conversation too serious to have with my back to him.
“I have no doubt that you’ll be an amazing father. I also know that this isn’t what you wanted.”
“I haven’t been able to think of anything else for weeks,” he confesses. “The idea has grown on me.”
I feel the same way, but I don’t say that out loud.
“I’m thirty-five, and I never thought I’d be a dad, mainly because it’s something I never wanted.”
“I didn’t trap you—”
He holds his hand up to silence me or reject the words, but I can’t not repeat what I’ve told him numerous times before.
“If you decide being here for the baby isn’t possible, I’ll be okay with that.”
“Simone,” he grinds out. “I want this. I want that baby.”
He motions to my stomach.
“Rocker left,” I whisper as I look him in the eyes. “I don’t want that. He’s kind and generous. He would’ve been an amazing father, too.”
“He would’ve,” Jinx agrees.
“I think if he were the father, we would’ve had the chance to see where things went between the two of us. We might’ve had a future.”
I wouldn’t end up alone.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes with the possibility. Having a wonderful man co-parenting is not the same as having a man who holds you at night and quells your fears when things get rough.
“Rocker is—”
I walk into the bathroom and close the door, unwilling to listen to this man make excuses for his friend.
He doesn’t knock on the door or beg me to talk to him. He doesn’t try to reason with me through the door, and I’m able to breathe a sigh of relief when the front door opens and he leaves.
Chapter 21
Rocker
“Your rum.” The bartender places a glass in front of me, but I keep my eyes lowered.
I didn’t order rum, but the guy hasn’t gotten my drink order right since I came in two hours ago, and at this point I’m too drunk from the wrong orders, that I don’t have the energy to bring up his numerous mistakes.
Since my taste buds stopped working half an hour ago, I simply pick up the glass and toss the whole damn thing back.
Drinking was supposed to make me forget what went down in Simone’s apartment earlier, but the more I drink, the more hyper focused on it I become.
I’m not the dad.
Of course, I’m not. Why would something work out in my favor for once?
And, let the pity party commence.
I’ve had a million things go right in my life, a million stars that have aligned for me to end up where I am today—I mean with Cerberus, not plastered before noon in a bar.
I’ve had an amazing life filled with adventure, laughs, and enough smiles to make my eyes crinkle at the edges. Things have been amazing.
Being a dad would’ve been amazing.
I didn’t know I should’ve asked for more. Until Simone mentioned a baby the night her husband attacked her for the last time, I didn’t even want to consider the possibility. How quickly things change. How fast the prospect of being a dad made my thoughts and goals change.
Before, I’d walk through the store to get only the things I needed. Yesterday in Target, I caught myself taking the long way around to the toothpaste aisle. I didn’t stop and look, but my eyes lingered on the damn baby clothes as I passed. I remember feeling fear, because how could I take care of something small enough to fit in those tiny clothes?
After the results today, it hit me like a two-ton weight that I wouldn’t get the chance.
I’m not crazy enough to seek out someone else with the proposition of knocking them up. I haven’t lost my mind, but I can’t help the sense of grief that washed over me when Jinx called Simone seconds after she read the results of the paternity test herself.
Yep, still thinking way too much.
I lift my hand, signaling for the bartender to refill my glass. He frowns as he stops cutting limes and walks my direction. I can tell by the look on his face that he’s going to give me lip, but at least he grabs the bottle off the shelf before stepping in front of me. He tilts the stupid fucking bottle of rum to fill my glass.
“You know we aren’t even open, right?”
“Yet, here we are,” I reply, pulling the glass out from under the tip of the bottle before he’s done.
I ignore the liquor that spills on my hand as well