“Jill said it’s not the first time this has happened. He likes to drink, you know, so sometimes . . .” Ava shakes her head. “She’s worried. I can’t blame her, but I’m sure he’s fine.” She grabs a salted caramel donut from the box.
Thinking about Nelson makes my heart ache. Where would I be today if Colton hadn’t stolen those paintings? If he hadn’t triggered me to leave the gallery and his father’s control? Ava doesn’t know the truth about the kind of man her father is, and once I felt guilty for keeping it from her. As the years passed, I understood it was for the best. It’s easier to protect Ava from what she doesn’t see.
“I’ll tell Colton about the baby,” I say, picking at my donut. “But this is about more than what I saw last night. Colton still lives here, but he left me two months ago.” I shrug. “Even if he has a good reason, it doesn’t change that it happened.”
“You and Colton can get through this and come out stronger,” she says. “I know you can.”
I drop the remainder of my donut in the box. “What if I don’t want us to come out of this together? What if sometime in the last two months, I left him too?”
Levi
I don’t know what I’m looking for when I walk into Jackson Brews, but when I spot Ellie at the bar, I know I’ve found it. Her legs are crossed at the knee; one black heel is hooked to a stool rung, and the other is dangling from her toes. She has on one of those fitted black skirts she likes to wear for work—the kind that comes down to her knees but hugs every inch of ass, hip, and thigh from here to there. The kind that makes my mouth water and my hands itch to touch.
She’s having his baby.
She’s sitting alone, her head bowed, her hand wrapped around her glass like its contents are the path to her salvation. She probably needs a drink about as badly as I do right now. But she’s pregnant, and the only thing I’m interested in getting drunk on is her.
I tuck my hands into my pockets and head to the bar, sliding onto the stool next to hers. “Good afternoon, sunshine.”
“Hey.” She cuts her eyes to me and smiles, but it’s not a real Ellie smile. Not the ear-to-ear, stretched-out grin I’ve spent two years watching her give my best friend. It’s not the smile that brightens her eyes every girls’ night.
I look at her glass. “I can’t decide if you’re working on a small glass of water or a large glass of vodka.”
She arches a brow. “Isn’t the glass the same size either way?”
“Nope. That would be a lot of vodka.” I make a show of squinting and holding fingers up beside it. “Like, five shots?”
She laughs. “Good thing it’s water, then. Hydration is the key to clear skin, you know.”
“Right.” I’m not sure I remember a day Ellie stepped into Jackson Brews and opted for hydration over alcohol. If she’s been drinking water all summer, how did I miss the truth?
She rubs her bare arms. “Colton is Noah McKinley’s father.”
I nod. “Ava told me this morning.”
She flinches. “I wish she would have told me.” A single tear slips from the corner of her eye and rolls down her cheek. “I feel so damn alone.”
I want to reach out and brush it away so badly that the pain of holding back cuts through me. “Did Colton move out?”
“All his stuff is still there, but he walked away and now he’s not returning my calls.” She shrugs and wipes away her tears. “He says he didn’t sleep with her. Maybe he didn’t.”
“Maybe.” I wave to Cindy and point to the bourbon. I’ve been thinking about Colton’s strange behavior a lot since Ellie knocked on the door last night. I want to believe he’s just an ass who doesn’t deserve Ellie, but I know him too well for that. “I’m starting to wonder if he found out about the kid and fell off the wagon.”
She meets my eyes.
Ellie and I know Colton’s secrets—or at least more than most people do. We know how he used to dabble in drugs and how he’s had to fight to keep them from controlling his life. He’s clean most of the time, but he’s never been the kind of guy who could hide it when he wasn’t. When Colt falls, he falls hard.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I’m afraid to ask, but not knowing something doesn’t actually keep it from being true.
“I found some pills.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “It’s hard to guess what else he’s hiding. Why keep the kid a secret from me? Why freak out and have an affair with his baby’s mama?” She shakes her head. “None of this makes sense. He’d worked so hard to get clean and then just threw it all away because he found out he was a father?”
I drag a hand through my hair and squeeze at the tension at the back of my neck. “He thinks you and I slept together last night.”
“He knew I was with you and assumed something happened. I was so angry that I didn’t deny it.” She swirls the water in her glass. “Sorry to put you in the middle of all this.”
I shake my head. “I don’t mind. Tell me what I can do to help.”
“Tell me I can do this alone.” She meets my eyes. “Tell me I can be a single mom and somehow give my baby a better childhood than my mom could give me.”