Worth the Risk(79)

She smiles.

Waves.

I may be staring at her, but I don’t acknowledge her in the least. I can’t. I’ve already gotten too close, when I’ve been convincing myself that I’ve kept her at arm’s length.

So I don’t nod. I don’t smile. I don’t react at all. Instead, I turn my back and walk deeper into the coffee shop, to where Desi and Luke are laughing. To where I can bury my thoughts. To where I can get mad at myself for even thinking I could let anything more happen between us.

Over the last few weeks, I’d allowed those thoughts—those ideas, possibilities, emotions—to creep in.

Seeing her on the street was a solid one-two punch to the gut, reminding me why shit like that can’t be.

Fuck this. Fuck Sidney. Fuck her looking just like Claire with that air about her that screams money and privilege and everything that doesn’t want someone like me.

In the back of my mind, I know I’m being a dick. I know she can’t help but be herself . . . the woman who has invaded my life without warning. But the sting of my past, the feeling of déjà vu, is real and raw and tattooed in invisible ink. It’s a scar on my heart I can’t fucking get rid of.

One she doesn’t deserve to have to deal with.

One I’m hiding behind instead of facing the truth.

I’m fucking falling for her.

Desi looks up and smiles at me as I sit across from them, but her smile freezes and her eyes narrow when she looks closer.

“You okay?”

“Yep.”

I’m perfectly fucking fine.

Wait. Actually, I’m far from it.

She stares at me a bit longer, not believing me, and then saves my ass from having to pretend with Luke by turning her attention back to him.

I watch them joke, build a castle out of sugar packets, and have a staring contest. I’ve never been more grateful for her and her quirky sense of humor.

Because seeing Sidney like that—looking so much like Claire—brought me right back to that time, to the night Claire came home.

Luke was four months old—crying any time you set him down or moved the wrong way or God for-fucking-bid breathed the wrong way. She walked in the door drunk. I’ll never forget that. The look on her face. The smear of her mascara down her cheeks. The shame in her eyes.

Our fights had been more frequent. I chalked it up to having a newborn—a colicky one at that. It was why I wasn’t upset that she had gone out. She needed space, time to think and decompress.

“I have something I need to tell you.” Her words were slurred, her eyes averted.

“I don’t care that you went out. I know he gets to be overwhelming with the crying, but it’s a phase. It’s all just a phase.” I reiterated the same calming words my mom had told me when I had called her out of desperation.

“It isn’t a phase,” she said softly. “It’s a life sentence.”

“How can you say that?” I looked down at Luke, the life we’d created. He was a little bit of perfection in such a fucked-up world, and I was unable to comprehend how she couldn’t see it.

“I can’t do this, Gray. This isn’t me.”

My laugh must have sounded so ridiculous to her, but it was all I could give above Luke’s crying. “I know we’re young and don’t have much, Claire, but—”

“That’s exactly it. We don’t have anything!” she shouted, and I paused in the bounce, bounce, shift rhythm that usually calmed Luke.

“Your parents got to you again, didn’t they?” I shake my head and try to move toward her without upsetting Luke, but she won’t look at me. “This is all we need, Claire. Us. Luke.”

“I need more than that.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but every single syllable was like a nail being driven into my heart. It was then that I knew . . . I knew they had won. I knew she had gotten drunk so she’d have the courage to tell me. I knew she was leaving.

I knew, in her mind, she’d already left.

Luke started crying again. I wanted to put him down so I could beg and plead with her, but I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t abandon him when I already knew one parent was going to.

“Claire-bear—”

“Don’t.” Her hand came up as she squeezed her eyes closed for a second. “Fuck. Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t you love me? Don’t you love us?” Fear was all I could hear in my own voice. Fear rioted in my veins. “Don’t you love him?”

“I just don’t know anymore.”

“Yes, you do!” My shout was loud enough that the windows in our tiny apartment rattled as my chest constricted. I couldn’t seem to breathe.

“I’ll have my attorney draft up something—”

“You mean your parents’ attorney.”

“Yes.” Still no eye contact. Still absolutely zero acknowledgment of our son.

“You’ve told them to fuck off a million times. Rebelled when you dated me because I wasn’t part of your cotillion bullshit. What’s so different now? What changed?” Confusion owned every part of me.

“There’s a way to give up all my rights. It’s called voluntary relinquishment of rights.”

“You know the term?” I shout. “You’ve already done it, haven’t you?”