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And since her heart wasn’t caught up in him anymore, it wouldn’t hurt.
Right?
It was Saturday afternoon when a text finally showed up from Blake. It came from an unknown number, but as soon as she read the text, it was clear it was from him.
Hey Charli. This is Blake. Would now be a good time to text or call?
While she contemplated how to answer that, Charli put his info into her contacts. She preferred texts from pretty much everyone. However, a call would probably be easier than trying to type everything out.
We can call.
Almost immediately, her phone rang. Taking a deep breath, Charli answered it, bracing herself for the sound of Blake’s voice. They’d spent a lot of time on phone calls back in the day since they’d been trying to keep their relationship on the down low, so she’d gotten used to hearing his voice over the phone.
“How are you doing?” Blake asked when she answered.
“I’m doing okay. How about you?”
“I’m fine. I would have contacted you sooner, but I needed to get Amelia settled with something distracting.”
Charli thought of Layla playing games with Janessa and Will in the kitchen and wondered if Blake ever had a break or if he was always around Amelia when he wasn’t at work.
“That’s fine.”
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, so I’ll get right to the point,” Blake said. “Am I right in assuming that you never told your family about us?”
“That would be correct. There wasn’t any reason to after things ended. Plus, it would have been awkward because of your relationship with Jackson. No one had suspected anything, so I just left it and moved on.”
“I’m sorry again for how things ended.”
“That was a long time ago,” she said, though it actually felt closer than ever.
“Is Layla mine?”
The unexpected question hit Charli in the gut, robbing her of breath for a moment, but she managed to pull herself together enough to say, “Why would you think that? We were only together once.”
Though she’d rehearsed for the possibility of this conversation, now that it was there, fear filled her heart. She couldn’t let him hear how his question had twisted her up inside. Protecting her secret was the most important thing in that moment, so she needed to pull herself together and hold a normal conversation with Blake in response to his question.
“True, but it only takes one time.”
“However, I was on birth control. I told you that.”
She didn’t want to outright lie and say no to him, so she gave him all the reasonings she’d given herself when she’d first realized she was pregnant. Once she’d accepted that Blake had disappeared, he’d ceased to be Layla’s father in her mind. She’d needed to squash the memory of his involvement in her life in order to survive.
Layla was hers and hers alone.
Even as she thought that, Charli felt a tug of conviction in her heart. She was lying to Blake. She might not have lied outright, but she was definitely leading him to believe a lie.
It was wrong, but it was for a good reason. Though she could see Blake was a good dad to Amelia, she still wasn’t sure about sharing parenting responsibilities with him. She needed to be sure that he really was putting down deep roots in Serenity. And even then…
“Anyway, like I said, there was no reason to tell my siblings what had gone on between us,” Charli said, anxious to drag the conversation focus off Layla.
“So that’s why they think matching us up now is a good idea?”
“I guess. They’ve tried to set me up a few times in the past, but now that they’ve found love in their own lives, they seem even more determined for each of us to experience it.”
There was a moment of silence before Blake said, “How do you want me to handle this situation?”
And wasn’t that the question?
