Page 12 of About That Night

“Damn. I’m so sorry. That is harsh.” My parents would have never done that, I know that for a fact. My mother would have had some lecturing about being responsible, and my father would have told me, or any of my siblings, to suck it up and get ready for a rough ride, but they never would have turned their backs on any of us.

The opposite, in fact. They would embrace a baby with open arms and surround us all with love.

“They named me Chastity. What do you expect? But, yeah. I lost my family, all my friends. I lost my chance to go away to college, and I lost my sense of self for a minute when I believed them that I was a bad person.”

“You’re not a bad person.” Everything I’d seen proved just the opposite.

“Thank you, that’s nice of you to say. Anyway, my biggest mistake cost me everyone and everything I loved, but in the end, it also brought me my greatest joy, so I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Exactly the same, just to have my son.”

I can hear the truth of her statement. She sounds fiercely proud and in love with her child. It’s fascinating to see and hear Chastity now, as an adult, so different from the impulsive teen she’d been. I find the mama bear side of her very appealing. “What’s your son’s name?”

“Josiah.” She smiles. “Can I show you a picture, or is that annoying?”

“Of course you can show me a picture.” I’m curious about her life, and that includes her son. “He’s four?”

She nods, swiping through her phone. “This one is from the pumpkin patch.” She holds the picture out to me.

I’m amused, because it’s obvious Josiah is in the pumpkin patch. He is surrounded by, you guessed it, pumpkins. He has a foot on one and is making muscles. I laugh. “He’s adorable.”

He is. He also doesn’t look like me. I’m studying him subconsciously, but then I realize what I’m doing and force myself to stop. I do believe Chastity. She’s not a liar. Presumably, she would have also come after me for child support by now if I were this kid’s father, as would be her right to do so.

“He is adorable, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Where is he tonight?”

“He’s sleeping. My roommate is home with him. We’ve been friends since right after Josiah was born. She’s been through everything with me.” She flips through a few more pictures before giving me a sheepish look. “Sorry. He’s just my world.”

“That’s awesome. You must be a great mom. Why didn’t you tell me about him when we ran into each other in New Orleans?” I ask.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t a secret. He’s all over my social media. But you didn’t seem to know, and I didn’t feel like bringing it up because, well, I wanted you to think of me as sexy.” She looks embarrassed by the admission.

“Moms can be sexy,” I point out. “Trust me, I would have thought you were sexy no matter what.”

“I also wasn’t sure you’d believe me that he’s not yours and that a fun night would turn into buying a paternity test.”

That did make sense. “You’re probably not wrong about that.” I’m itching to ask her yet again if she’s sure about the timing, but I keep my damn mouth shut. She’ll walk out of the bar if I keep pressing her about it. I do believe her. I don’t really know why it’s so hard for me to accept that her son isn’t mine.

It’s almost like a part of me wants him to be mine.

Which fucks with my head. I don’t even know where that thought is coming from.

“I just want to reassure you again that he’s not yours. I swear, Hank. I’ve done stupid stuff in my life, but I’m not cruel. I would never keep my son from you if I thought he was yours. That would have never even occurred to me to do.”

She must have read my mind. “I trust you, but thanks for that. And I know you’re not cruel.”

“In New Orleans, I was just so shocked to see you, and then you were flirting with me, and I thought that if I was going to, you know, at least I knew from past experience that it would be good with you.”

She flicks her tongue over her bottom lip and glances at me, like she wants me to be the one to say it.

I have no problem saying it.

“Sex between us was amazing,” I tell her. “And I wanted you so bad that night in New Orleans. Especially after you told me you hadn’t had sex since we were together the first time.”

Chastity doesn’t say anything. Her eyebrows go up, and she leans in toward me, just a little. It’s a subtle shift of the air so that I can smell her scent. She isn’t wearing perfume. It’s more of a soap smell. It’s clean and fresh.

“Who are you having sex with now, Chastity?” I murmur, because let’s cut to the chase. We have a little bit of history, and her life hasn’t been easy from the sound of it. No point dancing around anything.

“No one. I haven’t since that night.”

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