Chapter Thirty
Trey
I enter the building of my wife’s former pimp. Technically, this should bother me. But I am wrecked, and all I can think about are those green eyes.
Scratch that.
There are other thoughts invading my brain now, too, smashing into each other like mad bumper cars. Like the fact that Teddy is about two and a half, and the math adds up. Like the fact that she let me f*ck her free-range, telling me she was on the pill. Like the fact that she said her husband never had sex with her. Like her saying Teddy is artistic, too, because that’s what Sloan and I talked about—sex and art, art and sex. She was the only one I remotely felt a thing for. She was a painter, and we had that connection, and we talked about creating.
What if we created a kid?
How f*cking irresponsible can I be? Knocking up women, left and right. I deserve a million scars. I should be locked up. I need to put my dick in jail.
When I reach the second floor, Harley is holding open the door. She lets it fall shut behind her, so we’re standing in the hallway outside Cam’s home.
This is more surreal than a Dali. But then, that’s my life these days. This month. This year.
She reaches for me, brushes a hand through my hair. Her touch is so soft, so sweet, and I don’t deserve it.
“What’s going on?” she asks, and I can hear the potholes in her voice. They match mine.
I lean against the wall, bang the back of my head against it twice, three times. “I ran into this chick I used to . . .” I let my voice trail off. She knows what I mean, and she grimaces. “I saw her in the lobby with her—” I stop talking, and it’s as if I’m being cut by words. They are slicing my throat, turning me mute.
Then she gasps. “Oh my god. The kid with the green eyes.”
My jaw drops. “You saw him?”
“Before we went to San Diego. When we were having dinner with your parents and I lost my earring in the lobby. Oh my god. He has eyes just like you,” she says, and her face turns pale.
I hold my hands out wide. “I know,” I say, the desperation coating my voice. “And Sloan, she made these comments that made it seem like he was my kid. What the f*ck am I supposed to do? I’ve finally started feeling like I’m ready to be a father to our baby, and then this. What the hell? What if I have a kid already that I didn’t know about? And shouldn’t I be here, trying to help raise him or something?”
“Slow down, Trey. Just slow down. Did you talk to her? Did you ask her?”
“No,” I say as if that’s a crazy idea. “I just ran into her. How was I supposed to ask her?”
“I don’t know, but even if he has your eyes and looks like you, you still need to just ask her.”
“And then what?”
“And then, deal with it then,” she says, parking her hands on her hips. She no longer looks white as a sheet. She no longer seems scared. She is so strong, and I want to siphon off just one-tenth of her courage.
“But what if I’m going to be a terrible father?”
She shoots me a sharp-eyed stare. “You’re not. You’re going to be a great father. But Trey, you don’t even know if this kid is yours, and we’re standing around conjecturing, and it’s kind of ridiculous. You need to man up, and go talk to Sloan.”
I cringe when she says her name. Because I hate that Harley even knows the name of someone I used to sleep with—as if all my shame has been dug up with a shovel and tossed in front of me. “Fine. I’ll go there tomorrow.”
She juts her chin out at me. “Tomorrow? She just went into her apartment tonight. It’s eight-thirty, and she has a two-year-old. She’s home now. You go take care of this now,” she says pointing wildly to the street, making it clear I need to get my shit straightened out.
“But what if . . .”
“What if what?” She stares hard at me. “I don’t want to play ‘what if’ games. I want you to find out, and then we’ll deal with it.”
I let out a breath I barely realized I was holding. “We’ll deal with. Together, right?”
She smiles once, and shakes her head. “I’m married to you now. Yes, together. Didn’t you once tell me there’s nothing on this planet we cannot get through?”
“Yeah, when you were worried about your memoirs after I redid your ink.”
“Well, I’m taking care of my memoirs now.”
“You are?”
“I have a plan,” she says, and then holds up her index and middle fingers, crossing them as she tells me her idea, and it’s daring.
“That’s ballsy.”
“I hope it works,” she says, a touch of nerves invading her bravado.
“It will,” I say, giving her the confidence I wish I felt in myself.
“You go take care of your stuff, and you call me later.”
* * *
This time I don’t stand frozen by the elevator. I walk purposefully down the hall to her door. I shut off my brain. I tie up my heart. And I stuff any fear down the garbage chute.
I raise my fist to knock.
Ten seconds later, I can hear someone sliding the chain, unbolting the door, and opening it.
Sloan answers, with her brown hair piled high on her head in a twist, a slouchy sweater revealing a bare shoulder, and a glass of red wine in her hand.
Music plays softly from inside her plush apartment, and I think it’s Sade’s Never As Good as The First Time. Talk about the lion’s den. More like an alligator pit.
“Trey, how are you? Do you want to come in?”
“Yes, please,” I say.
She opens the door all the way, and I cross the threshold into her home. It’s entirely different from when I used to visit her after school. Back then, her place was stark and sleek, with chrome bar stools lining the kitchen counter, and gray couches with sharp edges. Now, the masculine hardness is gone, and it’s all soft femininity—vases of fresh flowers line the table, the couch is a lush cranberry color, candles are lit, and artwork hangs on the walls.
“Teddy’s asleep. Can I offer you a glass of wine?”
“No, thank you,” I say, and it’s the first time she’s ever offered me alcohol. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since I’ve been old enough to drink. She sits on her soft couch, and folds up her long legs under her.
I follow her into the living room, but don’t join her on the couch. I shift back and forth on my feet, glancing around. “So, um, do you live alone now?”
“Just Teddy and me,” she says. “And it’s wonderful.”
“Cool,” I say, and my palms are sweaty so I rub them against my jeans.
“Why don’t you sit?” She gestures to the open space on the couch next to her. I sink down on the end by the armrest, as far away from her as I can be.
“So, how are you?” I ask, wishing there were a simple way to ask the question I’m here for.
“I’m great. I have a show at the Hager Gallery in a month for some of my paintings, so I’ve been busy prepping for that. As well as getting settled back into the apartment,” she says, gesturing broadly around her home.
I swallow. My throat is so damn dry, I almost wish I took her up on her offer for wine. “You said you just moved back in the building,” I say, repeating what she told me in the elevator simply to get the conversation started.
She nods, and then runs her long, manicured fingernails through her hair, the strands falling through her fingers. “Yes, I divorced my husband shortly after you and I were involved,” she says. Talk about cutting through the bullshit. But then, Sloan was always direct. Like the day three years ago when she told me bluntly that she wanted me, and within an hour we were tangled up in her sheets. “But I moved out for a while there, when we were in court. We recently settled and I got the apartment, so I moved back in.”
“That’s great.”
“Well, as they always say, at least I got the house. And it’s fantastic to be in this location, since Teddy has so many friends around here, and we spend all our time in this area of town.”
“You didn’t have a kid when I knew you. You enjoying being a mom?” I ask, hoping, praying that I can get to the heart of the matter soon, but at least we’re circling the topic.
“I love it,” she says, as if each word tastes delicious. “We do Mommy and Me art classes, and we go to the playground, and I take him to museums.”
“You said his father was artistic.”
“Oh yes. Very much so.”
Her ex-husband was a hedge fund manager, and that knowledge makes my heart speed. “And does he see Teddy much?”
She laughs. “Oh, god no. Not at all.”
Shit. Now it’s about to spring out of my chest. “Mr. McKay is never around?” I ask, as if I can elicit a different answer if I ask a different way.
She shoots me a curious look, as if my question has thrown her. “But that’s how it was when we were together, Trey. Don’t you remember?”
She rests her arm on the back of the couch, inching nearer to me. Holy shit. She’s the same f*cking Sloan. Such a seductress.
“My husband never wanted to be with me,” she continues. “He was all about money. He wanted more of it in life. More money. But I wanted art, and I wanted passion. You gave that to me. I needed it so badly,” she says, and there’s desperation in her voice, but sexiness, too. Desperately sexy—that’s Sloan. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”
I part my lips, but don’t speak.
“Great times, actually,” she says, and then closes her eyes, and sighs deeply, like she’s taking a trip down naughty memory lane in her head. She opens her eyes, and leans forward. “You were the best sex of my life, Trey. And you were only eighteen. But my god, you made me feel extraordinary. You made me feel beautiful and passionate and alive,” she says, and she runs her hands down her sides, like her whole body is lighting up with the memories of our sex, and I’m going to need to leave so f*cking soon. Not because I want her, because I don’t. But because I shouldn’t even be hearing this. “You pretty much ruined me for other men. Don’t you know that?”
I sink back into the cushions, trying to angle away from her, for distance, for sanity. Then I say f*ck it. I need to rip off this goddamn Band-Aid. “Shit, Sloan, I gotta ask. Is he mine? Is Teddy mine? I mean, his eyes, and the timing, and everything.”
The whole apartment turns hazy, as if the walls and the floor have entered a slow-motion zone, and the seconds after my question have made landfall stretch on for hours, like an endless road at night. Sloan’s face is inscrutable. Then she opens her mouth, her bright white teeth gleaming. She throws her head back and laughs. “No. No. Is that what you thought? Is that why you’re here?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say, and relief washes over me. I swear I can feel it spreading in my body, like warmth from a fireplace.
“Teddy’s father is a sperm donor,” she says in a clear and determined voice. “And the reason he looks like you is you were my template.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
That’s the strangest thing I have ever heard.
She nods. “Like I said, you made me feel things. You made me feel beautiful and passionate. And those were the things I’d been missing in my life with my husband, so after we divorced and I wanted a child, I went to a sperm bank. And I found someone who was artistic, who was tall, who had gorgeous green eyes.”
I scrub a hand across my jaw, let out a long stream of air. I shake my head once more, as if the strangeness will go away.
Go away.
Like me.
I stand up, and it’s easy, so easy, to extend a hand to shake. To thank her for her time. To say goodbye. To let the past be in the past.
“I hope you and Teddy have a great life,” I say, and I leave.
Harley trusts me. I need to start trusting myself more.
Because I can do this. I can be a husband, I can be a father, I can be the man Harley needs me to be. I’m not that guy anymore, who used to screw cougars for kicks. I’m Harley’s, and I need to be with her.
I go home and spend the night with my wife.