“Hmm, I wonder where I’ve heard that phrase before?” she teases and I just shrug.

“A very wise woman said it, I believe.”

“Very wise indeed,” she laughs, rolling her eyes and clinking her glass to mine. “And being as I am that woman, may I offer you another tidbit of advice?”

“A Haddie-ism?”

“Yes, a Haddie-ism. I like that term.” She nods her head in approval as she takes another sip of her drink and smiles again at the guy across the bar. “I asked you once before if you thought Colton was worth it … and now that you have more time invested in it, do you still feel that way? Do you see the possibility of a future with him?”

“I love him, Had.” The answer is off of my tongue in a split second. No hesitation, no doubt, complete conviction.

She stares at me a second and I can tell that beneath the surface she is gauging my reaction, trying to figure out the whole picture and a little surprised at my all in response. “Do you love him because he’s the first guy since Max or because he’s the one you choose? Not because you want to fix him, because we both know you like the damaged souls, but because you choose the him he is now and the him he’ll be five years from now?”

I don’t answer her, not because I don’t know the answer, but because I can’t form the words over the lump that’s strangling them in my throat. And she can see my answer, knows the person I am enough to know how I feel.

“And if the baby is his?”

I find my voice. “Geez … you’re really hitting with the hard questions tonight. I thought tonight was supposed to be thinking about absofuckinglutely nothing? I thought there was a Haddie-ism in here somewhere?” And it’s not like I haven’t asked myself these questions, but hearing her say them makes it all seem so real.

Because sometimes baggage can be a powerful thing and love just isn’t enough to overcome it.

“I’m getting there,” she says, pushing my drink toward me. “But this is important because my bestie is hurting so take a drink and answer the question.”

I take a sip and can’t fight my resigned smile. “It’s not if the baby’s his that’s the problem … it’s his reaction that scares me.” And for the first time, I’m actually admitting aloud what I fear the most. “What if he is the father and he can’t handle it? How can I love a man that can’t love his own child regardless of who the mother is? Writing a check to buy her off and acting as if a child doesn’t exist? What if that’s the option he chooses? How could I spend the night in the bed of a man who writes his own child off and then go to work in a houseful of boys who had the very same thing happened to them? What kind of hypocrite would that make me?”

And there. It’s out there. My biggest fear, I’m in love with a man that will walk away from his own child. That I’ll have to walk away from the man I love because he can’t face his own demons, can’t accept the fact that he can be the man his child would need him to be. Compromising choices, preferences, and wants to be in a relationship are one thing, compromising who you are—the things ingrained in you, your beliefs, and your morals—are non-negotiable.

I sigh and just shake my head. “What happens then, Haddie? What if that’s the choice he makes?”

“Well...” she reaches out and squeezes my hand “...there are no answers yet so it’s a moot point right now. Secondly, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt … he was shocked, upset, pissed off the other day when she blindsided him … but he’s a good person. Look how he is with the boys.”

“I know, but you weren’t there. You didn’t see how he reacted when—”

“You know what I say?” she says, cutting me off and raising the two shots of tequila that have been sitting untouched on the bar in front of us. I look at her, trying to figure out why all of a sudden she wants to toast mid-heart to heart talk, but I raise my shot glass. “I say, never look down on a man unless he’s between your legs.”

I choke on the simple breath of air I’m drawing in. I should be used to her by now, I really should, but she continually surprises me and makes me love her that much more. When I stop laughing I look up at her. “One for luck …”

“And one for courage,” she finishes as we toss the alcohol back.

I welcome the burn, welcome the here and now with my best friend, and when I wrap my head around what the hell she’s just said, I look over at her out of the corner of my eye. “Unless he’s between your legs, huh? Is that an old family adage? One passed down from generation to generation?”

“Yep,” she says, twisting her lips, fighting the smile I know that’s coming. “Never disturb a man when he’s eating at the Y.”

“Haddie,” I laugh. “Seriously?”

“I can keep going all night long, sister!” She clinks her glass with mine again, my cheeks hurting from smiling so hard. “And here’s another one. When your best friend is sad? It’s your job to get her shitfaced and go dancing.”

“Well,” I say, sliding off of the barstool and taking a minute to let the room stop spinning, “I think that’s a fucking perfect idea!”

Haddie squares up our tab and calls for a cab as we clumsily walk to the front door. And I talk myself out of making her take me to Colton’s house because right now, I just really want Colton—in the best way, in the worst way—in all ways.

“C’mon, we’re good to go. Three hours in a bar is way too long,” she says as she puts her arm around me and helps me walk respectably to the exit.

And as we clear the bar’s door, the darkened night sky explodes into an electrifying barrage of blinding camera flashes and shouts.

“How does it feel being known as the home wrecker?”

“Don’t you have any remorse coming between Colton and Tawny?”

“Isn’t it hypocritical that you tried to make Colton abandon his baby when that’s what you do for a living?”

And they keep coming at me. One after another after another. I feel trapped as Haddie tries to guide me through the congestion of cameras and microphones and flashes and contempt.

I guess the press has found me.

Colton

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I fight the urge to smash something. That urge driving my every fucking emotion, the one that makes me crave the sound of destruction. The sound of my fucking life imploding.

My mind pushes out the images flashing through it from the past couple of days.

Blood draws and DNA markers and goddamn paternity tests.

Tawny and her bullshit lies and crocodile tears the fucking vultures are eating up like fresh meat.

Visiting with Jack and Jim and getting so sick of looking at my life through the bottom of an empty glass, I just choose to drink straight from the goddamn bottle.

And then there is Rylee.

Motherfucking Rylee.

Little pieces of her everywhere. Sheets that still smell like her. A ponytail holder on the bathroom counter. The cans of her beloved Diet Coke lined perfectly in the refrigerator. Her Kindle on the nightstand. The strands of her hair on my shirt. Evidence that her perfection exists. Evidence that something so good—so pure—actually can want someone like me—tainted and fucked up with a capital F.

I want, need, hate that I want, hate that I need her so fucking bad, but I can’t do it. I can’t pull her into this fucking rainstorm of bullshit surrounding me, don’t want her to deal with the fucked up me that even I hate until I can wrap my head around everything. Until I can control the emotions that are ruling my actions.

Until I get a negative on the DNA match.

My mom was fucking right. Fucking right and she only knew me for eight of my thirty two years … if that doesn’t say something, I’m not sure what else does. I can’t be loved. If someone loves me—if I let someone in too much—my own demons will start in on them too. Work their way through the cracks in me and find a way to ruin them.