Page 23 of Time Out

“I didn’t mean it!” I shouted as the doors closed. I slammed my fist into it and shoved my finger against the button, but the door didn’t open.

It took too damn long. A lifetime for a second elevator to come, and by the time I reached the lobby and rushed outside, I was met with the darkness of night and the sound of cars. Maggie was nowhere to be found.

And fuck.

She was gone.

Totally misunderstood.

And I still didn’t know her last name. Have a phone number. Or an address.

I had absolutely no way to find the mother of my child and fix this, and I wasn’t even sure what I’d done wrong or how it went so badly.

Chapter 8

Maggie

“Boys are stupid.” I sniffed and ran another tissue beneath my nose. Ever since I made it inside the elevators, that’s all I’d done. Cry. Wipe my eyes and my snotty nose and puke.

Ugh.

Pregnancy was stupid too.

“They are,” Belle agreed through the phone.

I shouldn’t have called her, but she’d blown up my phone all last night despite me knowing she was spending Christmas with her family in some super duper ritzy gated neighborhood in Brentwood. Country music stars and professional athletes lived on her parents’ street, and oh god…. She might have been with people last night who knew Davis. Played with him. Coached him.

The taste of sour milk curdled in my stomach.

I’d texted her to let her know I was home safe and we’d talk after Christmas.

To Belle, after Christmas meant nine o’clock the next morning.

“Can I say something without you getting mad?”

“Of course.” I sniffed.

Why would I get mad? It was Davis who went from smiling about being a dad to asking how much money I needed in a split second. I mean, that look he gave me. I knew what it was. It was the same mix of fear and surprise but underlying happiness I’d been sporting since I found out and had a day to digest everything.

He’d done it in moments.

“I don’t really blame him, and you kind of freaked out for no reason.”

Her voice was soft.

Mine was not. “What?”

“You said you wouldn’t get mad!”

“Well of course I’m mad! He offered me money, Belle. Like that was all I wanted him for and—”

“I know. I know. But hear me out for a second before you freak out on me.”

“I am not freaking out. And I did not freak out on Davis. I left before I did freak out.”

“Okay. Okay. Just… let’s take a breath, okay, honey?”

“Don’t patronize me,” I murmured, but I was still listening.

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