I shake my head. “When the fuck did you buy that? Were you waiting for me to get someone pregnant? What the actual hell?”
Whit sputters a laugh. “No, I made it after I got your text.”
“You made a shirt within the last thirty minutes?” Ty asks.
“Yea, and joke’s on you two for making fun of me when I bought that Cricut. Who’s laughing now, bitches?”
Booker walks into the living room, fresh from the shower in basketball shorts and a Bainbridge Hockey hoodie, his hair still damp. He takes one look at Whit’s shirt and snorts. “Nice. Inaccurate, but nice.”
“Says you. This kid is gonna love Uncle Whit.”
“Speaking ofthis kid... Care to share what the fuck is going on?” Ty asks, sitting next to me.
“Willa—”
“Jesus. We figured out that much. What I want to know is how.” This from Whit, who’s tapping his fingers against his coffee mug.
“Uh, the fuck?” I ask. “Surely, you, Caleb Whitman, know that when a man and a woman fuck each other…”
“Yea, they use a damn condom,” Whit shoots back.
“We did. Every time. But, hell, I don’t know. It obviously didn’t fucking work. They’re not a hundred percent effective, clearly.”
“Stop—” Booker puts his hand out, as though a stop sign gesture is enough to get us back on track.
“Just start at the beginning,” Ty says, ever the peacemaker. “Ok, not the beginning-beginning. You know what I mean.”
I sigh because I do know what he means. And by telling them, I’m going to have to relive it. But maybe by explaining it, I can make some damn sense of the situation. “Alright. Like you guys know, Willa and I were together the last week of senior year. Abruptly, the morning after graduation, she split. Left me in a field by Austin Miller’s barn—no explanation, no note. I finally tracked her down—not easy, I’m telling you. She texted back saying we’d never work. That we were too different. That she had already left town and I shouldn’t contact her again. I begged—I fucking begged—her to reconsider, but nope, that was it. A lousy text, saying she was grateful for our time together, was the last thing I ever got from Willa until I was on the receiving end of her glare earlier this week in my room. Turns out that even if a woman doesn’t want to be with you, she still doesn’t like seeing another girl’s mouth on your cock. Who knew?”
Ty smacks my arm. “Quit being a dick and focus. How did you find out about the baby?”
“After last night’s debacle, and her crypticYou wanted nothing to do with us,I went to Drip first thing, so we could talk. I didn’t see her when I got there, but one of the baristas went into the back room to get her. Out walks Willa, holding a little girl. Her name’s Rose. She’s nine months old. She’s perfect—dark hair, like mine. Tons of it. And dark brown eyes. Chubby cheeks and hands and...fuck.” I scrub my palms over my eyes. “It was all too much. Like, my brain couldn’t process it all. Here was this woman who wrecked my damn heart, standing in front of me, holding a kid—a sweet, innocent baby—and saying she belongs to me. I’m an asshole. I said I had to leave and walked away.”
“Yea, but you—”
“I walked away. From Willa. From my kid—Rose—from Rose.”
“Not ideal,” Whit concedes, when I finally let him talk, “but you were in shock.”
“Yea, I was in shock. I had no fucking clue. I would never… All her words, her accusations make sense now. Jesus. She’s been doing all of this—being pregnant, taking care of a baby—on her own. And what am I doing with my life? Getting blowjobs and starting bar fights. Christ.”
Ty leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “Look, I hate to even bring this up, but are you sure—”
“Don’t finish that fucking sentence unless you want me to knock your teeth out of your goddamn mouth.” I turn toward my best friend. He’s a protector, always has been, even when we were kids. I know he means well, but he’s out of line. “The baby—Rose—looks just like me. It was like looking at an old photograph. Kind of unfair, really. Willa carried the kid, gave birth to her, has been her sole caretaker—and they don’t really resemble each other. And yea, I’ll get a paternity test, if for no other reason than a lawyer will require it. But Willa wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Fair enough. If you believe her, then I do, too. I just don’t get why she didn’t tell you until now?”
“That’s the thing. I’ve been replaying the past few days in my head. Last night, she said,you didn’t want us. I misunderstood. Figured the ‘us’ she was referring to was the two of us, me and her. But I get it now. She meant herself and Rose. And I was too dumb to figure it out. God, she must think I’m a total asshole. And really, is she wrong?”
Whit stands and starts pacing. That’s his thing. He’s a ball of energy, and if he’s not tapping his foot or drumming his fingers or pacing, then he’s probably asleep. “Yes, Jesus. Knox, you didn’t know. God, two summers ago, she was all you fucking talked about every time you got drunk, which was a daily occurrence back then. Hell, sometimes it still is. If you’d had the slightest clue that she was pregnant, that she needed you in any way, you’d have been there. No doubt.”
“So what the hell happened?” Ty threads his fingers through his hair. “She thought you knew, but you obviously didn’t, so…”
Now it’s my turn to run my fingers through my hair and pace like a maniac. “No clue. The last text I read was her goodbye.”
“Do you still have it?” Booker wants to know.
“No, that’s just it. A couple weeks after I got here, I lost my phone. I thought I had it with me at my mom’s, but I turned her house upside down looking for it. It wasn’t there. I got a new phone, but I kept the same number. None of my shit was backed up, though, so I lost it all.”
