“Ah, well. Perhaps I should let her have it then? She’ll be bored to tears in five minutes. My daughter craves the spotlight. Lives for it.” Laura laughed.
That wasn’t quite the Mia I knew, but it wasn’t so far off from the truth for me to argue. Did she seem to enjoy it? Definitely. Did she crave the adulation because of what she was missing in her off-stage life? That was the question I was trying to answer.
“I’ll have to keep thinking about it. I’ve already cleared her schedule for the first few months after the tour. Perhaps if I give her what she wants, she’ll take less than six months.”
I gave her a strained smile. I couldn’t weigh in more. I’d have to trust Taryn, Rebecca, and Mia to stay the course and come up with better arguments. At least I’d be able to tell Mia about what Laura had said. Not that Mia would like knowing how I’d gotten the information.
I paced the top floor of the small hospital we were using just outside the city. The staff we were working with had been given an NDA. My mother, a lawyer, had written it up to be used for anything relatedto Mia’s pregnancy. Hospitals and hospital workers were under pretty heavy privacy rules, but Mia had wanted an extra layer of protection. I got it. Understood it more every day.
“Tyler,” a woman murmured my name off to my right.
I spun, recognizing her voice. “Katie. I didn’t realize you were coming with your dad this time.”
Her brown hair was in a ponytail, and she was wearing pink scrubs. It had always been a color that suited her, making her round face glow.
A small, familiar smile surfaced. For years, I’d lived for all her smiles, but I never liked this one, full of uncertainty. She gave me this one the day she broke up with me, as though I should somehow understand what was really going on. I never had then, and I had no interest in figuring it out now.
“Blood work.”
“Someone here could have done that.”
“Maybe.” She shoved her purse higher onto her shoulder. She ambled closer. “I wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“I was hoping we could go talk somewhere. Maybe grab a drink after the exam?” Another tentative smile.
“Mia’s on stage tonight. Time is limited.” I held myself rigid. There was a reason I’d avoided her since we’d split. Not just one reason, reasons—plural.
“When I moved back, I heard you were dating Danai. So, I was surprised when you showed up at the hospital with Mia Malone.” She scanned me, searching for something. “As your surrogate.”
The truth sat poised on my lips. Danai had texted me a few times when I’d first gone on tour, and then those texts had stopped when I’d calledher to make it known we wouldn’t be picking up where we’d left off when I got back. I’d thought I’d made it clear before I left. But endings weren’t my specialty.
“What are you after, Katie?” She didn’t believe the cover story. It was a ridiculous one. Why would a world-famous pop star agree to be my surrogate? I spent ten years with Katie; she knew me better than almost anyone.
“You’re going to raise the baby by yourself?”
I clenched my jaw and looked away. She was close enough for me to catch a whiff of her familiar apple blossom perfume. If I closed my eyes, I could go back to all the times I’d smelled it before, all the moments when I’d soaked her in, lived for this smell. Getting over her had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. A small piece of me still strained toward her in the corridor, wanted to hear what she had to say.
But loyalty was important, and mine didn’t lie with Katie anymore.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about whether I did the right thing. With you and me.”
When I said nothing in response and time stretched between us, she continued, “Are you and Mia together?”
Swallowing down the residual feelings creeping up my throat, I met her curious gaze. “You can’t ask me that. We broke up. Eight years ago.Eight years.”
“I’m not…maybe we shouldn’t have,” Katie whispered. “I really want to talk to you. Talk about what happened back then. Ever since I saw you a few weeks ago, I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She’d crossed my mind, too. More than once. I’d blamed the memories on the shock of seeing her. Knowing she was back in Little Falls had screwed with my head.
“Well,” Mia drawled, her heels clicking along the corridor. “This looks tense. You okay, Pretty Boy?” Her sunglasses dangled from her fingers, and she was eyeing Katie with distaste. “I’m going to have to call a janitor. I think there’s a puddle of drool at your feet, Katie. Or did that wetness come from some other part of you?” She cocked her head, her eyes wide with false innocence.
I sucked in a breath at the sight of her and crossed the distance between us. Without thinking, I hugged her and pressed my lips to her temple. I kept my back to Katie, even though Mia’s comments were rude at best. Earlier, I tried to tell her the jealousy she felt was misplaced. The difference between this situation and the other was my history with Katie and the hope sparking in my gut.
After she broke up with me, I spent many a drunken night rambling to friends and family about how Katie would regret it. We’d been perfect for each other. Someday, she’d see it.
Hearing her admit she might have made a mistake was a vindication. My instincts about her, about us, hadn’t been as wrong as I’d thought. At the time, her justification for our split hadn’t rung true.
