Page 79 of The Trophy

I tuck a strand of silky hair behind her ear, knowing that I owe her the whole story. I should have told her weeks ago really, when I disappeared to take care of Mom after her fall.

“I don’t know about that,” I admit. “Sometimes I think that if my parents hadn’t had me so early on, their lives would have turned out very differently. They got pregnant with me when they were sixteen. I’m a prom night baby.”

She nods, as if that made sense to her. “This is why your mom looks so young.”

“She doesn’t look thirty-six,” I smile. “People think she’s my girlfriend all the time.”

Something passes in Lakyn’s eyes. “I thought that too. That’s why I came here.”

I’m a little confused. “Come again? How did you know?—”

“Last night,” she explains. “When you told me to get your wallet and I opened it looking for a condom, I saw a photo of you with your mom and the twins. I thought…”

Her voice fades away.

“You thought she was my girl?” I chuckle.

“Yeah and that your siblings were your children,” she lowers her gaze.

“What?” I’m half amused, half horrified by the thought. “How?—”

“They’re your spitting image,” she offers. “They have your same hair and eyes. Conor has your same nose and your same little smile, with the corner of his lips lifted as if he was trying to rein it in. I thought maybe you had a wife or girlfriend with those two lovely kids.”

I guess my brother and sister and I look alike, but my kids? “I was sixteen when Mom?—”

I stop in my tracks. I guess it makes sense. I would have been the same age as my parents were with me when the twins were born.

“Lake, baby,” I say softly. “I would have told you if I had kids. And I would have never lied to you if I had a wife or even an ex-wife.”

I can feel the tension radiating from Lakyn’s soft body. “I’m sorry. I jumped to conclusions when I should have asked you. I understand if you think I’m a psycho stalker for coming here.”

I shake my head, guilt settling in my chest like a heavy weight. “I don’t think you’re a stalker, baby. I know how your last relationship ended, so I don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions. This is all my fault, I should have told you about my circumstances.”

The question I feared comes straight out of Lakyn’s soft lips. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Maybe we should sit down for this. I grab a chair and pull Lakyn down to sit on my lap, praying to all the gods that she won’t hate me when I come clean on why I didn’t say anything.

“I was going to,” I begin. “Mom’s injury happened the day after our first date and she needed surgery, so I was basically living between the hockey arena and the hospital, sleeping at home to be with the twins when Mom’s best friend Enid couldn’t have them. She’s a flight attendant and she isn’t always around.”

She considers my words. “So that’s why you didn’t text or call after you left my apartment?”

I nod. “I’m sorry. Things were very overwhelming, even more so than usual. I had to find the money to pay our co-pay for the hospital bills, and put out the fire with Mom’s boss. I wanted to have this conversation in person, so I kept putting it off until we got a minute alone. I admit that probably I used that as an excuse, because I dreaded telling you about how complicated my home life is.”

She looks at me as if she wasn’t completely sure about what I’m talking about. “So that’s when you disappeared?”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “It was easy to postpone this talk if I didn’t talk to you at all. Then you had your dates with Blaze and Luca and you hit it off with them and I panicked. I realized that I couldn’t expect you to give me a shot if all I had to offer was radio silence. So I decided to wait until things calmed down a little and I was going to talk to you in LA. But when I got to your room, Luca and Blaze were there too and I—I was still trying to wrap my head around our night in LA when Topher realized that we all liked you and trapped us into that dare.”

Lakyn looks at me, as if she was searching for the right words. “Ok. That explains why you were a little intermittent with things, but you still haven’t told me why it was so hard to tell me that you have to help your Mom financially.”

Ah, fuck.

She nailed it.

“I told you how my parents got pregnant with me in high school, right?”

Lakyn nods, waiting for me to continue.

“Their families were understandably upset about the pregnancy and they tried to pressure my parents into either not having me or giving me up for adoption.”

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