Page 32 of Seven of Hearts

“Anything I can get for you, man?” he asked.

“Just water,” I said.

“Easy enough.”

After the hangover that had nearly sent me to my grave after Kylie’s wedding, I had sworn off alcohol for a long, long time. And that was before I found out about the baby.

“Dude—I mean, Mr. Solomon—you look like you need a beer,” Jonathan said.

It would make me feel better, but it wouldn’t fix anything.

I shook my head. “I probably won’t stay long.”

“At least we got him out of the office!” Paisley chirped.

I faked a laugh. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to find a text from Zoey with attached photos of family game night. It looked like Monopoly was just as cutthroat as I remembered.

Everyone was laughing. Kylie and Bryan were snuggled up to each other, as were Kristin and Will. The next photo was a group selfie with Zoey and her boyfriend, and Hunter and his girlfriend.

My heart twisted and clenched. In an impulsive, out-of-body moment, I swiped over to the text I had typed to Leah and hit send.

To my surprise, she texted back almost instantly.

Leah:Whoever named it “morning sickness”is a dirty liar.

Kylie was at game night,which meant Leah was probably alone. What if she needed help? What if she got sick and dizzy and passed out? What if?—

“You leaving already?” Jonathan asked.

I hadn’t even realized I’d jumped out of my seat. “Yeah. I gotta head out. Thanks for the invite.”

Some leader I was, bailing on team bonding like that. But a notion took root in my mind before I could stop it. It fed on that sense of aimlessness that had plagued me since coming back to work after my birthday, growing into an uncontrollable craving.

Before the bartender had even brought my glass of water to the table, I was out the door and heading back to the parking garage where I had left my car that morning.

The drive back to my apartment was a blur. Filling a suitcase didn’t take long. I threw my necessities into a carry-on and checked available flights on my phone while I waited for a ride to the airport.

The whole thing was a haze. I had never been high, but paying out the nose for a red-eye flight to North Carolina at the desk, shuffling through airport security at Chicago O’Hare, and waiting at the gate was the closest to a fever dream trip I had ever experienced.

Somewhere around three in the morning, after a last-minute flight, rental car pick-up, three-hour drive from the capital to the coast, six cups of gas station coffee, and a stop at a twenty-four-hour grocery store, I stood at Leah Holloway’s door.

This was so fucking stupid.She was probably asleep. Why the hell had I blown up my weekend? And for what?

I had never been impulsive, but something about being a time zone away from the mother of my child was turning me into someone I didn’t recognize.

I hadn’t decided if I liked that man or not. I hadn’t decided if he was good enough.

Just when I decided to cut my losses and grab a hotel room for the night, a pissed off, “Motherfucker!” wafted from inside Leah’s apartment.

I knocked softly, and the noise inside stopped. I knocked again. “Leah?”

The door whipped open, and Leah stood there holding a hammer. She looked surprised as she let out a relieved breath. “Oh my god. It’s just you. I thought someone was casing my apartment to see if I was home so they could rob it.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “And you were going to defend yourself with a hammer?”

“It’s all I had close by.”

Yeah. She was definitely getting a security system put in first thing in the morning if I had to install it myself.

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