Page 64 of Rescued Hearts
I gritted my teeth, pushing my legs harder. Levi touched the lamppost and blew past me, smacking my butt as he did. I yelped and spun on the ball of my foot. “You said you’d let me win!”
He turned, running backwards with a cocky smirk I’d never seen from him before.“That was weeks ago before our little deal,” he responded with a wink before turning around.
He’d slowed down while running backwards. Enough for me to jump on his back. He let out a littleoofbut kept going. “I think this counts as cheating.”
“I wanted to win,” I pouted, and he just laughed, grabbing under my knees to keep me on his back. Luke squealed, jumping up and down as Levi ran towards him with me clinging to him like a monkey.
Luke waved his makeshift flag and blew his whistle. “Wevi won! Wevi won!”
Levi jumped around with him like he’d just won the Olympics, jostling me around on his back before he set me down. He was breathing hard, his smile radiant. “Did you hear that? I won,” he said and pulled me to him by my hip. “Luke said so.”
I laced my arms around his shoulders, toying with the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “Don’t tell me your one flaw is that you’re a sore winner.”
He chuckled. “Only when I know my prize is going to be spending all night making my wife come,” he whispered huskilyin my ear. My breath caught in the back of my throat. He just kissed my temple and took my hand while we followed Luke to the playground.
Levi and I sat on a bench overlooking the playground while Luke played with a few other kids. We sat in silence for about five minutes before Levi blurted, “Tess, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Alarm bells instantly started going off in my head. Was this it? When he pulled the rug out? “What is it? Is it about the case?”
“No. Nothing like that.” He took his hand in mine and stared at our joined hands.
My stomach hollowed out. I could hardly breathe. “Then what is it? Are you breaking up with me?” My voice cracked on the words, not sure I’d be able to recover if he was.
His eyes flicked to mine, his brows pulled together. “What? God no.” He came closer until our knees touched. He glanced around before whispering, “Are you on birth control?”
I froze. That was the last thing I expected him to ask. “No. Why?”
“Tess…I…I came in you last night. Do you not remember?”
All the blood drained from my face. “Oh my God,” I whispered. I pulled my hand out of his and stared at the playground. At Luke. How could we have been so reckless? Who was I kidding? We were drunk, having dive bar bathroom sex—the whole thing was reckless.
“I should’ve asked you before. I’m so sorry I didn’t, sweetheart. We just got so carried away, but it was irresponsible of me not to keep a level head and ask. I feel terrible about it.”
“I told you to take the condom off, Levi,” I murmured. My voice sounded far away, blending in with the drowned-out shrieks of children. “It’s just as much my fault as yours.”
My stomach twisted while I watched the kids play, thinking back to when Luke was a baby. The screaming, the crying, thediapers, the sleepless nights, the anxiety. I hadn’t gotten to choose before; Jeremy took that from me.
“Did I ever tell you how I got pregnant with Luke?” I watched as he climbed up a mini rock wall, his red curls shining in the sunlight.
Levi cleared his throat, shifting beside me. “Just that Jeremy tricked you somehow.”
“We had been together for three years, and I just couldn’t…I couldn’t take it anymore.” My chin quivered. “I got as far as the bus station before he caught on to what I was doing and showed up.”
I glanced at Levi, his expression a mix of sorrow and rage. The subtle dip of his chin told me to keep going.
“He made a huge scene. Got on his knees and wept and made promises I was stupid enough to think he’d keep.” I wrenched my jaw, staring at the ground. “So I went back with him. I thought he had just put on a performance at the bus station, but when we got home, he doted on me like he had in the beginning. I really thought things would be different.”
I wiped away the tear that rolled down my cheek and shrugged a shoulder. “Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant with Luke, which confused me because I was on birth control. I had been since I was fifteen for bad periods.”
Levi frowned. “What? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know. But when I told Jeremy I was pregnant, he didn’t seem surprised at all. You know what he said?” Levi’s jaw tightened, his eyes darkening. “He said, ‘Finally. Now you really can’t leave.’”
“Don’t tell me?—”
“He had been replacing the pills with placebos for six months.”
Levi shot off the park bench, his hands clasped behind his head as he walked a few feet away. He bent over, his hands onhis knees. I worried he was going to be sick, but I let him be. He looked like he was about to explode when he came back. But when his eyes met mine, they were rimmed with tears. “I’m so sorry he put you through that,” he whispered, his voice shaking.
