Ricky straightened, then looked me in the eye.
“Yes,” he admitted. “And I can’t say I regret it.” He stepped toward me, closing the space between us, and I looked stubbornly at the floor until his socked feet came into view.
“I missed you,” he said. When I rolled my eyes, he stepped in closer. “No, seriously, Angie. I did.”
“Well, that’s hardly my fault,” I said bitterly. “You said you would call.”
I heard rather than saw Ricky shift with discomfort.
“I know,” he said. “It’s not an excuse, but . . . something came up.” His hand came to my chin, tilting my face up to his. “How did your presentation go?”
His touch still had that kind of effect on me, it seemed. I allowed myself some grace; it had been only a few days, and my body hadn’t yet learned that Ricky was off-limits. I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly through my mouth.
“It was fine,” I said. My gaze flickered to the plant in the corner of the room. The pot that housed it was admittedly beautiful, a smooth glazed white ceramic with a stripe of blue at the base that complemented my accent wall. Ricky must have picked it out himself. “So. What have you brought me?”
“A peace lily,” Ricky supplied. His hand fell away from my face, and he shoved it in his pocket.
“Flowers,” I said, unimpressed.
Ricky shook his head.
“These ones don’t die easy,” he said. “They purify your air. Take low light. Low maintenance, but still give you something to take care of.” He cocked his head toward the couch. “Mind if we sit?”
Shrugging, I pushed past Ricky, stumbled to my coffee table, and took a sip of my wine. Then I sat back on the couch, crossing my legs expectantly as I watched him settle onto the seat farthest from me. He looked nice, and I wondered if he had dressed for the occasion, parsed through his closet for the outfit that was most likely to curry my favor. We looked silly sitting together like this, him dressed for a date, me in a knee-length, long-sleeved tee with i woke up like this written across the chest in bubble letters. Neither of us said a word for a long time, watching the candlelight flicker.
Ricky looked at me askance, his jaw set, and pushed his hair out of his eyes.
“Camila’s pregnant,” he said.
I had not expected that.
“What?” I said. My mind immediately went haywire doing the math. It had been about two months since Camila and Ricky broke up, too long for her to have only just found out . . . unless, of course, they’d been hooking up for longer than I thought. That was unlikely, though; Camila had put up pics of Kirkland Signature Chris Evans practically hours after dumping Ricky; there was no way he would continue to sleep with her after that—
“The baby’s not mine,” Ricky supplied, interrupting my train of thought. He bent forward, folding his hands over his knees. “Though, honestly, I wasn’t sure at first. I found out she was pregnant an hour or so after you left the restaurant, and she just had the ultrasound to see how far along she was this afternoon.” He shrugged. “And now here we are.”
What a hot mess, I thought. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, then stood.
“You want a glass?” I asked, heading into the kitchen to fetch him one anyway. “It’s not the good stuff, but it goes down easy enough.”
“Sure,” he said. I turned away from him to fill his glass. His stare fell heavy on my back, and I slowed my pour, trying to process the information that I’d just heard. Camila was pregnant and, judging by the fact that she’d called her ex to inform him, initially uncertain about her baby’s parentage. I hadn’t stalked her social media in a while; I had no idea if she and her new man were still together. I doubted it. Her new boo hadn’t seemed the fatherly type.
“You could have just told me,” I said, handing him his drink. He took it, placing it on the coffee table without taking a single sip. “It would’ve taken you two seconds to send me a text.”
Ricky shook his head miserably.
“I wanted to,” he said. “I almost did so many times, but . . .” He wiped his face with both hands, letting his words hang in the air.
“But you didn’t,” I supplied for him. “Instead, you let me sit here like an idiot.” I looked down at him critically, unmoved by the guilty expression on his face. The longer I looked at him, the more letting him in through the door felt like a mistake. “And now that you’ve sorted your shit out, you’re here.”