Page 105 of Force a Date

“No, she’s?—”

“Where is she? She’s not answering her phone and Rory just hit her head on the coffee table.”

Who the fuck is Rory?

“Uh, who are you?” I press, trying to gather some sort of information so I can, pass it on to Liv when she gets here.

“Mia, her best friend,” she quakes with an exhale. “Where is she? I’m on my way to the hospital with her daughter right now.”

Everything in me freezes at that moment.

I can’t breathe as I look at the black pen on my desk and the words sink into my brain like a sponge.

Daughter.

Liv has a daughter?

My brows clash together because it’s not possible. I mean, it is, Liv is in her twenties, but she’s never mentioned a kid.

Ever.

I’m not a historian when it comes to all the details of her life but a kid is pretty fucking important.

It’s a kid.

You don’t just go to the store and pick one of those out. A woman gives birth to it and then you raise the damn thing.

“Hey, I need her to get up to St. John’s hospital,” Mia tells me, sounding a bit annoyed that I’m not making a conscious effort to be more helpful. “Tell her to call me when you see her. I’m gonna try her parents.”

I nod my head but no words come out and I’m not sure how much time goes by before I hear the drone of the line going dead on the other side.

Liv has a daughter.

Denial kicks in and I refuse to accept it. This has to be some fucked-up joke that her friend is playing on her because I came clean about my trust issues with women in the past and the things I’ve lost, so Liv knows all.

Most all.

The devastation of not being a father is one. Losing a child was something I never thought I’d have to face in my life but I did. And even if that wasn’t the best moment to bring up that Liv had a kid, eventually I thought I’d know about it.

Even before.

I’m not sure why a mother wouldn’t openly state that she had a kid unless she was ashamed of it. But Liv is a firecracker. So, how the fuck did she get away with not telling me about her daughter?

We went up to the cabin without one.

Her parents didn’t mention or ask about one.

Did I miss something? Was I so pussy-blinded that I didn’t catch it along the way? Did she mention it and I was too busy thinking with my dick to decipher it?

“Hey, I’m back.” The sound of Liv’s voice makes my heart clench tightly in my chest and I’m at a loss for what to do and how to even believe her anymore.

The rustling of a bag drops to my desk and I can feel her without even needing to look at her. Every nerve in my body senses and reacts to her in all the ways that send me reeling and back to settling in a lust-filled mood where nothing else matters.

But this matters.

It’s not that she has a kid but the fact that she kept that piece of her life separate from me. Like I either wasn’t good enough to confide in, I wasn’t going to be around long enough to even meet her, or Liv didn’t want me to meet her.

Either reason makes me feel like shit.

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