Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 113130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Forget the fact I haven’t been intimate with her, or even kissed her, for that matter. I’ve not called her, or even asked her to come over, she just simply shows up. It’s blatantly clear she isn’t the one for me. It’s also blatantly clear I’m not the one for her, and no matter what I say, she isn’t getting the message. It’s time to pull on my big-boy pants and just come right out and say it. She’ll be hurt now for sure but she’ll get over it in time and, who knows, maybe she is going to thank me.
I shake my head, knowing she is definitely not going to thank me, instead she’s going to literally want to burn my house down with me in it. “You have no choice,” I mumble to myself, “or else she’ll never stop coming by.”
I put the chicken in the oven before turning and deciding to make myself a protein shake while I wait for it to be done. I’m gathering all the items I need to do this when the doorbell rings. I walk out and head toward the door, only seeing the silhouette of a person standing there. I pull open the door, and never in my wildest dreams do I expect it to be her. Her back is to me, but when she turns around and I see her face, I can’t help but smile when I see her looking at me. “Ariella!”
eight
Ariella
I walk toward his white door, not sure what I’m thinking, but for the last week my head has been all over the place. I think I’ve gone through every single emotion that you can possibly go through. I have nothing to compare it to, but, in that moment, I felt like the world was crashing all around me. Finding out I was pregnant was one thing, but then it was like, wait a second. Not only am I pregnant, but I’m pregnant with Jaxon’s baby and it was a whole different emotion. It took me a week to come to terms with flying out here and telling him. Something I almost chickened out of doing by being the last one to board the plane. Fuck, even arriving yesterday and going to the hotel, I kept having to remind myself this isn’t news one hears on the phone.
In all honesty, how do you break the news to someone you had literally one night with that you are having their child? It’s actually insane. I press the doorbell before I can chicken out, and the minute I do, I feel like I’m going to yack all over the place. I turn around, looking at the car I parked next to and then suddenly wonder if I should maybe have called him before I just showed up at his house unannounced. I close my eyes, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth to calm down the nerves and also to push away the nausea.
“This is a bad idea,” I tell myself and I’m about to take off when I hear footsteps coming toward the door. “He probably has a Ring cam and he’s going to watch this after and be like this bitch is One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” I mumble as the door opens and I start to turn around to face him.
I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. He’s wearing basketball shorts with his team’s logo on them with a black T-shirt, with the team name, Warriors, in purple also with his number 13 on the shoulder part of the shirt. A black baseball hat is backward, hiding his hair. “Ariella,” he says my name, shocked that I’m standing here on his doorstep. If the roles were reversed, I would probably be as shocked as he is right now.
“Hey,” I reply, lifting my hand in the air, “I was in the neighborhood.” The minute the words come out of my mouth, I want to bite my tongue. How the fuck would I be in the neighborhood if I live in New York and he lives in California? “I mean, not the neighborhood, but I was in town. I was in the area is more like it.” I laugh nervously.
“Oh, come in, please,” he invites, moving away from the door so I step in, standing in his entranceway right next to him. The smell of his aftershave brings back memories of that night that I have forced myself not to think about.
“I should have called,” I state when I hear the click of the door behind me. “I was out for a drive and—” Stop talking, my head yells to me, for the love of God, stop fucking talking.
“Come in, come in.” I take a second to look around the living room. It takes me a second to know that either his mother designed this room, or he hired a decorator to do it. Everything matches, and as a bachelor, this doesn’t make sense. Unless his girlfriend decorated the house and my stomach lurches for a whole other reason. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks me as we walk past the staircase. I look up to see the glass ceiling showing you not a cloud in the sky. He steps into the family room and I stop in my tracks when I see the back wall that faces the ocean.