Scarlett Lashenta is sitting on my front porch.
No. Pretty sure that can’t be right.
I drag my hand over my eyes, trying to rub the sleep out of them. But when I open them, she’s still there—sitting on the front porch of the off-campus two-bedroom I’m renting with friends for the summer. “Can I help you?”
Scarlett tucks a lock of silky red hair behind her ear and gives me a weak smile. “You’re Shayleigh Jackson?”
“I am.”
“I’ve seen Easton’s pictures of you two in Paris together. You’re even prettier in person, though.” She bites her bottom lip. Her perfect bottom lip. If I tried to wear red lipstick like that, I’d look like a clown. This woman looks Photoshop-perfect in real life. “I was hoping we could talk? About Easton.”
My stomach cramps. I haven’t seen him since he left Mom’s house the night of Dad’s funeral. He’s texted, saying he wants to talk. I’ve ignored him. “Is he okay?”
“Oh, yes. He’s fine. Well, as fine as he gets. You know Easton. Every time there’s a major change in his life, he struggles a bit, so the new QB coach is getting to him.”
I didn’t know he had a new coach. I guess we didn’t talk that much about his life, now that I think about it.
“You seem like a really nice girl, Shayleigh. At least, that’s what I’ve come to believe from Easton’s stories.”
“Thanks.” This is so surreal. Scarlett Lashenta is sitting on my front porch telling me I’m a nice girl. Two nights ago, I was climbing onto her husband’s lap and trying to seduce him.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who’d set out to tear apart a family.” Her blue eyes fill with tears. “I don’t believe you’d want a little girl to be without her daddy. That’s why I’m here.”
Maybe this is a dream. Or a nightmare. It was bad enough to have Easton push me away. I don’t need to hear it from Scarlett too. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I know what happened between you and Easton in Chicago.” She waves her phone as if this explains everything. “But when he slept with you, he didn’t know what he knows now.”
“Okay?” Why is she here? Easton made his plans clear. He wants to stay with Scarlett because he seems to think I’m just like whatever woman he claims my dad fell in love with. He was drunk and talking crazy. Dad never loved anyone else.
With a sigh, she cocks her head to the side. “He hasn’t told you, has he?”
“My father just died.”
“About Abigail.” She toys with her pearl necklace. “She has leukemia.”
My stomach drops to my feet. “What?”
She turns away, staring into the overgrown rosebushes lining the front of the porch. The blooms are brown and dried, and the whole flowerbed looks atrocious. When she turns back to me, tears glisten in her eyes. “She needs us to be a family right now, and I’m here to ask you to stay out of his life.”
The words are a knife to the gut. “That won’t be a problem.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Why are you here? Easton already told me he’s not going through with the divorce.”
She wipes away a stream of fat tears. “Between you and me, I don’t think our marriage stands a chance if you’re in the picture, and I need it to work. Abi needs it to work.” She drops her gaze to her shoes and shakes her head. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m hoping for your mercy. I’m hoping you’ll understand why I’m asking you not to make it harder than it is for him, why I’m asking you to let him focus on his child.”
Shay
The first person a woman should want to see after she finds out she’s pregnant is the father of her baby. And yet I find myself on the steps of Easton’s beautiful home, the lulling sounds of the lake behind me.
When I ring the doorbell, I’m not sure what I plan to say, but my body is locked up with worry. Whenever I get him, something pulls him away from me again, and it looks like this time isn’t going to be any different.
The second Easton opens the door and he smiles, though? A strange sense of calm washes over me. He drags his eyes down my body and slowly back up before taking my hand and pulling me into the house.
“Abi and Tori are spending the afternoon at the library,” he says with a grin. And just like that, his mouth is on mine. His hands are sliding up my shirt and mine up his. We don’t even make it past the foyer before we’re naked and on the floor—greedy hands and mouths and desperation the backdrop to the breathy sounds that fill the air.