Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Connor

G od, I was such a prick.

I knew the instant I drove away from Ivy's house I was making a mistake, but after she told me she had no problem raising the baby— my baby—without me, how she didn't expect anything from me, not even the most basic fucking support, I hadn't been able to pull in a full breath. I had to get out of there before I did or said something I would have ended up regretting, all because she'd taken my pride and stuffed it into a goddamn woodchipper.

I had every intention of going back. I had to. There was too much on the line, too much at stake for me to take off again. I needed to get my head together first. So I went to the only place where I knew I'd be able to do that.

I lost track of time, the dark sky outside the barn giving nothing away as to how late it was, while I worked my way through all the stalls, mucking each and every one by myself and tossing down new straw until the muscles in my back and arms felt like they were on fire.

Once I cleaned every stall, I pushed a cart of hay along the alleyway, dropping a flake in each horse's feeding bucket. The familiar smells of the big animals and the hay and earth—hell, even the manure—helped to soothe the dull throb in the center of my chest, but it didn't get rid of it completely.

That was how Zach found me, sweat drenching through my shirt and slicking back my hair as I worked like a man possessed, just me and the companionable silence of the animals around me. "Jesus, man. How long have you been out here?"

I braced one hand on my hip and wiped at the sweat slicked across my forehead with the back of my wrist. "I'm not sure," I answered honestly. "What time is it?"

His eyes widened, his brows inching toward his hairline. "Just after two in the mornin'." His answer took me aback. I hadn't realized how long I'd been lost in my own head until then. Now that he mentioned it, I could see the puffiness of his eyes and his disheveled hair, telling me he'd been asleep until very recently.

"Sorry, man. I needed to clear my head and this was the only place I felt like I could do that."

He moved closer. The anger that had been etched into the planes of his face the last time I saw him were gone, replaced with concern. "It's all good." The last time we spoke, he'd been ready to knock my teeth out for screwing around with Ivy, so it surprised me when he walked over and clapped a hand on my shoulder. "I know what you need. Come with me."

I followed him through the barn and down a long hallway at the back that led to Rae's office. He waved me to the couch pushed up against the back wall and headed for the mini fridge in the corner. He opened it and pulled out two beers, uncapping both and handing one to me before taking a drink from his own bottle.

I took the bottle, clutching it in my hands and letting the cold seep into my palms. "How'd you know I was here?"

He lowered his beer bottle and swallowed. "Ivy called Rae. She knew it was late but said the two of you got into a fight and you left her place upset. She was really worried."

"Fuck," I hissed, leaning forward and scrubbing at the top of my head. "I'm such a dick."

"Way she explained it, she made it sound like she had an equal part in whatever went down. You're an asshole, but I'm sure it's not anything you can't fix." He shot me a wink to let me know he was teasing. "Sometimes the best thing to do during a fight is get a little space in order to gain perspective. She wasn't sure where you would have gone, only that you said you needed to go for a drive. I made an educated guess and decided to check out here. It's all good. I shot a text to the girls to let them know I found you."

"So you aren't still pissed at me?" I asked before I took a swig of beer. The icy cold liquid felt refreshing as it slid down my parched throat.

He barked out a laugh. "Oh, no. I'm still pissed." One corner of his mouth hooked up in a smirk. "But seein' you like this..." He waved a hand in front of me. "I feel like I'd be kickin' a man when he's already down."

I snorted out a laugh. "Thanks a lot, shithead."

He grabbed the back of the chair in front of Rae's desk and spun it around so it was facing me before plopping down in it and kicking his legs out straight in front of him, crossing one booted ankle over the other. "So, you want to tell me what's got you so worked up that you're in my barn in the middle of the night scrubbin' out horse stalls so well you can practically eat off the floors? Not that I'm complainin'. You saved my ass at least half a day's work."

I braced my forearms on my knees with a weary sigh, my shoulders feeling heavy as the weight of everything sank down on top of me. "Ivy's pregnant."

Zach proceeded to choke on the drink he'd taken, spitting beer across Rae's office and hacking up a lung. "What?" he croaked, his eyes watering.

I lifted my head and met his gaze. "She's pregnant. It wasn't a stomach virus. It was a baby."

He collapsed back in his chair, his expression properly gobsmacked. "Fuckin' hell. I knew you'd been crashin' outside her house the past couple days, but I thought you were just worried 'cause she's been sick. I didn't realize—Jesus."

"Yep." I popped the P loudly and took another healthy pull from my bottle.

"And I assume it's yours?"

I nodded. That was a question I hadn't needed to ask. I knew the truth of that in my bones just like I knew the type of person Ivy was, and there wasn't a doubt in my mind that the baby she was carrying was mine.

"And that's why you're here? Because you're freaking out."

I stared down at the amber glass in my hands as I picked at the label with my thumbnail. "Yeah, but not how you're thinkin'." I sat back, shaking my head and rubbing absent-mindedly at my messed-up knee. "Don't get me wrong, I'm fuckin' terrified. I mean, what the hell do I know about raisin' a baby? One moment my life is going in this direction, and the next I'm suddenly going to be responsible for keeping this tiny human being alive." I shook my head at the irony of it all. "But when I'm not scared out of my mind, I'm actually a little excited. And if this had to happen with anyone, I'm glad it's with her."

I couldn't imagine doing this with anyone else, of wanting it with anyone else. When she told me earlier that she wanted to keep the baby, I hadn't expected the level of relief I felt. Because the fact was, I wanted it too. And I wanted it with Ivy.

"So . . . what's the problem?"

"The problem is I'm not so sure she feels the same way about me." Just remembering back to everything she said was like having a knife shoved into my gut and the blade twisted violently. "Today was the first time she's been ready to talk about this since we found out, and the first goddamn thing she said to me was that she could raise this baby on her own. She said she didn't expect anything from me and was fine doing all this without me."

"Christ," he breathed, hissing out a breath between his teeth. "That's really rough, man. I'm sorry."

"Thanks." I roughed my palm over the stubble on my jaw that had grown thicker the past couple days. When you were basically living out of your truck, there wasn't really a proper place to shave. Since I'd been camped out in her driveway, not wanting to venture too far in case she needed something, I'd been living off fast food, to-go coffee, and functioning on shitty sleep—when I managed to doze off, that was. Most of the time I just lay awake, trying to think of ways to make this right for Ivy.

"I don't know what the fuck to do, man. I don't know how to make her trust me. Or that I even deserve it." Every time I thought of how badly I'd made a mess of everything, it felt like another weight was added to my chest. "I really fucked things up."

"Look, an accidental pregnancy isn't the end of the world."

"No. Not that. I..." I had a feeling Zach wouldn't care about kicking a man when he was down after I told him the full story of what happened between Ivy and me, but I needed to put it out there. It felt like saying it out loud to someone else might be the first step to fix it.

"The night of your wedding wasn't the first time Ivy and I slept together," I started. Then I told him about the months I'd spent getting to know her, getting to like her. The months where I inevitably fell for the woman despite denying it to myself. Then I confessed what I did after I took her to bed. By the time I finished the muscle in Zach's jaw was so damn tight I was sure he'd cracked at least one tooth.

" Fuck ," he barked out after a few seconds of silence. "Brother, you have no idea how badly I want to punch you in the goddamn face right now."

I arched a brow in his direction. "You think it would make you feel better?" I wasn't a fan of getting hit—that had never been a kink of mine—but I had a strange feeling having him punch me might make me feel better as well. Kind of like a penance, or act of contrition. "If you think it'll help, go for— goddamn it !"

My head snapped back with the force of his jab. Stars burst before my eyes and blood instantly gushed from my nose. " Fuck , that hurt."

Zach straightened up, shaking out his hand as I pinched the bridge of my nose and tilted my head back. "Feel better?"

"I do, actually." He rounded the desk and searched around for a second before returning with a box of tissues, tossing it in my lap before resuming his seat. "And don't be such a baby. I pulled that punch so I wouldn't break your nose. You'll be just fine."

I couldn't stop the chuckle that worked its way up my throat. Shaking my head, I stuffed the tissue into my nostril to staunch the bleeding. With one raised brow, I asked, "We good now?"

He nodded. "We're good. So what are you gonna do about all this shit with Ivy?"

"Christ, I don't know," I grunted. "If it was as easy as letting her punch me in the face to fix this, I'd gladly take another hit, but something tells me that won't be nearly enough." I tossed the bloody tissue into the trash basket beside the couch and lifted the beer bottle to my face, pressing the cold glass against my skin to help with the swelling. "What do you think I should do?"

He drank his beer, mulling my question over. "Well, I guess you can start by asking yourself what it is you want."

A few months back, the answer to that question wouldn't have been that easy. My head was too twisted see what I'd had right in front of me. I let the shit with Amber and Dusty and that fuckface Vance fuck with me for too damn long. Now that I'd managed to pull my head out of my ass, the answer was as simple as breathing.

"Her," I said, the answer immediate and resolute. "I want her." And the baby we'd made together without even realizing.

He shrugged casually, saying, "Then you fight for her, brother."

"You make it sound so easy," I grumbled around the mouth of my beer bottle.

"Oh, it's not gonna be easy at all." He chuckled, giving his head a shake. "It'll be hard as hell. But if you're serious about her, it's what you have to do. You fight, and you don't stop fighting. Not for a single second. You do everything it takes, pull out all the stops to prove she can trust you, to make her believe you're in to the very end."

I could do that. I could fight. If I was stubborn enough to hold on to a pissed-off bull dead set on stomping me to death night after night, I could be stubborn enough to see this through.

"You really think that'll work?"

"I don't have a fuckin' clue whether or not it'll work." He let out a laugh. "That's her call, man. But if it's any consolation, I'll be rooting for you. Silently, of course, and from a distance. Just in case it doesn't work and she decides to keep hating you. Publicly, I'll be on her side. It's safer that way. Can't let Rae get wind that I don't have her girl's back, you understand."

Fuckin' hell .