Page 87 of Malibu Rising

Photos that broke his already malfunctioning heart.

Hud and Ashley had taken their shoes off and neither one of them knew where they’d left them. They had walked so far down the beach that they did not exactly recognize where they were in the dark.

Hud had already asked her a list of questions. “How long have you known?”Three days.“How far along?”Seven weeks.“Was it the weekend we went to La Jolla?”I think so. “Are we ready to be parents?”I don’t know how to know something like that.

And now, as they walked hand in hand along the water, they were both quietly considering two futures: one with a baby and one without.

Hud was thinking about renting a house; an Airstream was no place to raise a child. He was thinking about a two-bedroom and he imagined himself painting a nursery yellow. He thought of the sort of master bedroom his mother had. He had always liked that it had two sinks in the bathroom. He had always liked the idea of a mother and a father, together, at those sinks, every night.

Hud suddenly stopped, and Ashley stopped with him.

“What’s the first thing you thought?” he asked her. “When you found out? When the test tube turned whatever color it turns.”

“It’s a ring that appears at the bottom.”

“Well, then, when the ring appeared. What was the first thought that popped into your head?”

“Well, what was the first thing in your head? When I told you?” Ashley said.

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

“I thought,How is it possible to love something that fast?Because I feel like the minute you said it, I felt it. And that doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Ashley’s eyes started to water and when she smiled, a tear fell.

“You didn’t think,Oh shit,orFuck,orHow do I get out of this?” Ashley asked, wiping her tears away.

“No,” Hud said, pulling her toward him. “Did you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not once.”

“So we’re having a baby,” Hud said, holding her.

“We’re having a baby.”

And they stood there, the cold water swirling up and chilling their ankles, smiling at each other.

There would be rocking chairs and swaddles, mashed bananas and high chairs, the pride of a first step. There would be a wild and beautiful future.

But for now, right now, Hud had no choice but to stop dancing around a lie. His families, old and brand-new, were his to reconcile, his to fight and fight for. And he would do that now. He did not necessarily feel up to the task, but that hardly mattered.

“Should we turn back?” he asked.

Ashley looked up at him and gave him a gentle smile. She leaned into him farther, held his hand tighter. “All right,” she said.

It was time to tell Jay the truth.

1:00 A.M.

Brandon was in the guest bathroom of his own home looking in the mirror. He was pretty buzzed already, heading straight to drunk. And he was staring at himself wondering how he had made so many mistakes in such a small span of time.

How could he have done all of this to Nina? She had weathered so many things so young and he had always liked to think of himself as the beginning of good things for her. He liked to think that maybe, in some small way, he was her knight in shining armor.

And then, like a moron, he’d started sleeping with Carrie Soto. There should be a way to undo your fuckups. Not just redeem yourself for them but actually undo them, make them so that they never happened. He wanted to take back every second of heartbreak he’d caused his wife. She did not deserve any of it, had done nothing to deserve his complete and disastrous breakdown. He wished the world would let them all just pretend the whole thing never happened.

Brandon stared into the mirror and looked at his face, looked at the lines that had started to form. Every day of your life feels like you’re climbing up the mountain. And then you get there and youstay for a bit. And it’s nice at the top. But then you start sliding down the other side.

---