Our Finest Hour (The Time #1)(9)

“I was looking for the person who used to live here.” My voice is steady but inside I’m quaking. For the shortest second I thought maybe Isaac stayed.

He holds up his palms and shrugs helplessly. “I moved in a few days ago. I’m not sure who lived here before. Or where they went.”

I nod. “That’s OK.” Turning to leave, I say “Have a nice day.”

“Good luck,” he calls out. “I hope you find the person.”

I throw back a smile and a thank you as I walk away.

Why am I this disappointed when I knew the ending?

My hope is gone, and that’s a good thing, I guess. Better than having it hang around and haunt me.

Isaac really left.

For us there will be no first date. No showing up at my front door with something other than flowers.

The confirmation is a deliverance. I don’t need to keep torturing myself with thoughts about what might have been.

I can stop dwelling on that night and focus on the future.



And my first step in that direction starts with a conversation I don’t want to have.

Some people think self-reflection is a good thing, and I suppose it can be. But after a while, for someone as good and practiced at self-reflection as I am, it's more like a prison.

Right now, I'm in prison.

What if I hadn't gone out that night?

What if I'd told Britt no?

What if I told Isaac to take a hike instead of letting him hike up my skirt?

I wouldn't be where I am now, that's for sure.

I’ve thought of that night enough times that at this point, I’m sick of it. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make the one picture I took at the bar capture more than it did. My forehead and Isaac’s dark hair dominate the lower left corner, and the scene behind us is a blur of bodies and bottles. Nothing I can do will make any of this different.

My dad's truck engine can be heard down the block, long before it reaches our driveway. I sit on the living room couch and listen as it comes closer to our house. It sounds more like a slow march toward the guillotine.

He pulls into his spot and kills the engine. By now he's seen my car and is wondering what I'm doing here. It’s Thursday, not Sunday. If I come over during the week, I tell him first, but this time, I couldn't spare any extra words. As it is, I’m not sure I'll have enough words to get through what’s in front of me.

My shoulders jump when his truck door slams. I count backward in my head, picturing his walk up the path to the front door. 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...

"Aubrey, what are you doing? Everything all right?" My dad stands in the doorway. It’s an average size entry, and his large body fills a majority of the space.

The concern in his gaze causes tears to well up in my eyes. Oh, Daddy.

He rushes across the foyer, forehead creased. His keys smack the coffee table. The couch dips beneath me as he sits.

"Aubs, what is it?" His voice is panicky. "Is it Grandma?"

I shake my head. “No, no. She's OK. I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" My voice trails off as I search for the words. “It's just…" I cover my face with my hands, unable to look at him as I speak. I didn’t think we’d reach this point this quickly, but here we are. There’s nothing to do but say it. “I'm pregnant.”

My head stays in my hands, and I keep my eyes squeezed shut as the seconds tick by. The silence continues, growing and growing until I dare to peek at him.

He's ramrod straight on the couch, eyes wide, hands in a prayer position against his lips. His thumbs hook under his chin, and he's taking deep breaths, air filling his chest until it puffs out, then streams from his nose.

“Say something.” My voice is tiny.

His gaze falls to the floor between his feet. “I didn't even know you were active…in that way, I mean. I just assumed that you, I don't know, were just…” He gulps, his cheeks red.

My face is so hot, I can feel the warmth in my ears. It doesn't matter that I'm twenty-one and an adult. His baby girl is pregnant, and he hasn't even heard the worst of it yet. I open my mouth to tell him the part that's going to make this bad dream a nightmare, but he starts talking first.

“You didn't tell me you and Owen were back together.” There's an accusatory edge to his tone. It would be an understatement to say my dad simply dislikes Owen.

I clear my throat and pick at one of my fingernails. “We're not.”

His eyes lock onto mine, his expression a mixture of surprise and horror. “The baby isn't Owen's? Are you seeing someone new?”

He's trying, I think, to control his emotions, but the devastation is there, visible in the planes of his face. Knowing I put it there hurts me to the core.

“I’m not seeing anybody, Dad.” I take a deep breath and look at my poor, mangled thumb nail. “This baby is the product of one night.” One hour.

My dad stands and strides to the kitchen. I stay where I am, waiting. Listening as the refrigerator door opens, closes. He comes back a minute later with a beer in his hand. Half of it is missing already.

He doesn't sit. He leans against the wall and tips his head back until it's propped up by the wall too.

“One night, huh?”

“It's the only time I've done that and—”