Fate Interrupted (16 page)

He pulled the
other movie from her hands. “Actually, this is more my style.”

Her smile fell.
“Oh no!” she laughed. “I’ll be up all night hearing things if I watch that. I
hate those
Paranormal Activity
movies.”

An easy grin
slid across his face in the soft light. “Well, good thing you’ll have some
company.”

Her mouth got
round with surprise. “How’d you know my other boyfriend was coming over later?”

“Funny.”

She laughed and
set the movies down.

Dean cleared his
throat and moved a decorative pillow out from under him. “So how’d it go with
the plumber last night?”

“It was fine. He
just had to snake the drain with this huge coil thingy.
Left
a huge mess everywhere that, of course, they never clean up.”

“I hate when that
happens.”

She tipped her
wine glass back, the smell of baked lasagna wafting through the air. Somebody
tromped down the stairs out in the common hallway, cutting the silence between
them. The steps faded into the night and the silence reconnected. The walls seemed
to bulge with the tension filling the room. At least to Dean it was tension. To
her, maybe it was nothing more than a comfortable silence two people sometimes
shared without feeling the need to talk. He found her green eyes and couldn’t
stop himself from looking away to pick at the label on his bottle. She pulled
her leg out from under her and resituated. He scrambled for something to say,
something that wouldn’t sound like anything was wrong. He sat up straighter,
trying to find a more comfortable spot that was as elusive as peace of mind. Megan’s
words rang hollow in his ears. Black mascara bleeding down her face in muddy
streams gripped his thoughts. Nothing would ever be comfortable again.

“Is something
wrong?”

His heart sank. She
was on to him. He couldn’t possibly face her now, but at some point he would
have to turn and look into those majestic eyes again. But just not right now.

“Dean?”

He could feel her
eyes upon him, sending troubled signals straight to her brain. He inhaled a
deep breath and forced himself to meet her vexed gaze. His Adam’s apple bobbed
one time while a vein throbbed in his neck. He wiped his palms on his jeans. “I
might have a situation.”

Evy creased her
brow. “What’s wrong?”

He got up and
paced the modest living room like an expectant father, staring down at the
carpet, his insides twisting into knots. Shooting pains stabbed at his heart
like sharpened knives. This was the end of the line and there was no way to
avoid barreling off the tracks. He had to tell her.
But how?
His mind raced. She didn’t deserve this and neither did he. No one deserved to
have everything they ever wanted dangled in front of them only to have it yanked
away at the last second.

“Dean? You’re
freaking me out.”

He stopped
pacing and looked her right in the worried eye, dizzy from a shortness of
breath he couldn’t shake. “I had an old girlfriend stop by last night after you
left.” He watched her face stiffen and it broke his heart. He swallowed thickly,
wanting to run. “She’s pregnant.” He waited for her to gasp out loud and slap a
hand over her heart, signaling she was officially horrified beyond all recognition,
but she didn’t move. “Allegedly,” he threw in for good measure, leaving the
tiniest of cracks.

Evy stared at
him with her mouth hanging open. “Pregnant?” she said faintly, the rosy color
leaving her cheeks in a hurry.

He exhaled a
forlorn breath, his chest deflating as quickly as his hope. “But it’s not what
you think. She was from before I ever laid eyes on you.
That
you have to know right now.” He paused to catch his breath. “After
I saw you, I never saw anyone else again.
Only you.”

She weighed his
words with careful deliberation, her wine glass trembling in her hand. She set
it down and crossed her arms.
“How long before me?”

He dropped his
gaze to the carpet, unable to look into those eyes a second longer. Dean saw
her kick him out of her life forever before it even happened. He would never
see those green eyes again.
“A week.”

Shocked silence
was her reply.

He closed his
eyes, wanting to rewind to the night with Megan and just go home alone but it
was too late. The damage
was done
. He made himself
look back up. He deserved it. Deserved to see what he had done to her.

Wrinkles carved through
her forehead, stealing the pretty girl who had just handed him a beer. “I don’t
know what to say.”

He looked back
to the carpet and waited for something to happen, expecting her to at least break
something or start slamming doors, anything to dispel the ghostly quiet sucking
the air from the room. When her feet started moving, his world fell to pieces.
This was it. She was showing him the door and the thought of never kissing
those lips again broke his heart.

She turned off
the iPod dock and he could see it now without even looking up – pleading with
her tomorrow at Sugars (the only place he could get her to talk to him) while Brooke
and Ben stood there gravely shaking their heads.

He finally
mustered the courage to look up, wanting to just get it over with and take his
medicine. Evy pulled the lasagna from the oven and quietly set it on the
burners. She stared at the steamy pan of melted cheese like she was trying to determine
if it was done or not, but he knew better. She was really trying to determine
if
they
were done
or not. He twisted his fingers, making them pop, and grappled for assuring words
that didn’t exist.

Evy turned around
and folded her arms across her breasts like they were now off limits to him. “So
let me see if I’ve got this straight,” she said, sauntering back into the
living room while staring past him with faraway eyes. “You had sex with a girl
named…”

“Megan.” He
hated the way her name sounded on his tongue.

“You had sex
with a girl name
Megan
a week before
you met me and…now she’s pregnant.”

“Allegedly.”

She stopped in
front of him, close enough to intoxicate his senses with her perfume. It drove
him crazy and she knew it.
“And how long had you two been
dating
?”

He stared into
her eyes, not wanting to answer this question more than anything in the world.
“A day.”

Her jaw hit the
floor, along with his heart, as she realized she was right all along. He was
just another player, taking what he wanted with no concern for anyone else. She
sat down before she could collapse.

Dean took a seat
on the edge of the couch, a broken man against warm gray on cream plaid. “After
I met you, everyone else just…faded away.”

Her watery gaze
drained his spirit. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and make it right but
that was impossible. He hadn’t felt this helpless since his first Christmas
without his parents. Like now, the only option then had been to keep breathing.

Her eyes
thinned. “I thought you said you never have sex without a condom.”

“I don’t,” he
said, acting overly offended.

“Well, you
didn’t with me, so…”

“I used
protection, but somehow…” The words died on his lips, knowing he would never
kiss her again. It tortured his soul. The punishment didn’t fit the crime and
he was powerless to alter its path.

“Is she sure
it’s yours?”

He shrugged. “Who
really knows, Evy? For all I know, she’s crazy as hell and full of shit, but...”

“But you only
knew her for a
day
, so you really
don’t know her at all.”

He opened his
mouth to speak but dropped her gaze instead.

“And what does
Megan
plan to do?”

Dean shut his
eyes and rubbed his face. “She wants to keep it,” he said in barely a whisper,
not wanting her to hear those words most of all, wanting to protect her from
the ghastly truth. How could she continue in a relationship with a man who was
having a baby with another woman? She couldn’t. The answer was obvious and he
didn’t blame her. He blamed himself for being a selfish dick, for satisfying
his own needs at the expense of others. He had broken a lot of hearts over the
years and now it was his turn to pay the pied piper. Justice served.

“I bet she
does,” Evy muttered, blinking a lone tear down her cheek.

As his ears rang
and his heart broke for her, rage heated to a boil inside. Two souls destined
to be together for all of eternity, torn apart in one fell swoop by the evil
claws of retribution.

Evy watched him
in repugnance. Hurt and anger littered her countenance like never before. His
jaw tightened with his fists, squeezing together until a vein bulged in his
forehead. With all his might, he held her gaze, vowing he wouldn’t give up
without a fight because, after all, he was a fighter.

Another tear
trickled down her cheek and his hands relaxed. It didn’t matter if he was a
fighter or not. It wasn’t fair for him to continue such a lofty pursuit while bringing
such grim consequences to the one he loved the most. And that’s when it hit
him: he loved her. But how could she tell her family and friends that her man
was having a baby with some blond named Megan? She didn’t deserve this. If he
really loved her, he had to let her go. If the shoe was on the other foot, and she
was pregnant with another man’s baby, he sure as hell wouldn’t want any part of
it. She deserved better.

Her smell pushed
him to the brink of destruction. The thought of living without her watered a
seed of misery blooming in the pit of his stomach. He looked up just in time to
see her wipe away another tear.

“I love you.”

Evy’s brow folded,
like he had just said something nasty about her weight. “What?”

He dropped her
piercing glower and shifted nervously on the couch. “I know it’s too late now
but...” He inhaled a deep breath to steady his shaky voice, his eyes rising to
find hers. “I love you.”

Her face warped
in the deafening silence that followed. His gut ached. He hadn’t planned on
telling her anything let alone this. His thoughts spiraled out of control along
with his tongue. He buried his face in his hands to stop it, embarrassed to be
alive and desperate not to lose the one thing he wanted more than anything in
the world.

“Get out.”

He pulled his
face up.

Evy glared at
him like a statue carved from a cold gravestone, bravely trying to mask her
emotions. “Get out,” she repeated slowly.

He studied her
without speaking, unable to tell if this was really happening or not.

“I need some
time to…
process
all of this,” she
said, confirming it was.

Dean nodded his
understanding and got up. His knee cracked and he paused to take one last look
at her beautiful face. Knowing this could be the last time he ever saw her made
him want to say something to change her mind. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, turning
for the door. His legs felt like rubber, like he had just run stairs at Miller
Park. His hand grasped the doorknob but didn’t turn it, giving her a little
more time to tell him to
wait
, to
come back
. When she didn’t, he opened
the door and left her apartment without looking back.

Evy sat in
silence, watching the front door shut with a symbolic click, the dull thud of her
beating heart the only sound in the room as Dean’s steps faded down the hallway
into the night. She glanced at the pan of lasagna on the stove and turned back
to the front door, imagining herself bolting through it and catching up to him in
the street. She could see a flicker of hope in his eyes and it made her heart quiver.
She got to her feet and went to the door, grabbed the knob but didn’t turn. Her
eyes studied the weathered white paint covering the thick wood, the metal cold
and smooth in her hand. A thousand thoughts flipped through her vaporous head
like a bad fever dream. She turned the worn knob but didn’t pull. She could
still catch him and figure this out together. Evy realized she had been holding
her breath and let it out, locking the deadbolt and leaning her forehead
against the door, wondering if she
was cursed
.

***

Brooke looked up
from behind the counter when the bell rang above the glass front door. Her face
sobered as Evy weaved through the mostly empty tables like a wayward drunk.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

Evy came around
the counter and pushed past her, bursting through the swinging door and
spilling into Sugars’ brightly lit kitchen.

Ben sat at the
silver table in the middle of the room, munching on a cupcake while sculpting a
cake into a red high heel. Chocolate frosting clung to the tip of his nose and
the outside of a nearby glass of chocolate milk. He turned to Evy and stopped
chewing, his worn out trucker’s hat shading his wrinkled brow. “Are you okay?”
he asked, lowering the half eaten cupcake.