“I do.” I smile at him, and if I could puff out my chest, I would. “I need to get a house.”
I grab my phone out of my back pocket. “I have to call your mom.” I thought I would be able to get a house on my own, but after searching and driving around for the past two days, it’s clear I need help in that department.
“Are you finally setting roots?” Matty asks, and I throw my head back and laugh.
“You’ve been in the South too long,” I say, then look over at Sofia. “Is there anything I should know?”
“Is there a specific question you are asking?” Sofia counters but then holds up her hand. “Doesn’t matter, I won’t tell you.”
“Great.” I shake my head. “Good talk.”
“Don’t you ‘good talk’ me, Stefano,” she hisses. “I’m not the one who had sex without a condom.”
“We used protection. Do you think I would be that careless?” I throw back at her. “Look at Michael and Jillian, it’s not one hundred percent.” I mention my cousin Michael, who had a one-night thing with Jillian, only to find her four months later when he went to pick up Mia and Emma.
“You think?” She smirks at me, and I just shake my head.
“Go to your room,” Matty urges me. “When are you telling everyone?”
“The question you need to be asking is, did you tell your girlfriend that you are now a father?”
Sofia asks me. I don’t answer her that she is a non-factor. Instead, I answer Matty.
“I don’t know. Why?” I ask him.
“Because when you do, they will all be descending,” he teases, making me laugh. “It’s going to be a Bat Signal to end all Bat Signals. Then everyone, and I mean everyone, is going to descend.”
“I’ll let you know,” I assure him before I walk up the stairs to the spare bedroom. Pulling up her number, I think about texting her instead of calling, but something in me just makes me press the blue phone button. I look down at the phone and put it on speaker as I kick off my shoes and throw myself on the king-size bed.
It rings three times before she answers in a whisper, “Hello.”
“Did I wake you?” I whisper back into the phone.
“No,” she replies, and I hear the sound of sheets rustling. “I was just checking on Avery to make sure she was okay before heading to bed.” Her voice goes up a touch.
“Can you meet me tomorrow for breakfast?” I ask, holding my breath, hoping she says yes.
“I don’t know,” she answers. “I have to have her at daycare, and then I start work by nine.”
“What about lunch?” I ask her, hoping she says yes to this.
“I try not to take lunch,” she admits, “so I can leave early and get Avery.”
“Why did you sneak out that morning?” I want to kick myself the minute the question comes out of me. It was a question I knew I would ask her eventually. It was the question I’ve asked the universe time and time again when I would think about the beautiful stranger who made me forget all my rules.
The beautiful one who made me laugh like no one else, and the one who made me go from zero to a thousand with just one look.
She lets out a deep breath. “It was the first time I ever had a one-night stand.” I don’t know if I should be happy about this or not. “I was mortified you would think I did it often.”
I close my eyes at the way her voice dipped at the end. “Did it matter?”
“To me, it did,” she says. “I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t that person.” I want to tell her I know she isn’t. I knew that night she wasn’t that person, and even if she was, it didn’t matter to me. “I went back to the hotel six weeks later.” I gasp in shock at her declaration. “Told them what room you were in and everything, but they wouldn’t give me your information.” I sit up in bed, my heart beating a million miles a minute as it rises to my throat, and I feel like I’m going to throw my phone at the wall.
I’m shaking that she did that. I’m shaking she put all of her pride aside to look for me. I’m shaking because it was my job to protect her and Avery, and I didn’t do my job. I’m shaking because she probably went to look for me out of desperation, especially after her parents kicked her out. I’m shaking because now I’m going to do everything in my power to make her whole again, even if I have to destroy people to do it. I don’t tell her this. Instead, I whisper, “I’m so sorry.”