Chapter 29

29

28 years old - Lily

W e ride the elevator in silence, both typing on our phones, afraid to make any contact while a couple is in here with us. Nick is sending his dad more pictures that he took today, and I am replying to Bryce's follow-up text from our call. The light above the door turns green, and the elevator comes to a halt. Nick leads the way down the hall until we stop at room 921.

"This is me," he says as he taps his card in front of the reader below the doorknob. The room is spacious. It's crazy to think that we were teenagers once, at our parents' mercy for everything. Now we are at an age where we can buy alcohol without needing a fake ID and afford hotel rooms.

How many girls has Nick taken into a hotel room before? Seeing the way he looks now, probably a boatload. Women love men like him.

"Can I ask you another question?" he asks while offering me one of the water bottles on the table. "It's the last one, I promise." I sit on the swivel chair and nod. "Where is he now?" You can almost miss the anger underneath his question, but his eyes give him away. Nick always looks away while he says the last two words of his sentence when he's angry but trying to hide it, not wanting to make eye contact with whomever it is he is talking to.

"He died," I answer, getting right to the point. Nick's mouth opens, but he says nothing, waiting for me to elaborate. "Shortly after everything happened, someone went to the police to report him. Apparently, he was in a fight and severely injured another person. He disappeared for a while after that. Bryce heard from one of his friends that Logan died of an overdose."

"Jesus," Nick blurts out. He runs a hand through his hair and heads toward the minibar, only to walk back in my direction and grab the other water bottle on the desk.

"You can drink something stronger than water, Nick. It's fine." Smiling sheepishly, he grabs a beer out of the minibar. Nick approaches me, perching himself on the edge of the desk. We both look at one another in silence as he takes a gulp. "It was fucking dumb when I didn't tell you I was pregnant with his baby and ran away instead. I'm sorry."

Nick's body tenses up, and he just looks at me with uncertainty. "I really wish you would have. Why did you run away, anyway?"

A pained laugh escapes my lips as I pick on my skin. "More like kicked out," I confess. "My mom gave me a choice when she found out. Either lie to you that the baby was yours or ask Logan's family to take care of me and the baby. She didn't like it when I didn't choose. After that, I don't know. I guess I was embarrassed to show my face in town."

A scoff comes out of his mouth. "Astrid. The gift that keeps on giving."

"I'm sorry, Nick."

"This must be, what? Your tenth apology of the day? Stop apologizing." When I don't say anything, Nick continues to speak. "I probably would have stayed," he says calmly, his eyes staring at the painting on the other side of the room. "You thought I was going to dump you, didn't you?"

"I did," I say, my voice breaking. "It would have ruined your life if you stayed."

Nick kneels in front of me and takes my hand in his. I have never seen him cry before, even when we were children. I've seen him fall down from his bike and heard him get yelled at by his parents countless times, but I have never seen him shed a single tear. Nick was never the crying type. I wipe his tears away with my hand as he looks at me with desperate eyes. "Did you want me to? If you had told me, and I had told you that I still wanted you, would you have stayed?"

"Nick," I say in a bittersweet tone. "Look at you now. You've grown up to be an amazing person. It's not that you weren't amazing before, but you have done so much over the years. Bryce tells me you've worked hard for your career. If you had stayed with me, you would've just wasted your life away."

For a minute, it seems like he is going to argue with me, but then he lets out a long breath. "What about now?" he asks. "Now that you've told me everything, if I tell you I still want you, would you let me?" I see it in the way his body is pleading with me, in the way he breathes, that this night is about to turn into something else. Or maybe it's just the emotions. Maybe we're just confused.

He brushes his lips gently against mine, and I let him. I can't promise him anything, but being with Nick like this feels like I'm getting a part of my old self back again.

"You don't know how much I've missed you, Lil," he says into my mouth. With each word, he expels air that sends tingles down my spine and I don't know whether they are the good or bad kind yet. He holds me like he's afraid I will disappear if he lets go. I return it with the same intensity, ignoring the alarm bells going off inside my head. Just for tonight.

Somehow, we end up on the bed and he lays my head down on the pillow before diving straight back into my mouth again with longing. I hope he won't notice how awkward my movements are . Nick groans but stops when he feels my body tense up. I look up to see him on top of me, his hair messy and the lust has now been replaced with concern.

"Lily, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing," I whisper, the tears pooling on top of my lower lash line betraying me.

He tucks in a strand behind my ear, trying to figure me out. "Be honest with me. I thought you got rid of that bad habit of yours. What's wrong?"

"I'm scared of how you're going to react if I tell you," I admit.

"Try me," he says. He gives me a soft peck on the lips before pulling himself up to sit down on the bed, giving me his full attention.

"I haven't been intimate with anyone."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought it was the pregnancy, but after Birdie was old enough to go to daycare, Bryce set me up with a bunch of his friends from his master's program. I went on a couple of dates over the years, and, well, I never quite succeeded in...breaking my dry spell. The last time I had sex was umm, with you. Ten years ago."

An expression fills his face that can only be described as terror, tinged with shame, with pity thrown in there for good measure. "Fuck, you should have told me, Lily."