Page 28 of Accidental Baby Daddy

She huffed out another breath and he pouted. She stood up and kissed him, walking him to the door.

I smiled at them. She really seemed to like him. He wasa little shy for my taste, but perhaps Gillian needed someone like that.

“I’m really sorry about Gray,” she said after he left. “I don’t know why he can’t keep a secret to save his life.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and I meant it. I wasn’t angry with her. Besides, everyone had been hanging on to my every word. “Just made me the belle of the ball.”

She snorted out a laugh, offering to pour me more wine from the bottle they had left at the table for us. I nodded and she filled my glass before topping off her own.

She sat down across from me. “You know, you’re not the only reason I don’t talk to Mom and Dad much. It’s because... well, it’s them.”

I nodded solemnly. “I understand. They can be a lot.”

“They just kept asking me about you all the time. After a while, that was all our conversations were about.”

I blinked. “They did?”

I was shocked to hear that and I couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t just reach out. It wasn’t like they didn’t know how to contact me. I’d left my number and address with them before I moved. But they never called. Neither one of them.

“They worry about you, Lex,” she said quietly. “I worry about you too.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, but was I? It wasn’t like I had a career, I was working part time at the local grocery store. I didn’t know how I was ever going to get out of Wagontown.

I sniffled quietly, not realizing I was crying until I felt the tears spreading down my cheeks.

Gillian came over to me instantly, putting her arms around me.

“It’s going to be okay, sissy. I’ll always be here for you.”

It was sweet, and it made my heart ache that she wasreaching out when I’d been doing nothing but resenting her. She was a sweet little girl, her whole life, and it was wrong of me to lump her in with our parents.

I buried my face in her shirt and cried for a bit before pulling away with a yawn.

“Stay over tonight,” she insisted. “The guest room is always yours.”

I shook my head. “Thanks but I think I’d rather go home,” I said quietly, and Gillian nodded as if she understood.

A while later, back at home, I laid down on my bed, looking up at the ceiling, and there was only one thing I could think about.

Oliver Stanhope.

The way his hands had felt, roving over my skin. How soft his full mouth was against mine. It’d been so many years since I’d been touched like that, loved like that.

Oliver was always it, and I’d never doubted that. But after everything we’d been through...

It was best to stay away.

Chapter 10

Oliver

Icouldn’t sleep. It was nearing one in the morning and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Well, actually I did.

Lex was what was wrong with me. I’d almost let myself fall back into her, hook line and sinker.

Stupid.

Before I knew it, I was looking out the window, frowning when I didn’t see any lights on at her place. It was so late. Where could she be?

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