small, round Earth.
“The engagement ring?” Dad asked, setting it back down.
I nodded. I’d talked to him and Blake about the engagement before we’d found out Khiley was pregnant. I’d wanted to propose to her at Christmas. With our families there. I’d wanted to end college and start the rest of our lives together at the same time.
“Are you nervous?” Dad asked.
I shook my head. I wasn’t nervous about proposing. At least, I hadn’t been. Now, I wasn’t sure what Khiley wanted. The baby had put crazy ideas in her head.
My phone buzzed, and I lunged for it. Disappointment coursed through me on seeing Ty’s name instead of Khiley’s.
TY: I need a beer. I’ll be there in five. Don’t disappoint me.
He wasn’t quite twenty-one and shouldn’t have been allowed to drink anywhere, but age didn’t matter in a town that had always treated him like a god. I damn sure wasn’t in the mood to go out. I definitely wouldn’t be good company, but I also didn’t want to sit here avoiding Dad and thinking of a baby that might not come to be.
“It’s Ty. I’m going to call him back,” I said with a wave at Dad and a thumb hovering over the call button.
“Okay. Well, let me know if you change your mind.” And he left, because Dad was good at giving me my space, knowing I’d eventually come clean. I always had.
I hit call. “Are you trying to back out?” Ty asked.
“No,” I said without any hesitation.
“Wow. Normally you hem and haw and tell me we have to bring Khiley. What’s wrong with you?” Ty teased, his voice a deep guttural growl, which the majority of the female population at UTK found enthralling.
“Nothing. I just need to drown some thoughts in alcohol.”
“I really don’t know what to say to this unusual twist of events. Walk down to the end of the drive, and I’ll pick you up.”
I pulled my heavy coat back on over my UTK sweatshirt and took off down the long windy drive to the gates. Both our childhood homes sat along the cliff overlooking the lake, but you couldn’t see either house from the other. The road we shared was lined with gates, security cameras, and alarms that were needed with Watery Reflection still topping charts. Even with our dads approaching fifty and starting to show their age, the fanatic fans showed up, trying to get glimpses of them.
By the time I got to the end of the drive, Ty was idling there in his rebuilt Roadrunner. I slipped through the gate and slid into the passenger seat. The Roadrunner roared to life, and he took off down the road at a pace that was all Ty.
We drove in silence, Ty’s music blasting until we got to the edge of town where the bar was located. When I emerged from the interior’s warmth, I shivered. The air had dropped to the freezing level, but it hadn’t snowed yet. It was still holding off, waiting for who knew what.
As we walked into McFlannigan’s, Ty was greeted with a crowd of people hollering his name and beckoning him over. Some were people we’d gone to high school with, and some were older. Like the owner, Phil, who’d put up the UTK banner sitting above the bar in honor of my cousin.
Ty waved and smiled but didn’t join any of them. We took two stools at the far corner of the bar, and I ordered tequila shots and a pitcher of beer. Ty just eyed me in the mirror glimmering behind the bottles of alcohol, and I ignored it until after we’d slammed our first round.
“I was joking earlier, at Gram’s, about the trouble in paradise, but…you guys okay?” Ty asked quietly—or as quietly as his booming voice would ever let him.
I shook my head. We weren’t okay. We were so far from okay I didn’t know what to do.
“Remember the time Jackson Blakey asked Khiley to homecoming?” Ty asked.
I grimaced. It was our freshman year of high school. Khiley and I had shared a few more kisses by then. Tentative kisses. We hadn’t done much more than that, even though every time we kissed, it felt like the rest of the world faded away into nothing. Like there was nothing but me, Khiley, and the stars she adored. But I hadn’t made her mine officially. I had, ignorantly and arrogantly, assumed she and everyone else knew she was mine. I hadn’t known I needed to publicly