Only One Mistake (Only One 6)

“I don’t believe you,” she rebuts, and I can just picture her face.

“Why the fuck would I lie about this?” I shriek out louder than I want to and hear a knock on my door.

“How did he look?” she asks, and I don’t have a chance to answer her before she asks another question. “Did he see your stomach?”

I’m about to answer her when I pull open the door, and my mouth hangs open. “I’m going to have to call you back,” I say, hanging up when I hear her yelling. “What the hell do you want?”

Chapter 13

Michael

I park my BMW exactly where I did that night we spent together. Getting out, I jog to her door, my head spinning, my heart pumping exactly like it did that first night. The sun is setting, and more people are on the street. I walk over to her apartment and see a couple of people sitting outside on their patio.

Pulling open the door, I’m irritated all over again because I can just walk up to her door. As I walk up the steps, the sound of my heartbeat pounds louder and louder in my ears. Turning down the hallway, I feel my palms get sweaty. I stand outside her door for a while, the whole time trying to get the courage to knock on the door. The memories of our first kiss play over and over in my head. A first kiss that, to this day, I think about every single day.

“Just do it.” I try to pep-talk myself. “What’s the worst that can happen?” I hold up my hand and knock on the door. My stomach sinks, and I swear I’m going to be sick, so I hold the doorjamb. It feels like every second is a minute, and every minute is an eternity. I don’t even know if she’s home, but I know I’m not leaving until we talk.

Walking out of the school holding the girls’ hands, I felt like I was in a daze. My feet were making the motions, but my head was still in that classroom staring at her. Taking her in, I was so into the memory of her that I didn’t hear Cooper yelling my name. It took Mia pulling on my hand for me to look over and see him. He rushed over to me, his hair wild from all the times he ran his hands through it. The fear and worry that was in his voice over the phone showed in his eyes. The girls were happy to see him since he’d been gone for two weeks and it’s that reason that Erika forced him to come and get the girls and then go get her. I took in his frazzled look, and for once in my life, I knew exactly how he felt. Sitting in the car, I pulled up the address that I took down when I left her house that morning.

The sound of her voice comes through the door and makes my nerves speed up. Shit, what if she’s with someone? I put my hand to my stomach when it sinks and then rises again. What if I’m doing all this, and it has nothing to do with me? The what-ifs all stop when the locks click and the door opens. All the what-ifs are out the window when I take one look at her.

She stands there looking even more beautiful than she was when I saw her at the school. She’s even more beautiful than she was that first night, and even that is hard to believe. She has the phone to her ear, and she tells the person she’s talking to that she will call them back. Her face goes from shock to anger in a blink of an eye. “What the hell do you want?” she hisses with her hand still on the door handle.

All the words get jumbled in my brain, and the only thing that comes out is, “I think we should talk,” looking at her and then down at her belly, which looks bigger. Her eyes go into slits as she looks at me.

“The balls on him,” she mumbles. I want to laugh, but I don’t have time because her voice goes higher when she says, “We have nothing to talk about.” Her hand attempts to slam the door in my face. My foot comes out before the door can close, making her even angrier.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she says, shaking her head when the door opens back up. “What do you want?”

I look at her and think about how to word this question. She stands there with her hand on her hip. “Are you...” I point at her stomach, my heart racing, and I think I’m going to be sick. “You’re pregnant?” I ask, and her mouth hangs open.