“Then you should have intervened when he was kicking my ass.”
“Are you saying you couldn’t take him? Because it looked like you were doing alright for yourself.”
I tossed down the rag and pulled my tie off. The damn thing was strangling me. “If you want to help, leave me the fuck alone.”
“What I don’t get is why you didn’t tell any of us,” he continued.
I walked out of the bathroom and slammed the door in his face.
“Hey!” he shouted through the door. “I was talking to you!”
I ignored his dramatics and grabbed my keys off the table. Fuck dinner. I really didn’t want to be here right now.
“Whoa,” Eric laughed slightly as he stepped in front of me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
“You’re going to drop a bomb on us like that and then leave?”
“Here’s a hint, I didn’t drop the bomb, so I can leave whenever the fuck I want.”
“That’s not a hint,” Eric pointed out. “That’s just being rude. Don’t you think you should stay considering…” He jerked his head in Anna’s direction. She was sitting at the kitchen table with Kat looking a little shell-shocked.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Anna doesn’t fucking like me. Now you know why. Are you still happy you invited her to dinner?”
“Well, if you had just been upfront with us, there wouldn’t be this big secret hanging in the air.”
“Look, what happened with Anna and me is none of your business-“
“He’s right,” Anna said. “You should have told your family.”
“Excuse me?” I said incredulously. “I did that to protect you.”
“Really? Because if you were trying to protect me, you never would have left.”
“So, you wanted everyone in my family knowing that I knocked you up and then suggested we give our kid up for adoption?”
Will leaned back on his heels and grimaced. “Yeah, this is getting a little uncomfortable.”
“Better they know what really happened than to find out all these years later. Maybe someone would have actually been there to support me when I got back!”
I shook my head and chuckled. “You could have called me. You could have said something at any time, but you didn’t.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I didn’t realize that when the girlfriend gets sent away that she’s responsible for reaching out to the douchebag ex when she gets back. Is that the way we’re playing this?”
“Don’t put this all on me. You were there with me every single fucking time we snuck out. Don’t act like you’re innocent.”
“You sent me away and never contacted me again! What the hell was I supposed to think?”
I spread my arms wide, showing her all of me. “What the hell do you want from me, Anna? It was thirteen years ago and you still can’t forgive me.”
“Because you never gave me a choice! Everything was decided for me.”
“Did you want to keep the baby?” I asked, knowing she didn’t.
“No, we weren’t ready.”
“Then what the fuck are you so upset about?”
“You never discussed our options with me. You made the decision with your parents and then laid it out for me. Nobody was worried about what I wanted.”
I scoffed. “You just said you didn’t want to keep the baby.”
“That doesn’t mean that I wanted to be told what to do! I was seventeen and I was scared. You made a plan and just left me.”
“I can’t believe Ma knew about this and didn’t say anything,” Will muttered. “How did she manage to keep this a secret?”
“She didn’t want the golden boy to look bad,” Anna sneered.
“You fucking know that’s not true. Eric’s the golden boy.”
“Hey-“
“It’s true,” I said, shooting him an irritated look. “You know you’re Ma’s favorite.”
“Well, yeah, but you don’t have to point it out so much,” Eric grumbled.
“Were you two always like this?” Andrew asked. “Because I don’t remember the two of you having so much animosity for each other.”
“So, this is why you’ve been so hostile toward me since you started your job?” Eric asked Anna.
“No, you just rubbed me the wrong way,” she shot back.
“Me? You threw a coffee mug at my face. And a donut!”
“At the same time?” Joe asked. “Which one hit you?”
Eric shook his head, his hands on his hips. “Christ, you could have just told us. Especially after I got Kat pregnant. Did you think I wouldn’t understand?”
“It’s not just my secret,” I said, looking at Anna. “Believe it or not, I thought I was