Page 169 of Unravel Me

I stare down at the last two messages from Rosie as I kick my shoes off inside my room. One is pregame, Connor in his Vipers pajamas. The other is halfway through the third period, right around the time I clocked Marchanbo in the face, and she repeats Jaxon’s words back to me.

Trouble

Have I ever told you your face is too pretty for black eyes? Your face is too pretty for black eyes, Adam.

I’ve read it at least twenty times now. It’s about the only thing that’s put a smile on my face today.

The truth is, I don’t know how to face Rosie, and it’s killing me. I’m afraid of what I might see reflected back in those pools of sage. I know the same old kindness will be there, and all that love. But it’s the hesitation, the disappointment that might overshadow everything so intrinsically Rosie…those are the things that will gut me.

I don’t give a fuck about my reputation. Not that the media is twisting my words from my speech at the gala, where I called Connorourson, and guessing that he’s biologically mine. Not that Courtney’s giving them her best sob story, that it wasn’t her that did the cheating in our relationship, butme. That she found out about mymistresswhen she caught me visiting Rosie and Connor in the hospital, just hours after he was born. All of it, a load of fucking shit that paints me in the worst light, and I don’t give a flying fuck.

I don’t give a fuck about my reputation, but I give a lot of fucks about Rosie’s.

Homewrecker.That’s what they’re calling her. It’s on every Vipers’ fan page, her picture and Connor’s as she loads him into the back of my SUV at the damn grocery store. And I did this to her.

It’s because of me.

She stuck with me through one mess; how can I ask her to stick with me through a second, this one way messier than the first?

My head whips up as the door opens behind me, my friends strolling in mid-conversation, arms filled with bags.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were going to the bar?”

Carter unloads piles of take-out containers. “You said you weren’t in the mood, so we’re staying in with you.” He hands me a mountain of deep-fried pickles. “You have to stop looking like that.”

“Like what?”

Garrett drops a box of Fruit Roll-Ups on top of my pickles. “Like this entire shitstorm is your fault.”

“It is,” I say simply.

Carter shakes his head. “You know, this feels entirely too reminiscent of that night you came home to Courtney cheating. Back then, you wondered if it was your fault. If you could’ve loved her better, given her more of what she needed. But it’s the same story now as it was then. You couldn’t have prevented this. Whether you answered her phone calls or went to that meeting. She wants something from you, whether it’s a dad for her son or money to support herself.”

Jaxon cracks the top off a beer and hands it to me. “She wants both, and she thinks you’re nice enough to accept your fate without questioning it.”

Emmett takes my treats and sets them on the small table in the corner. I shake my head, squeezing it between my hands as I sink to the chair there.

“That’s not my baby. No fucking way. I know I was drunk. I know I don’t have the best memory of some pieces of the night, but…there’s no way I would sleep with her. There’s nothing she could ever say that would make me second-guess our relationship status, no matter how many drinks I had.”

Honestly, it makes me sick to my stomach to think that she was in my bed at some point that night, even if it was only to take a picture.

My phone rings, my publicist, Angie, on the other line. I accept the call and put it on speaker as I tear open the box of Fruit Roll-Ups and peel one apart. “Any news?” I close my eyes, press my fingers against the headache pounding there as I wad the Fruit Roll-Up into a ball and toss it in my mouth. “Sorry. Hi. How are you?”

She chuckles. “There’s no room for pleasantries right now; I get it. I made a fake Instagram account and followed Courtney. Looks like she’s been seeing the same guy off and on since you two split. But there are no pictures of them together after June.”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, but when they do, hope sparks in my chest.

“I think she was already pregnant at your party, Adam. My best guess is this guy bailed on her when she told him, so she came to your party hoping you’d sleep with her.”

“So she could pretend it was mine.”

“Bingo.”

Carter shakes his head and drops an entire slice of pizza in his mouth. “I saw this on Maury once.”

“That’sliterallywhat Maury’s about,” Emmett tells him.

“Yeah,” Garrett whispers. “Keep up, you donkey.”

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