jackson have never looked each other in the eye and said out loud what you wanted or needed from the other person. You’ve both been so content to let things go. To let time pass you by without defining what you are to each other.”

  I forced myself to stop chewing on my now raw cheek. “And?”

  “You can change that. But you have to put it all on the line.” Hannah sat up straighter and gripped the top of her blanket. “And before you do, you have to make a decision about this baby.”

  Chapter 30

  Jackson

  The bartender of the hole-in-the-wall bar attached to my hotel eyed the three empty whiskey glasses in front of me. I’d sucked them all dry over the past hour and my head was beginning to buzz—not unpleasantly. The booze muddled my thoughts just enough to take the edge off. I was still more than a little upset, but the anger and the hurt weren’t as sharp as they had been when I first walked through the doors.

  The bartender nodded at the glasses. “Another?”

  I shook my head. “I should probably slow down.”

  “A beer then? On the house.”

  I’d have to have been a fool to turn down an offer like that. “Thanks, man.”

  The bartender poured me a foam-topped beer and set it down on a black cardboard coaster. The music playing was some classic eighties rock and I could hear every lyric through the speakers. There was hardly anyone in the place. The bar was quiet save for three taken booths, but those were occupied by businessmen who were sitting on their phones or computers, not making conversation.

  “Had a rough day?” the bartender asked me.

  I glanced at his nametag. His name was Brody. I tipped my head back and took a long pull from my beer. I used the back of my hand to wipe foam from my upper lip. “Rough is an understatement.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  I chuckled. “You’re the closest thing to a bartender straight out of a nineties movie that I’ve ever met.”

  Brody flashed a white smile. All that was missing was a toothpick pinched between his teeth. “You’re not the first person to tell me that. But hey, I don’t have anything left to do for the evening. I’m just trying to run out the clock. If you got problems you want to air out, I’ve got ears. And if my regular weeknight Joe-blows were here, they’d tell you I also give pretty sound advice.”

  He seemed like a nice enough guy, and truth be told, I did want someone to talk to about this shit. But there was nobody I could turn to. I didn’t want to sell out Hailey’s secret. If she hadn’t been ready for me to know about the baby, then she certainly wasn’t ready for other people to know about it.

  The only person I could tell in good conscience was my sister. Katie wouldn’t speak a word of it to anyone and Hailey would understand why I needed someone to confide in.

  But children and pregnancies in general were a tough subject to discuss with my sister. Me bitching about my problems would cost her more than my peace of mind was worth. I wouldn’t put her in a position like that. Katie wanted kids more than anything and she’d recently found out that probably wasn’t in the cards for her.

  She’d been heartbroken.

  How could I call her for support over a problem she would pay top dollar to have?

  The answer was simple. I couldn’t.

  Kim was the only other person I’d consider talking to about this, but again, I didn’t want to sell Hailey out like that and blab my big mouth off to our friends before she was ready to come forward with the news—if she ever decided she wanted people to know.

  So Brody was all I had.

  “I just found out that my best friend is pregnant,” I said.

  Brody nodded like he was agreeing with what I was saying and cocked his head to the side. “Is this good or bad news?”

  “That’s not the right question.” I sighed and leaned back in my stool. “The right question is, whose baby is it?”

  “All right.” Brody crossed his arms and arched a thick black eyebrow. “Whose baby is it? Please don’t say your father’s. I had a guy in here two weeks ago who found out his girl was having an affair behind his back with his old man and she was pregnant and…” Brody trailed off and shuddered. “Took me a couple days to trust strangers enough to talk to them about personal shit, you know?”

  I smiled. “No. Not my dad’s. Mine.”

  “Ah,” Brody said knowingly. “Of course. When did you find out?”

  I glanced at the watch on my wrist. “About two hours ago.”

  “And this friend of yours is just a friend? Or there’s a potential for more?”

  “We’ve been best friends since high school. She’s been there for all my successes and failures and I’ve been there for hers. But things recently shifted between us and sex became part of the equation. Then shit got weird. She bailed. I stopped communicating properly. And it all went to hell in a handbasket. Then, right when I finally realize what I want and what I need and I make a grand gesture and fly all the way here to tell her how I feel, I find out she’s been keeping a huge secret from me.”

  Brody stroked his clean-shaven jaw. He had several rings on all of his fingers. I noticed one of them was a claddagh ring with the heart and crown held between two hands. The others were plain bands of silver save for one that had a vine pattern pressed into it. The nails of his ring fingers were painted in chipped black polish. “I hope I’m not overstepping here, friend, but it is her secret to keep. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing,” Brody said simply. He wasn’t dismissive but he was firm. “You know how you feel right now? Like how your brain has turned to mush in your skull and you’ve lost your appetite and all you can do is sit and think and stare off into space?”

  His words were startlingly accurate. “Yes.”

  “Try feeling that on steroids. That’s what this girl of yours is going through. This is happening to her body, man. Not to someone else’s. This is her burden to bear first and foremost. If she needed more time without you in the picture to figure it out? Well, I think that’s fair of her. Don’t you?”

  I grimaced and gulped down a bunch of beer. “So I’m being an ass?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It was implied.”

  “Perhaps. All I’m saying is if she needs time and space, those are easy things to give a person.”

  His words rang true but I felt like I’d already stolen those things from her. I found out about the baby in a way that was outside of Hailey’s control. She hadn’t been ready to have that conversation with me and I overreacted, made her feel like shit, and left without giving her a chance to try to express her feelings and where her head was at.

  Other than her saying she couldn’t do this.

  What had she meant by that? Did she mean she couldn’t do this, as in me and her? As in a relationship? Or had she been talking about the baby?

  My stomach rolled over.

  Brody leaned over and rested his elbows on the bar. “What do you want, man? Forget about all the other variables for a minute. What do you want?”

  Hailey. Her name rang clearer in my mind than any other thought had that evening.

  “Her,” I sa
id. “I want her.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Brody nodded. “Yes. Why do you want her?”

  I frowned at the question. I didn’t entirely understand what he was fishing for but I decided to answer nonetheless. “I want to be the guy who makes her happy. I want to be in her corner like I always have. I want to push her. I want to remind her how powerful she is and that she can do anything she wants. I want a front-row seat to her life. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without her. I don’t want to. I love her.” The words sounded so right in my own ears. I love her. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone else.”

  And it’s about time I get my shit together and show her just how much she means to me.

  Brody straightened with a smile. “Sounds legit and well-intentioned to me.”

  “Was there a wrong answer to that question?”

  “Well, if you’d made it all about you, I would have pointed out how you were only thinking about yourself, not her. But you passed the test.”

  “Damn,” I breathed. “You are wise.”

  “I’m here every night except Mondays and Tuesdays.”

  “Noted.” I fished my phone out of my pocket. The screen was a bit blurry and I gave my head a shake to try and dismiss the lingering fogginess of the alcohol in my system. I had to message Hailey. I had to put action behind my words and show her just how badly I wanted to be there for her.

  Brody plucked a towel from behind the bar and began wiping down liquor bottles. He watched me text a frantic message out with an arched eyebrow. “Are you messaging her?”

  I nodded and never tore my gaze from the screen.

  “Should I look that over to make sure it’s coming across properly?” Brody offered. “No offense but I don’t think you can hold your whiskey all that well, man.”

  I laughed. I liked this guy and his transparent honesty. He would be an easy client for me to set someone up with if he was single.

  “No, I’ve got this,” I said. “I’m just sending her the name of the hotel and my room number to see if she wants to stop by so we can talk. I don’t check out until eleven tomorrow, so I can wait. I can wait as long as it takes.”