Page 40 of Bad & Bossy

“So Lottie’s gotten into scrapbooking,” Hunter declared, a little smirk crossing his cheeks as he reached for something behind him.

“Babe, no?—”

“It’s cute,” Hunter laughed. “Every mom goes through this phase, right? And what better time to do it than when he’s still little and you can keep all the memories in one place.”

A loud thunk echoed through the room as he dropped the photo album onto the table.

This was the part of parenthood that had always seemed incredibly boring to me. I guess it would be different if it was your own kid but being made to look at photo after photo where they basically looked the same other than different clothing and covered in different food wasn’t the type of thing I liked to spend my time doing. But I appreciated Lottie and Hunter for everything they’d done for me over the last seven months, and if that meant I needed to pretend like a scrapbook was the greatest thing in the world, then so be it.

“I’d love to see it,” I said, doing my absolute best to sell it.

Hunter came around to my side of the table, glass of wine in hand, and flipped the book open to the first page.

Although I didn’t know a whole lot about scrapbooking, I could tell that Lottie wasn’t a very good scrapbooker. Random stickers and extravagant, unrelated backgrounds littered the pages, but I had to admit, the photos were cute.

Brody’s first bath, one of them read, and included a handful of pictures of a very young Brody, still wrinkly and raisin-like, clinging to a toy for dear life as water was poured over him. Brody’s first walk, another said, and I couldn’t even see him in the stroller because he was so small. Brody’s first meal, said another, and yep, there it was, the famous photo of him covered in food and laughing about it.

Hunter turned the page, and my stomach flip-flopped.

Brody’s first friend.

There, on a hospital bed, sat Lottie with Brody on her lap. Beside her, clad in a hospital gown with a smaller bundle in her arms, was Dana.

Hunter tried to turn the page but I reached out, almost bending the paper to keep it open.

It was Dana, no doubt about it. The freckles were the same, the hair, the lips, the intense hazel eyes. The only difference was the width of her face—just a tad bit rounder.

“Dana,” I said, her name barely breaking past my lips. I lifted my gaze to look at her, and she looked pissed. “You have a kid?”

Chapter 14

Dana

The silence was so deafening I wondered if Cole could hear my racing heart from across the table. It was quiet enough to hear a fucking pin drop, and I was positive the thumping in my chest was far louder than that.

I swear I could actually feel the stress running through my veins. Say something, I screamed at myself. The silence only made it worse, solidifying the answer before I could. There wasn’t the option to say no. Any normal person without a child would have already explained it away, not stare at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

Making a mental note to berate Hunter later, I cleared my far too tight throat. “Yes,” I said. “My sister’s watching him today.”

Cole’s gaze dropped back to the photo and studied it for a moment longer before seeming to nod, almost to himself. My stomach churned, full of Hunter’s gumbo and bile. Please don’t put the pieces together. Please. He couldn’t find out like this. Even with Lottie and Hunter by my side for damage control, the idea of him learning that Drew was his without me actually telling him felt like hell. I should have told him. I should have?—

“He’s cute,” Cole said, a half-assed, forced smile tugging his lips back.

“Thanks,” I breathed.

“You know, Brody has started doing this thing lately where he screams at the top of his lungs because he thinks it’s funny,” Lottie offered. I appreciated her attempt to shift the conversation, but even I could tell there was a stiffness to her, a lurking unease at this unspoken-until-now secret. Cole had to have at least figured out that he was the only one in the room left out of this knowledge.

“He does it in the middle of the night sometimes,” Hunter added. He chuckled and it sounded so forced. “Just one short screech and then a fit of giggles. It’s kind of terrifying.”

Cole’s eyes met mine again briefly before abandoning me. “That sounds horrible,” he said, huffing a light laugh as he slowly, agonizingly, turned the page to the next set of photographs.

“Dana, can you help me clean up?” Lottie asked. In her eyes, I could see a million apologies sparkling back at me, as well as an invitation.

“Of course.”

We gathered the dishes strewn across the table as quietly as we could to not wake Brody as the boys idly talked about Hunter’s company. A heaviness hung as I slipped my hand in front of Cole to take his plate and bowl, a brief second of eye contact making my stomach lurch. He had to be at least a little confused, and confusion meant he was thinking about it, and thinking about it would inevitably lend itself to figuring it out.

I wanted to vomit.

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