Page 34 of One Steamy Pucking Meet Cute

He sighs. “I wish I knew more, man. I still have no fucking clue who or where this mystery man came from. None of us do. We honestly all assumed the baby was yours.”

I laugh. “And I’ve told you it might be theoretically possible, but she made it pretty clear it was this other guy’s. I’m assuming they took a paternity test or something, or she wouldn’t have been so sure.”

“What if she was afraid to tell you the truth?” Jesse asks.

I frown. “What?”

“I mean, think about the timing,” Jesse says. “Remember that press conference after that model tried to baby-trap you? You basically told the whole country that you’d rather drop dead than find out you fathered a baby with someone. You said you’ve always put hockey before everything, and fathering a child would be an unforgivable mistake. Ringing any bells?”

I rub the back of my neck. “Okay, yeah. It’s possible I went a little hard. But I was trying to prove a point. I was pissed. That woman was claiming her kid was mine, but all she ever did was blow me years back. It was physically impossible. And I always wrap it up. Plus, this all came right around the time I started suspecting Caroline was pregnant. I was waiting for her to tell me the truth and she kept distancing herself. I started to get convinced there was somebody else. And maybe I was speaking out of my ass because I was hurting. I didn’t want her to think I wished that had been my baby. If it sounded like it was the last thing on Earth I wanted, then she’d never suspect how gutted I’d be if she told me it was somebody else’s.”

“You were gutted? You said you didn’t care.”

I hang my head. “Yeah, well, I say a lot of things. Sometimes, sympathy can be suffocating. I didn’t want any.”

Jesse is quiet for a while. “Well… let’s put these depressing puzzle pieces together, shall we? You suspect Caroline is pregnant. Instead of being a normal human and asking her, you get paranoid that it’s somebody else’s because she hasn’t told you yet. Then, fate decides to bring some random girl out of the shadows from your past to claim her five-year-old is actually your baby because she wants to get hitched to you and ride your credit card. You, being the genius you are, used the press conference to kill two birds with one stone. Convince Sophie Gray and the world you never fathered her baby, and convince Caroline you would rather drop dead than father a child. In a shocking twist to nobody, Caroline comes up with a story about some mystery man being the father shortly after…”

Maybe I’m an idiot for not thinking about this, but Jesse’s points are making my stomach feel like a ball of lead about to drop out of my ass. I laugh and shake my head. “What are you trying to say, man? That Walker is my kid and Caroline has just been too scared to tell me? You realize how fucked up that would be, right?’

Jesse shows me his palms. “I’m not saying that’s what is going on. She has stuck with the story of this mystery guy with me. Unless Andi is actually managing to keep a secret from me, she’s sticking to it with her, too. I’m just asking questions. And would it really be that fucked up? You practically backed her into a corner. Any sane woman would’ve been scared to death to tell you the truth at that point. She was at her most vulnerable point, and you made her feel even more alienated and alone.”

I drain the last of my drink and set it down loud enough for the bartender to notice. I nod for him to get me another.

14

CAROLINE

“They are so cute together,” I say, standing in front of the bed where Walker and Jude are lying side by side. They’re both on their backs, kicking and fidgeting. “He was good for you?” I ask.

“He was an angel,” Andi says. “He mostly just slept. I need you to get him to teach Jude that trick. Amelia was a good sleeper, but Jude makes it his mission to stay awake as long as possible. Then, he gets too cranky to fall asleep. It makes so much sense,” she says sarcastically. “We spend the first part of our lives struggling to sleep. The middle is spent wishing we had more time to sleep. Then, in the end, we can’t stay awake, even if we want to.”

“That’s deep. Unless your Grams. Then everybody just wishes you would sleep more often.”

We both laugh, returning our focus to our fidgeting babies.

“At least they’re cute,” I say.

“So cute,” she agrees.

“Speaking of… You came in here looking like you were on cloud nine. Did something happen?”

I bite my lip. “Um, well, it was kind of the most amazing night of my life. So there was that.”

Andi narrows her eyes. “Okay… But this whole thing is still pretend, right?”

“I mean… Yes. Maybe. We’ve just always kept things so discreet. It was different tonight. Like I was his to show off, and he seemed so proud to do it. Almost like he’d been wishing he could this whole time.”

“Dude,” Andi says. She’s smiling now and wiggling her eyebrows.

I laugh. “Stop that.”

“Dude,” she repeats, shoving me playfully now.

I lift a pillow from the bed and whack it against the side of her head, nearly knocking her over. “Sorry, Jude, but your mom deserved that.”

Andi’s hair is hanging in front of her face as she leans forward, laughing. She straightens, fixes her hair, and points a finger at me. “You know none of us ever believed you two weren’t banging in secret, right? It was so obvious. You’ve probably already hooked up dozens of times.”

Try hundreds, I think. “And you just let me believe that you believed me? How could you?”

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