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ADDISON
Am I a coward? Absolutely. This day has been a whirlwind of awkwardness from the moment I opened my eyes, but the icing on the metaphorical freaking cake would be having to meet Chase’s parents.
I mean, what was he supposed to say?
Who’s this, you ask? Oh, this is my vacation girlfriend. She’s just in town to wreck my entire world with her out-of-wedlock baby.
Eh, no thanks.
So before either one of us could be put in that predicament, I hightailed it out of there. Right up the long staircase and into the first room I came across.
Now, I’m standing with my back against the door, face to face with an amused Emily and a confused Willow.
“This isn’t the bathroom,” I joke lamely, heart racing while I take in the room around me. A queen-size bed takes up most of the space, with a nightstand on each side and a dresser on the opposite wall. A TV hangs above it, with what looks like a muted sitcom with teenage girls on the screen, and the walls are a dark maroon.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Willow comments, “but everyone is definitely acting weird.”
Emily laughs around a black hair tie hanging from her lips. Willow is sitting in front of her legs, her head tilted back to give her mother better access to braid her hair, but it swivels as she looks my way.
“The bathroom is across the hall—one more door down,” Willow says, pointing her thumb over her shoulder to indicate the direction I should have taken, then allowing Emily to pull her head back into place.
“Thank you,” I say with a quick nod.
She’s a cute kid, a pint-sized replica of her mother, with matching blonde hair and blue eyes. She looks to be every bit the character that Drake and Chase described her as, with an infectious smile and a face that twinkles with mischief and innocence. It’s odd to look at her and see her for the first time as Chase’s daughter, an entire human being whose life has been so heavily influenced by him.
Emily makes quick work finishing up Willow’s braid, then pats her arm.“All right, time to go. You don’t want to keep Nana and Pops waiting.”
Willow turns and kisses her mother’s cheek, then jumps off the bed.“Bye, Addison,” she says before bounding into the hallway. Her feet pound loudly against the stairs as she rushes down them.
“Avoiding his parents, huh?” Emily asks. “I heard the doorbell.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “This day has already been... a lot.”
She nods and stands from her bed, inch by careful inch. God, she looks so tired. It’s as if Willow took all of Emily’s energy with her when she left the room. The woman deflated immediately—her shoulders slumping, her smile sliding off her face.
“You don’t have to worry, you know. He’ll do the right thing. Chase always does the right thing.”
“I’m not even sure what that is at this point,” I tell her honestly.
I know her words are meant to comfort me, but they don’t. Chase already has a family. A wife and a child. I don’t know where I fit into all that, but the idea of being part of his life for the sole reason that it’s the right thing to do doesn’t give me the warm and tinglies inside.
I feel like an outsider, stepping into territory that isn’t mine to be in.
During our conversation this morning, she made it clear that her presence in Chase’s life shouldn’t keep me from finding where I fit into it, but that didn’t make things any clearer on where we’re all supposed to go from here.
“You’ll figure it out,” she says with a shrug.
And I believe her—because what other choice do I have? No matter where our relationships lie, this baby will be here in six months, and when that time comes, we all need to have our shit together.
“Addison?” Chase calls from the hallway.
“Time to face the music,” Emily says, shooing me out of the room with a tired smile. The corners of her mouth barely lift, and she looks like she’ll fall asleep the second her head hits the pillow.
“Hey,” she says softly, stopping me as I turn to leave. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out.”
We. It’s odd feeling like I have someone to share the burden with, even stranger how we’ve come to be thrown together in this predicament, but I say nothing as I shut the door behind me, coming face to face with Chase.
He nods in the direction of the staircase, and I follow him down in silence.
