Page 88 of A Lesson for Laurel

“Oh, the picture of her boyfriend at the time,” he said.

Why the hell was he saying that other than he wanted to prove a point that the guy moved into his space when he knew Rachelle wasn’t single?

The blame wasn’t just on the guy but on Rachelle too.

“Easton,” Rachelle said in the same voice she used to use to get him to cut the sarcastic shit she hated. To him, it was his normal tone with a factual statement. “Connor, can you give us a minute?”

Connor moved off. “What is it you want to say? I didn’t see you. You could have just gone about your business, but you didn’t. Why?” he asked calmly. He wasn’t getting worked up over his confusion with this conversation. There was no reason for it.

“I wanted to see how you were doing. Nicole won’t talk to me anymore. None of our mutual friends say much when I ask.”

“Why are you asking?”

“I loved you.”

“And now you love someone else,” he said matter of fact. “I’m fine, Rachelle. I really am. You made your choice. I’m happy for you.”

“I did make a choice,” Rachelle said. “It just happened. Connor is jealous of you. Now he’s going to be more so.”

“That doesn’t concern me,” he said. “Have a good night.”

“Wait,” Rachelle said. “You’re really okay?”

“I am,” he said. “Why? Did you think I was going to be jealous?”

“No,” Rachelle said sadly. “You don’t have it in you to feel that way.”

“Is that what it was about? Or the start of it? You wanted me to be jealous?”

“I didn’t,” Rachelle said. “I mean I expected you to feel something.”

“I felt something,” he said. “Betrayal and anger. It’s all gone. It’s over. Now if you’ll excuse me. Connor is starting to look a little nervous over there.”

He pushed his cart away and went to check out.

But he couldn’t go home and found himself driving to Liam’s. So much for the calm facade he had with Rachelle.

“Hey,” Liam said when he opened the door. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” He was looking back and forth between Liam and Nicole, then saw the pregnancy test box on the counter. “Holy shit.”

“We don’t know yet,” Nicole said, grabbing the box. “I didn’t take the test.”

Now he felt like shit stopping over to unload on them.

“I’ll go and let you do it,” he said. “I won’t say a word to anyone.”

“Don’t go,” Liam said. “Stay. It’s a nice distraction. What’s going on with you? Something for you to stop over like this. I can see it on your face.”

He was looking between the two of them and Nicole was just as curious as Liam. “I just ran into Rachelle at the store.”

“Did she come over to you or did you go to her?”

“She saw me and came over,” he said. He told them what happened. “Do you think that is it? She wanted me to be jealous?”

“She wanted a lot of things and none of it made sense,” Nicole said.

“Like what?” he asked.

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