I Want You Back (Want You #1)(47)
I had no response.
So Lucy kept talking. “I could’ve relied on your parents and Nolan for help with Mimi. But I’ve been in Nolan’s place, where you hero worship your sibling and feel there’s no choice but to throw your support behind them no matter the situation.”
“That’s happened with you and Lindsey?”
She nodded. “Linds started dating that dirtbag Gene about the same time I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t know him; I didn’t like how he treated my sister. After it became apparent I’d be doing the single-parent thing, he started telling me what to do, using Lindsey as his megaphone. She’d never been the type to say, ‘Sue him, make a big public deal about the Lund billionaire heir and superstar hockey player cheating on you during your pregnancy and then abandoning you and his newborn baby. That’s guaranteed to set you up for life.’ Yet that’s exactly the action Lindsey kept pushing me to take.”
My breath stalled. She’d never mentioned any of this to me.
“What really sucked? I’d lost both my confidants. You . . . for obvious reasons, and Lindsey because anything I said to her about my frustrations with trying to make it as a single parent, she repeated right back to him. Then I’d get more helpful advice, which I didn’t need from the dickwad.”
“Luce. I’m—”
“I know, you’re sorry,” she said with a hint of bitterness. “But I couldn’t talk to my mom either because she’d taken the ‘he was a player; you should’ve known he’d cheat on you’ tack. I hadn’t been looking for sympathy, or someone to vent to about you; I wanted my mom’s advice on Mimi’s baby issues. Why she was gassy. Why she was crying. Why she didn’t sleep. I didn’t have any girlfriends who had kids, and I’d had to stop working, so I’d lost contact with all of my work friends too. Here I had this beautiful, healthy baby that I loved with my entire being, but I was so miserable and alone.”
I didn’t bother to swipe away the tears that leaked out. When one dripped on her forehead she cranked her head around to look at me.
Every bit of guilt and self-hatred for the type of man I’d been shone in my eyes, and again, I didn’t mask it. I didn’t apologize. I just let her see the misery I held on to now, for all the distress she’d dealt with back then.
Then she did the sweetest thing. She set her hand on the side of my face and wiped the dampness from my eyes.
An eternity stretched between us before I found my voice again. “Can we ever get past any of this?”
“Believe it or not, I am past a lot of it. You were who you were. That’s who I fell for. So when you behaved exactly as you always had, I had to agree with my mom that my heartache over you was somewhat self-inflicted.”
“Jesus, Lucy, no. You are not taking any of the blame for me fucking around on you.”
She studied me. Opened her mouth. Closed it.
“What?”
“Dude, I’ve never blamed myself for your cheating ways.”
I must’ve looked confused.
“I always knew you’d cheat on me, Jaxson. That’s why I didn’t demand a promise of fidelity from you. That’s why I refused to marry you when we discovered I was pregnant. My heartache was self-inflicted because even knowing that eventually you’d fuck someone else, I couldn’t walk away from you before it happened. After the first time I saw pictures of you with someone else . . .”
The guilt sent my heart racing but I forced myself to ask, “How did you find out?”
“A coworker saw that a puck bunny had tagged you in a tweet—complete with a picture of the two of you hanging out half-naked in a hotel room bed—and showed it to me out of concern. I laughed it off. But that was the beginning of the end for us as a couple.” She looked away from me. “I’d considered playing like it hadn’t happened, but that would’ve made me like my mother and every other woman who believes it was a onetime thing.” She paused. “I don’t know if that was the first time, but you made no attempt to hide it. You were aware of how I felt about cheating and that as soon as I found out that I’d be done with you, with us.”
“I knew. But at the time? I didn’t care because we’d been apart more than we’d been together. You were pregnant, you refused to move to Chicago and I was having the best season of my career. I wanted to celebrate with my team and anyone else who we invited to party with us.” The advice I’d gotten had come from a veteran player I admired . . . all the more reason to consider it gospel. I realized now that I’d still had the ability to be starstruck, which zapped every bit of common sense.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Lucy said softly.
“It’s self-centered and crude, and I’m embarrassed that I actually believed the narcissistic bullshit that one of my idols beat into my head that championship year, so it’s not something I want to relive or repeat.”
“After that intriguing intro you have no choice but to share it.”
My Lucy. I’d always loved, hated, and admired that she didn’t pull any punches. “This bonus confession can’t put me in any worse light, so here goes. At training camp I got paired for drills with my idol. After practice we’d go out and we were immediately surrounded. He wallowed in it; I ignored it. So when he asked why I wasn’t balls deep in a different bunny every night, I told him you were pregnant. Called you my girlfriend, and his response was at least I hadn’t fucked up completely by marrying you.”