Page 33 of Long Road Home

Which was a kick in the gut considering I finally found mine and their home was twelve hours away.

At that thought, I threw the SUV into reverse and backed out. “We should go get the food.”

Ten

Destiny

“I expectedthe house to look more packed,” Paul said. His brown eyes hadn’t left mine since he followed me into the kitchen. I hated the lost look in them.

He was a smart man. As soon as he heard Toby say Jordan’s name, he figured out exactly who he was, so the fact he mentioned the packing as soon as the front door closed and Toby took off surprised me.

We’d get to my lack of packing later.

“He slept on the couch, Paul. Nothing happened if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He huffed a soft laugh and shook his head. Paul was good looking, but it was his kind eyes and gentle smile that pulled me in so quickly. Tall, lean, and blond, he was also so damn smart he worked for NASA in their aeronautical engineering department. He once tried to explain to me what he did, but all I heard was a bunch of really big words I had no intention of figuring out.

The only time I’d ever seen him look this sad and disappointed was when he’d asked me to marry him and I couldn’t give him the answer he wanted.

“He slept on the couch,” he murmured, still processing what I’d said. I went to the counter and started a pot of coffee, the silence thickening and stretching between us. “You’re in your grandmother’s house after her funeral, with Toby’s birth father, who you never once told me a damn thing about no matter how many times I asked, and you think I give a shit he slept on the couch?”

My arm froze mid-air where I was holding it to dump water into the coffeepot. “I didn’t like talking about him. And I didn’t know he was in town. It all just sort of happened.”

“You made it sound like he wasn’t in the picture at all, Janey. I mean, come on!” He slammed his hands to his hips. His head bent, and he studied the floor shaking his head. “Jesus. This is huge, and you didn’t think to mention it on the phone?”

I would have if I would have known he was planning on coming up here. Which was a lame excuse I couldn’t speak out loud. I focused on the coffee, poured the water, grabbed a filter and filled it, and then turned the button on. I wassofreaking tired of having to explain all of this. It was the bed I’d made, but it didn’t make it easier.

Technically, it was none of his business. We were broken up. But I wasn’t sure some claim to me was why Paul was so upset. Most likely it had to do with the revelation of how much I’d kept from him for so many years. Besides, being a bitch to Paul turned my stomach. He was the nicest man I knew.

“Jordan Marx is Toby’s dad. I got pregnant right after high school and he and I were supposed to head to KU where he had a full-ride baseball scholarship. People in town hated me, would have hated my kid had they known about him, and it could have ruined his scholarship. I took off and never told him. Years later, he made the Major Leagues, Paul, played for the Rockies, and I couldn’t exactly correct my mistakes then. I could only fathom the press that would have gotten. College boy drafted and baby-momma, born from a crack addict and knocked up as a teenager, comes out of the woodwork, desperate for money.”

His eyes had widened as I spoke and by the time I was done, his jaw went slack. After several moments of him staring at me, he finally said, “Do you realize that little rant was the most you’ve ever told me about your life growing up? People hating you, crack addict? I don’t even know what that means, Janey, and we’ve been together for three years.”

The pain I’d inflicted gutted him to his core. It was clear in every etched feature and line on his face and the slope of his shoulders.

“I told you I don’t like talking about it. Now you know why. It was ugly and messy and when I left, I wanted all of this behind me. I didn’t want anyone knowing that about me.”

“I understand that. God, I get it, honey. But his dad? You couldn’t have mentioned that to me? Did you not trust me?”

I trusted him with my life. It was that I didn’t love him the same amount. He must have seen something to that thought flash across my face because he turned around and scrubbed his face.

“I see. Shit. All this time, all this time you kept saying you weren’t ready. You wanted to move slow for Toby, that wasn’t it at all, was it?”

“Paul—” My voice cracked, and I turned to the coffee. With shaking hands, my pulse rushing so fast through my body, I pulled down two mugs and filled them both and set them on the counter.

“How’d they meet?” he finally asked, still with his back to me, eyes on the small pile of boxes I’d shoved to the kitchen corner. “Did Toby know?”

“He was at the funeral, and I swear…I swear to you I had no idea. I told you I didn’t want you to come because I didn’t want you to hear all the shit people said about me, and they said it, Paul. They whispered it and I heard it and Toby heard it. Jordan came up to us at the funeral, saw Toby, told us his name and there’d been a picture of us hanging on the walls here that Toby had seen the night before. Toby put two and two together and now…”

“Now his dad is waking up in your house half-naked.”

“He’s pissed and he’s trying to spend time with him and get to know him.” Tears and emotion choked me, and I covered my eyes. “I’ve screwed all of this up. With Toby, with Jordan, with you, I know that. I know I’ve done horrible things and made excruciatingly poor decisions. Now, I’m trying to figure out how to fix them.” I shrugged and caught his eyes, red and filled with his own tears behind his glasses I’d always thought made him look so damn sexy. “I’m doing the best I can. It’s all happened so fast.”

“And yet you don’t look packed enough to return in a few days, either.”

I closed my eyes and I fought for how to explain everything to him. I needed to grow a pair of lady balls and do what Allison suggested, what I knew was right. But why was the right thing so damn difficult?

“Paul,” I said and lifted my head, opening my eyes. He flinched at the expression on my face.

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