Gulp.“Yeah … sure did …”
“Anyway. You said you were going through a break-up.”
“Right.” Paige took a deep breath and told Lance the story of her ex, Adam. Adam was her high school sweetheart. First boyfriend, first kiss, first everything. They'd planned the rest of their lives together—or rather,sheliked to talk aloud and dream about their plans, while he sort of quietly nodded his head, becausehey, path of least resistance, man.
The one thing that worried Paige about Adam was his lack of motivation. He wasn't a good student like Paige was—just doingokaywas good enough for him. He also hadn't chosen a major. He was waiting for the day when his future path would show itself. The one thing he was truly passionate about was smoking weed. She hoped it was a phase, something he'd eventually grow tired of. Hey, at least he held down a job! It's not like he was lying around on the sofa, high as a kite …
Then came Paige's junior year. She shared an apartment with Amanda, a friend she'd made during her freshman year. Like Adam, Amanda liked to smoke—something Paige didn't realize about her friend until they were already living together.
On some weeknights, Adam would sleep over at Paige's. The next day, when Paige left for her classes, Adam wouldn't leave with her.
“I'm gonna smoke up with Amanda before I go to class,” he'd say as he gave Paige's ass a goodbye smack.
Sometimes, she'd come home from a day full of classes and the apartment would be filled with clouds of thick, skunk-smelling smoke. And who would emerge from Amanda's room with red, glossy eyes and an uneven smile? Why, it was Adam, of course! He'd just decided to get high with Amanda and not go to class after all.
Paige began to suspect something was happening, even if shewantedto believe she was only being jealous and paranoid. But it was only a matter of time before she came home and the dank reek of pot was accompanied by something else: a man's grunts, a woman's moans, the creaking of an old mattress, and the slapping of sweaty flesh behind her roommate's closed door.
“I'm normally pretty calm and composed, but man. I lost my cool,” Paige told Lance, shaking her head. “Her door was locked. So I kicked it until I broke the hinges off and barged right in. Adam was already getting dressed as quickly as he could, yelling, 'this isn't what it looks like!'I picked up the first thing I saw—a keyboard—and launched it at his head and told him to get the hell out. And then I screamed at Amanda for being a back-stabbing bitch.”
Lance liked hearing that. He gave her shoulder an approving shove. “Hell yeah! See, that idiot completelydeserved it. It's a good thing you don't have a PR firm watching your every move …”
Paige finished the story: while she was away at class the next day, Amanda moved all her belongings out, never to be heard from again—giving Paige a rent crisis in the process. Adam disappeared himself, too. The grapevine told Paige that Adam and Amanda both dropped out of school, went 'off the grid' and moved to California, or maybe it was Colorado, hoping to start a marijuana growing operation.
“And that's that. Who knows if they're still out there. Or if they're still together. I've no idea how to get a hold of either of them. I don't really care to, either.”
“Damn. All that happened before we met?”
“Just a month before.”
Paige pulled into the driveway at her parents' house. “Here we are.”
Before Paige could get out, Lance grabbed her forearm.
“Wait … does Adam evenknowabout Irie?” he asked.
Paige couldn't look him in the eye. She could tell by the way he'd asked the question that the wheels were starting to turn.
“No,” she said quietly. “He doesn't. Because he's not her father.”
Chapter 16
Lance
Lance offered Paige his arm. She took it, and the two walked up the long driveway to her parents' house.
She kept glancing up at him as they walked. She smiled, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. Actually, her eyes looked …nervous.
Lance felt a nervousness in his stomach, too. And it wasn't just meeting the parents of a girl he was starting to like more and more—although, surprisingly, thatdidpsyche him out a little, too. Which was strange. He hadn't cared about meeting a girl's parents since high school. The hell did he have to worry about, impressing somebody's parents? His stat-line, his achievements, his career spoke for itself.
But not this time. Something else was on his mind instead.
The story Paige told him—well, it didn't quite make sense. Was she trying to tell him something? Lance wasn't sure of the timeline. When she broke up with her pot-smoking ex. When Lance met her at Zickell's. When her daughter was born. And every time Lance tried to pause everything andfocus,so he could piece the exact order of the events together, a pressure grew in his temples and his mind grew cloudy instead. His brain froze, and things stopped making any sense at all. Worse, Paige's words from the past twenty-four hours swirled around in his head, echoing again and again like shouts in an empty cavern:
Lance, I have to tell you something serious!
You were my first one-night stand! And my last one, for that matter!
No, Adam doesn't know about Irie! He's not the father!
