Page 25 of Accidental Baby Daddy

“Why not?” There was an edge of defense to my voice.

“Well, because I’m your employee. You really don’t have any friends? That seems unlikely.”

“Not really,” I admitted. “My best friend in high school... well, we had a big falling out. And things are starting to resurface.”

“What happened?”

I sighed. “He tried to steal my girlfriend.”

“And you can’t forgive him?”

“Of course not.”

“You were kids, right?”

“Eighteen, nineteen,” I defended, as if that wasn’t considered still a kid.

He snorted out a laugh. “I was an asshole when I was that young. Weren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but...” I trailed off. Peter wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t like Lexie was some fling of the week for me back in high school. We started dating when we were sixteen, making future plans. Marriage. Kids. The whole nine yards.

I’d wanted forever with her. Tristan had tried to take her away. And she’d let him.

I remembered that night like it was yesterday.

I showed up at The Pig late, a little drunk from plundering my father’s liquor cabinet. I’d heard the rumors about Tristan and Lexie, noticed the signs. We used to be like the three musketeers, all spending time together, but lately, they’d been going off on their own.

Then someone I trusted very much told me they were sleeping together.

I already knew something was wrong. I felt it.

So when I showed up at the Pig and saw them sittingnext to each other, whispering like they had a secret, I just lost it.

I pulled Tristan off the bar stool, hitting him in the jaw as soon as he turned around, his face shocked and pale.

“Oliver, stop it!” Lexie screamed, but I could barely hear her over the blood pounding in my ears. I hit Tristan again, and again, until one of the bouncers pulled me off.

“I know your father, so I’m not going to call the sheriff,” Clayton said later, when Tristan was spitting blood into the street and Lexie was comforting him.

My heart was shattered, and I didn’t care if they put me in jail or not. But in the end, they let my dad come and get me.

I told Peter the whole story, his eyes wide.

“That sounds wild, man. But at the same time, it’s been years. They didn’t end up together. Why can’t you forgive them?”

“They broke my heart, both of them, together,” I muttered. “Yet I went and offered her my cabin to stay in. I can’t let her go.”

Peter hummed. “Maybe you should tell her that. Maybe it’s fate that brought you back together.”

I looked at him. “You believe in fate?”

“Kind of,” he admitted, smiling sheepishly. “I feel like fate is what brought me and Carlos together.”

Carlos was Peter’s husband. They’d met in college, went their separate ways, then came back together later in life.

“I don’t know if I do,” I admitted.

Peter shrugged. “It believes in you,” he said cryptically.

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