Page 32 of Million Dollar High

“Yeah, I can sue the pants off the clinic and everyone else involved in this, but I can’t send Ashley to jail unless I want my first child to be born in prison. Fucking ironic, isn’t it?”

“Seriously. What. The. Fuck?” Damon’s ex had tried to traphim into early fatherhood a while back so he was taking the news badly. “What is wrong with these gold-digging whores?”

“We don’t have eternity, buddy, so ask a simpler question,” Mike suggested.

“Where is she now?” Gabe asked.

“She’s living in my condo. I moved out. No, I’m not going to explain. Next question.”

Damon rolled his shoulders and made a visible effort to get off the volatile subject of Ashley’s pregnancy. “How did the Indigo Lounge trip go?”

Noah’s jaw tightened. He remained quiet for so long, another deathly silence descended on the table. The waitress, Katie, if he remembered her name correctly, walked past and kissed her teeth in irritation.

“Hell, was it that bad?” Mike asked. “Because Sonja came across a clip on YouTube the other day. She swears it was you playing the guitar and some hot chick groupie-ing on you like she wanted to have your babies.” He paled immediately and then howled, probably from a kick under the table from one of the guys. “Sorry, unfortunate choice of words. But seriously, I’d hate to think I spent 250k to send you on a shitty trip…”

Noah knew they would blame themselves if he didn’t answer. “No, your girlfriend was right. That was me… us in Vienna. As for the trip, it was that good.” The residue of beer turned bitter in his mouth. “Until it wasn’t.”

Gabe raised an eyebrow. “Us? We need details, man.”

Noah gave them the lowdown without going into details as to why he’d had to cut the trip short. Again, his friends stared at him, dumbfounded, then at each other.

“What’s her name?” Damon asked eventually.

Noah swallowed. “Leia Michaels.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed. “That name rings a bell. Why?” His fingers drummed on the table.

“She was in the news a while back. About five years ago,” Noah volunteered. It was no use keeping that a secret. They were resourceful enough to acquire the info in minutes.

Mike blinked rapidly, then his mouth dropped open. “Holy shit. The murder–suicide?”

A knife twisted in Noah’s gut. “Yeah.”

“So you cut your trip short because she needed to come back to Miami, and you came back with her?” Gabe asked, eyeing him in that incisive way that said his friend was reading between the lines.

“Yeah.”

“But?”

Noah shrugged. “But nothing. We met. We… got together. She… We went our separate ways.”

Mike shook his head. “Nah, from what I saw on that clip, she was seriously into you. And you looked like…” He stopped and cleared his throat.

“Like what?” Noah growled.

He shrugged. “You looked like you’d died and fucking gone to heaven.”

The memory of Leia in the parking lot last night flashed through his mind. He gritted his teeth. “What’s your point? Friday night, she went to sleep clinging to me like I was the last raft in her fucking tsunami. Saturday morning, she changed her mind. Fuck if I’m going to lose any more sleep over that shit.”

“Women aren’t that complicated?—”

“Says the guy who’s mainlining Jack D because he doesn’t know why he’s being dumped.”

“Shut the fuck up, Mike,” Gabe growled. “All I’m saying isthere has to be a reason for her doing a one-eighty on you.” He stopped and cursed. “Ashley? The baby?”

Acid eroded his gut. “Yeah, she says she doesn’t want to be saddled with a kid.”

“And do you believe she means that?”

---