“Well, someone’s going to fucking find out when they deliver the damn thing!”
“You know what I mean.” I tried to take a deep breath and inhaled his armpit odor. “Gross, Gabe. Did you work out before you came here?”
“In a way. James and I hit it off. Things only got a little awkward when my best friend quit her job at his office and added stress to his life.” He sniffed his armpit and shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”
“That’s great. I’m glad. I really like James.” I leaned away from his pits. “Can we just forget this?”
“Winnifred, what are you thinking? This istheirbaby? One of them knocked you up? I know you haven’t slept with anyone else. So, what? You’re just going to hide this from them and run away? Never tell them?”
I gripped my hair and pulled. “Yes! Yes, okay? They don’t want another kid. They told me the first night we met. They’ve all been burned and they’re not going to find this cute and happy. I’m not forcing another man into this. Matthew proved what a mistake that is. Birdie deserved better than what I gave her. I won’t do it to this baby, too.”
“This is all because of something they said the first night you met? You’re not this dumb, Winnie. They’ve been trying to get through to you every day since you iced them out. They keep tabs on you through me and Sunshine. Jack personally brought your car to you, even though you wouldn’t come out to see him. Sawyer sat outside this house for multiple nights in a row. The only reason he stopped was because he got the twins back. Beck has been a fucking monster to be around, he’s so distraught.”
“You’ve been around them?”
“Yeah, Winnie, I have. I’ve been trying to comfort them and tell them you can only be so stubborn for so long. I convinced them to just breathe, because I know my best friend, and I know she’s just going through something.” Gabe opened the bathroom door and stormed out. “This person? This person who would hide a pregnancy from three men who love their children more than life itself, and who would love this baby the same? I don’t know this person. You’re better than this, Winnie. Even more than that, you have a chance at the life you want. You could have everything and you could give my goddaughter everything she’s ever wanted, too. You’re just choosing not to do it.”
I hurried after him as he went to the door. “Gabe, please. I’m just…”
He grabbed the door handle and looked back at me. “What? You’re what, Winnie? Scared? I get it. You’re determined not to do to this kid whatMatthewdid to Birdie, but you’re hurting Birdie worse than Matthew ever could. Matthew is a piece of shit. He would’ve never been a good father to Bird. Sawyer, Jack, and, Beck though? Those men adore that little girl. They miss her. And she misses them, Winnie. She calls them when she’s at your mom’s. In your blind determination to do what you think is right, you’re royally fucking up.
“I am so angry with you. For Birdie and foryou. I can see how miserable you’ve made yourself. Is this some kind of penance for doing something you know is wrong?”
I stammered, so terrified of losing one more person in my life. I knew I was messing up, but I just kept telling myself that I had to stay the course, that I was doing the right thing for the long term. I was drowning in my own failures, and I couldn’t find my way up to the surface. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Gabe. I’m just trying to make it to tomorrow right now.”
“This is a choice you’re making. The guys? Their misery is a choice that was madeforthem. By you.” He pulled the door open and sighed. “I love you, Winnie. I’ll call later to check on you. Sunshine and I are coming tomorrow to help you finish packing.”
The door shut heavily behind him and I leaned against it, wanting desperately to call him back. I needed a hug. Without Dad’s closet, I felt so alone and adrift. Mom had been wrong. I wasn’t ready for Dad to go. I still needed his comfort. A part of me wondered if he was angry at me, and that was why I couldn’t smell him anymore.
I moved back to the couch and sank onto it. I wanted out of what I’d done. I just didn’t know what to do.
49
Sawyer
Icrackedmyneckand stared out across the stretch of hills on either side of the highway. It didn’t matter how many times I did it, the tension never eased. There’d been a physical ache since Winnie walked away from me that no amount of stretching or Tylenol would help. Blowing out a hard breath, I ran my hands down my face and blinked to try to clear the bleariness from my eyes.
Jack sat next to me in the driver’s seat, his own exhaustion held off with a god-awful amount of caffeine. He wasn’t handling Winnie being gone any better than me, or Beck. “This is probably crossing a line.”
“One, or fifty.” I picked up the coffee Jack had been guzzling. “Is this making a difference?”
“Depends on how you mean. Am I able to keep my eyes open? Sure. The trade-off is that my mind is now going even faster with a million ideas, all of them depressing as hell.” His fists tightened on the steering wheel. “Gabe seemed sure she’d be back to us by now. I held her so many fucking times. I never would’ve thought she’d just walk away. I know she felt what I felt. At least, I thought she did.”
We’d all sat around the church basement night after night, debating what we should do. We’d gone back and forth so many times about whether or not we’d imagined the way she looked at us. It was enough to give me an ulcer. Which it had. Jack was in a constant state of hungover until Henry passed out and then he worked on drinking it off. Beck was just…Beck. He was so angry that I’d been tempted to put him on blood pressure medicine. He couldn’t calm down.
“I know that driving to check out her new apartment is wrong. At some point, we’ll have to give up.” I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes. “Right?”
“Don’t fucking ask me to be reasonable.”
“None of us are thinking clearly.” The first few days Winnie had disappeared, I’d been worried, but I accepted that she probably needed time. That first week had then become an act of anxiety and begging. The second week was stretching into a third week and it was starting to feel like we’d lost her. It was making us act irrationally. “I need this to fucking end. I can’t think straight at work, either. The clinic manager suggested I take some time off.”
“Opie suggested I go fuck myself.” Jack finished his coffee and then threw the cup in the back of the truck, not caring about keeping it clean when his life was a mess. “The other guys aren’t even speaking to me.”
My phone started ringing and I saw Winnie’s name on my screen, and my heart hammered painfully as I yanked my phone out of the cupholder and answered it. “Winnie?”
Jack slammed on the brakes and pulled over immediately, ignoring the cars that honked behind us. He looked at me expectantly, waiting. We were all so hopeful she’d come back to us. We just didn’t know, and that part was killing us. Her calling meant something good, surely. She hadn’t called in the entire time she’d been gone. My heart soared as I waited for her to answer.
“Sawyer?” Birdie’s quiet voice filled the line, and I knew right away that she was sneaking around. “Can you hear me?”