Page 13 of Just Like That

Just as I thought—young. Too young.

“So ... breakfast?” Her teeth toyed with her lip.

I shook my head. “No.”

Her soft brown eyes widened with hope and a little sadness. “Don’t you even want to get to know him?”

“Not really.” My chest filled with a sense of haughty superiority, regret hot on its heels when I saw her pretty face fall.

Without waiting for her response, I strode through the kitchen and up the stairs at the back of my house. I didn’t stop until I was cocooned inside the sanctity of my bedroom. I picked up the discarded novel on my bedside, simply because it was the closest one I could find, and settled into the high-back chair in the corner. From the window, I could see her skoolie, but I ignored it.

I flipped the book open, but my eyes refused to focus on the words.

Everything is going to be fine. This is just another problem that needs taking care of.

Just like everything else, I would bear the brunt of the setback and make it go away. The claim that Teddy was my child was utterly ridiculous. Impossible. Lots of kids had dark features and light eyes and a good sense of fashion. That didn’t make me their dad.

I considered when all this was over, I could take some time off. Relax. Disappear where no one knew my name and one bad business deal didn’t mean losingmillions. Somewhere I didn’t have the burden of expectation. Somewhere my father’s horrific actions didn’t follow me.

I loved the coastal air, but I’d never seen the mountains. There was an appeal to standing at the base of something grand, forged millions of years ago by nature, staring up and feeling your insignificance.

I flipped a page in the book, my eyes glossing over words that weren’t even registering as I let my mind wander. Maybe on my sabbatical I’d meet a cute girl in some quaint mountain town, someone with thick thighs, blondish-red hair, caramel eyes, and a mouth made to pout. This mystery woman would have an easy laugh that cracked me open in new and unexpected ways. She’d make it easy to open up, to laugh. During the day, she’d show me around her town and we’d get lost on random hiking trails. At night we’d be nothing but tangled limbs and heavy breaths.

My eyes glazed over as I realized I hadn’t read a fucking word. I leaned my head back, closing my eyes and relishing the feeling of my dick twitching to life. I could almost feel her hot breath on my skin, her whispers in my ear, her taste on my tongue.

My eyes flew open when I realized it was Hazel starring in my unhinged production ofJP’s Mountainside Mental Breakdown.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and forced the ridiculous fantasy aside. It was utterly inappropriate to be having the thoughts I had about Hazel. She was convinced that her nephew was my son—that her sister and I had been together and gotten pregnant.

The fact thatanyonewould claim me as a father was the most absurd part of it all. I had never wanted kids and hadalwaysbeen careful. Besides, I would have been, what? Twenty-four, twenty-five when she claimed to have gotten pregnant?

Dread pooled in my stomach when the pieces started to click together. It would have been around that time I was spending the summer and fall interning for one of my father’s clients in Chicago. Dad had claimed the position would give me the big-city experience I needed to truly level up. I’d worked hard by networking and making solid connections that still served me today.

But out from under my father’s thumb, I’d also spent a few reckless months partying hard and fucking my way through Chicago.

I slammed my book closed. Nausea swirled in my gut, and I felt sick. I swallowed back the bile and tried to focus on breathing.

Jesus, I was an asshole.

A grade A prick.

The son of a killer.

Teddy was a cute kid, but he certainly didn’t deserve to have me as his father.

FIVE

HAZEL

I wanted to hate him.Ishouldhate him.

At first glance, JP was a dick, but I couldn’t ignore the gnawing feeling that behind his cool, blue eyes was a lost little boy who was scared to death. It was almost as if he was working hard to gloss over any semblance of a human being with his grunts and dismissive remarks.

Sure, he could treat me like a stranger, but I wasn’t going to let him toss Teddy to the side without a fight. My sister’s letter was clear—JP was his father, and despite how everything had gone down between the two of them, her dying wish was for Teddy to have the chance to know him.

But I could tell—JP was guarded. It was like he was desperately hidingsomething.

I didn’t know what it was, but I knew one thing—in a small town, peoplelovedto gossip, and I considered getting people to open up to me as one of my gifts.

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