The Guy on the Left (The Underdogs, #2)(2)

Because the man I’ve been fantasizing about is no man. Troy is a student. A high school student.

All of my hopes, along with any idiotic and romantic notions, disintegrate as I grip the counter to keep my knees from buckling.

I’d taken a half-day to deliver the news knowing this was my only way to get it to him. We didn’t exchange numbers, our clothes the only thing we’d swapped when re-dressing in his back seat. Ironically, this is a detail I could never forget. Throwing caution to the wind for just one night to get some much-needed vitamin D had led to an alcohol-induced pregnancy in the back seat of a vehicle.

And this is the cherry on top? I’d procreated with a fucking high school student?!

Reeling, I swallow back the bile climbing my throat as the receptionist summons Troy to the office.

I could walk out of this school right now, and he would be none the wiser. But the sin he’s committed, his blatant lie, has forever altered three lives, one of which he helped create. That can’t go unaddressed.

It’s too late to turn around. No part of this can be undone, and I’ll forever hate him for putting me and his unborn child in this position.

Anger, like I’ve never felt, fills me as I stand in wait for the man who has betrayed me in a way I can never forgive. Surely, he’s seen enough headlines for these types of scandals to know what consequences I would face if our tryst were ever discovered. And now, I’m walking evidence of said union.

He’d deliberately deceived me, so purposefully, that my imminent need to feel his flesh against my palm and sub his balls for a sparring partner is all-consuming. I could blame it on the hormones, but the truth is, I’m livid, disgusted, mortified, and a thousand other emotions I have no choice but to conceal, so I don’t implode in front of the school secretary. My hopes for some semblance of a relationship with the father of my child has just gone from maybe to never. He looked like a man, fucked like a man, but was, in fact, a teenager.

I will face him today with the intent of never laying eyes on him again. If he has even the smallest amount of conscience, this news will turn his world upside down and instill in him some of the terror racing through me.

Reading my hostile posture, the receptionist, whose nameplate reads Mrs. Garrison, speaks up from where she sits in front of a group of incoming students. “Mr. Brown’s office is empty today, if you’d like some privacy.”

“Thank you.”

She nods, again eyeing me with sympathy as I try to mask my fury. I’m too pissed off to feel any sort of comfort.

Once inside the small office, I sit behind the desk, nerves firing off at random. I only have a few minutes to grapple with what I’m going to say. But what is there to say? My reason for being here has completely changed. Realization hits me fully that I already have my answer without even discussing it with Troy. I’m going to do this alone—as a single mother.

I lift my phone to text Parker so she can give me the go-ahead to slice and dice some accordion-textured flesh to make new earrings, but it’s then I hear his voice call out to the lady at the desk. The timbre only slightly familiar, but it’s the distinct voice of a man. Even so, there should have been other hints. How, how could I have not known?

Vodka. Too much vodka.

“Stepsister?” He asks, clearly confused as he opens the door, his curious eyes meeting mine before widening in recognition. He pauses halfway inside the small office before lowering his gaze to the floor. “Thanks, Mrs. G.” He shuts the door putting his weight against it, head hung, his hands on the knob behind him. I hide the bulk of my belly beneath the desk as I glare at him. Letting out a steady breath, his eyes again lift to mine.

“How old are you?”

He ambles toward me, looking very much the same as he did months ago, though my perception of him has definitely changed.

He’s beauty and deception.

Tall, incredibly built, biceps bulging beneath his T-shirt with corded muscles gathered at his shoulders. Rusty blond hair, glacier blue eyes, slightly-wide prominent nose, square granite jaw, full lips—the features of a man and he’s anything but.

“What I did—”

“You didn’t regret nor feel an ounce of guilt for, until this moment. How old are you?”

He swallows. “Clarissa—”

“Oh, good, you remember my name. Because you were completely clear with yours, Troy Jenner. And, apparently, that’s the only truth you spoke that night.”

He hangs his head. “That night, I was so—”

“Buzzed? Me too. Yet, I still knew my numbers. Especially my age, and I could recite my alphabet and put the letters together to form the truth. How. Old. Are. You?”

He blows out a defeated breath. “Nineteen, in November. I failed sixth grade.”

Pressing my lips together, it’s all I can do to keep from screaming. I’ve never been so angry in my life. I give myself a few seconds to get it together but can still hear the shake in my voice when I’m able to speak.

“I should be relieved.” Furious tears gather in my eyes. “But I’m not. And do you know why?”

He slowly nods, his eyes roaming over my face, neck, and chest, which has me recoiling.

The kicker of it is, that night, I felt an attraction to him I rarely have for other men. A connection, even though our common bond for those few hours was mostly physical need, or in my case, to ease the ache of loneliness after a breakup. I’d felt alive with him in a way I hadn’t in years. I wasn’t about to use the pregnancy as an excuse, but I hoped maybe he’d seek me out. When that didn’t happen, I resigned to use that night in my future fantasies. Problem is that now I have been imagining him for months. Our easy conversation, the way we clicked, the way he kissed me, covered me, consumed me, made an impression that lasted. And now, as water gathers in my mouth, I fight the urge to be sick at the idea of just how often I replayed that night in my head.