“I heard you and Chance were going out.” Pierce clearly wanted her to take back the birth class news and return his hero untarnished. “That… that other thing doesn’t make any sense.” He looked hard at Cordy’s belly. “I thought…”
Pierce turned beet red, then closed his mouth. Cordy could guess what he’d been about to say:I thought Reed was the dad. IsChancereally the dad?
The poor kid might be thoughtless sometimes, but Pierce was a good guy at heart. At least he’d realized he was about to shove his foot into his mouth and stopped before he tasted his toes.
“Chance isn’t the father,” Cordy said gently. “I couldn’t take this class without a partner, and he offered to help me. That’s all.”
Pierce seemed to chew on that. “Huh. That doesn’t seem like something he would ever do.” He lifted his chin, stared at Cordy. “I could have gone with you. Why didn’t you ask me if it was so important?”
Walking into a class with a teenager by her side would have been even worse than the lie she acted out last night. “That’s very kind of you,” Cordy said, “but I know you have homework.” She narrowed her eyes. “Who told you we were going out?”
“Oh, Richie did.” He shrugged one shoulder.
It took Cordy a moment to make the connection. Richie was in Pierce’s math class. Or maybe biology. And he was… Cordy couldn’t connect Richie to anyone else in town further than that. No doubt Chance could have written up a detailed family tree for Richie in no time, though.
“How did Richie hear?”
Pierce looked at her blankly. “I don’t know. I’ll tell him it’s just a friend thing. Honestly, I’m glad. I don’t want Chance to break your heart.”
“Thank you so much,” Cordy said dryly. “I appreciate it.”
Who knew where Richie had heard it from them? The original news had to have come from Jaycee, and then it had gone through an awful game of telephone until it became “Chance and Cordy are sleeping together.” Ugh.
“’Cause, I mean, he can get with any woman he wants.” Pierce was oblivious to her tone. “I’ve gotta learn his secrets.”
Cordy gave in to the urge to rub her forehead. Pierce was sweet but not perceptive.
She wondered what the Saxons might have heard. If it had gotten to Pierce in under twenty-four hours, they’d likely been made aware.
Maybe she should text them, tell them Chance was only helping and nothing more. Get ahead of the gossip, as it were.
But… they would probably simply not respond. She would have no idea if they believed her or not. And did she even owe them an explanation? Her gut told her she didn’t, but she didn’t know how to handle this kind of stuff. Cordy didn’t think her mom had ever met Dad’s parents or vice versa. Her grandparents could pass each other on the street and never know. Heck, they might not even recognize Cordy herself. It wasn’t like she was close to them.
For a moment, the urge to get up and walk out of this place took hold of her. Her legs twitched with it. She wasn’t afraidto leave everything behind—she’d done it before, over and over again.
But she’d promised Reed she would have their baby here. And she was so close to delivering that she couldn’t quit this town yet.
“Pierce,” she said, “did you finish organizing the walk-in? I’m trying to get this inventory done.”
“Yep.” Pierce cocked his finger at her and made apownoise. “Got that shit banged out in record time.”
That was the other thing about Pierce—he was a hard worker and thorough. If he said it was done, it was done.
“Oh,” Pierce said, still making finger guns, “I saw Glenn pull in a few minutes ago. So watch out for the Boss Man.”
“Great,” Cordy muttered, even though she liked her boss. But he was sure to get in the way, and she wanted to finish this inventory.
When Glenn Wallen walked in a few minutes later, Cordy had a smile for him. Pierce took the chance to disappear into the storeroom.
“Hey, Glenn,” Cordy called out. “How are you?”
She did a double take when she saw Glenn’s expression. His smile stretched from ear to ear, and he was never that happy. Her mouth went dry as a desert.
“I’m good. I’m great.” Glenn set his foot on the rung of a bar stool. He always wore work boots, navy blue uniform pants, and a T-shirt with a construction company logo. As far as Cordy could tell, he’d never worked construction in his life. He certainly never did any fix-it jobs around the bar.
It wasn’t that Glenn was a bad guy—Cordy had worked for much worse—but he wanted people to think he was agreatguy without actually doing anything a great guy would. So he came into the bar with his spotless boots, made a lot of suggestionsthat wouldn’t work, then left again, thinking he’d inspired them to “new heights” or something.
Cordy mostly liked working for him, though. She especially liked that she could live above the bar for cheap.
