Love Me Crazy (30 page)

“
Who fucked it up, you or him? Did you fart during sex? That would so end a relationship for me.”

I bust out laughing and then my cheeks soften and my huffed laughter morphs into strained breaths. And tears. I release the pins holding my hair up and lay down, resting my head on a flattened hay bale. “He’s one of the good guys.”

“And?”

“He’ll make a great father.”

“Whoa, are you pregnant?” she squeals.

My heart flutters imagining a future with Quinn and
our
kid standing between us. I shake the nonsense out of my head. Nothing but a fairytale. A nightmare. “His ex was.”

Lilian sucks in a breath. “Shit. Meaning?”

I release the pent up air in my lungs. The sweet, dusty scent of hay fills me on my next inhale. “He has a son he doesn’t know about.”

“But you do?” My silence answers her questions. “You ran, didn’t you?”

I close my eyes. I shouldn’t have run. Maybe I should’ve told him. He deserves to know, but that isn’t my news to tell. I’m not involved . . . and can’t be. “Running or not, I can’t stay. This wasn’t a part of the plan.
He
wasn’t part of the plan.” Quinn needs a clear head for when Annabeth tells him. He’ll need his family. Not a distraction. Not. Me. “I should’ve stayed away. I should’ve stuck to my plan.”

“Let me ask you something, and don’t feed me bullshit because you get all defensive. Okay?” Lil says.

“Be open-minded. Got it.” I wipe tears from my face and stare up at the beams crossing over my head.

“
Numbers are your nemesis. I can hear you calculating percentages for different outcomes right now. Why does everything you do have to follow some goddamn structure? Life is crazy, Cass. People get dealt shit all the time. You of all people should know that.”

I know I’m crazy about structure. Numbers. Even when I try not to be. I even have a formula for reacting to shit. First reaction: disbelief. Second reaction: disappointment. Third reaction: figuring out a solution to the problem.

I bite my lip to hold in my first and second reaction and work on my third. The solution is giving Quinn space to figure out this twist. The solution is me leaving so he can go with a clear conscious.

“You can survive and you can succeed without plotting your life on that stupid graph you have taped above your bed,” she continues. “High marks and accolades will not help you through this. You need to go back to him. Talk to him. If there’s something real between you and this guy, then fight for it, otherwise, your life will never be anything more than a paint by number someone else designed.”

Every choice I’ve made has been to better my chances at reaching success, to plot smack on my success line on the graph like Lilian said. I obsess over the perfect line, joining plot points marking each and every major event in my life. I never let myself be put in a position where real failure is possible. Like friendships. Besides Lilian, who have I really let into my life? I avoid close relationships because I don’t need another person telling me everything I’m doing wrong. Loving someone, letting them in, means being okay with hiccups in my graph. It means my plan is no longer a perfect straight line.

It
means charting my life won’t make the outcome I want. It means I can’t work the equation backward to foreshadow the hiccups. I can’t dissect happiness into neat little columns of must haves and must avoids.

It means, if X equals birth and Z equals death, then everything in between has infinite possibilities.

Chapter
27

Quinn

“Have you found her?” I pace the foyer, following the medallion outline circling the inlaid letter “C” and its indigo leaves. Just like I did after Dad died. When I needed him to walk through the door and make everything okay. Here I am again, waiting for another fucking miracle.

Kat squeals through the phone, “How do you lose a girl? You followed her home, so where is she?”

I didn’t lose her. She ran.” She came back to the plantation and then she evaporated. I saw the carriage. I talked to the driver. There was no Cassie in sight. Just her stuff in her room. Hell, I waited on the edge of her bed for two hours. I should’ve been out looking for her.

I’d called Kat when I’d realized that. She and Wes left the ball and drove to town to see if Cassie ended up at the café. Ellie stayed at the ball, quizzing her guests. No one remembered seeing her, which I found surprising. She’s hard to miss. Like a clearly labeled jar with a bright red Don’t Touch sign hanging around its neck. Now it’s been thirty-two hours since anyone’s seen her.

Kat’s yell for Wes to turn left muffles. More clearly, she says, “I don’t know why you let her out of your sight. Why did she go to the carriages in the first place? You’re an idiot. You should have—”

“
Enough with the lecture. Just fucking find her.” I throw the phone across the foyer. It slides under the console and spins rapid circles. Just like my thoughts. Why did she take off? She was talking to Annabeth one minute then . . . “Fuck.”

I retrieve my phone and dial Annabeth. I get her voice mail. I call Ellie next but she doesn’t answer either. The day of the wedding and I can’t find anybody!
Argh
. I kick the wall and wish I hadn’t. Stupid oak might be strong, but it sure as hell isn’t forgiving.

The door opens behind me and I wheel around, heart freaking climbing my throat.

Annabeth closes the door behind her. “Quinn? Are you okay?”

Am I okay? Am I fucking okay? “What did you do?”

“What ever are you talking about?” She grabs her throat like I just sentenced her to housework.

“Stop with the games, Annabeth. You were the last one to talk to Cassie and now she’s gone.”

“Oh, she is?”

“Don’t look so chipper about it. What did you say to her?”

“Just the truth. I told her why I moved overseas and I told her why I’m back.”

Is she for real? She can’t honestly believe Cassie would give a damn about her living arrangements.

“Would you like to know why?” she pushes to her tiptoes then settles back to her heels. All smug and glowing. All perfectly Annabeth. Perfectly crap.

“When are you going to get it? I am not interested in you. We are history. The past. We ended five years ago when I left. I do not want—”

“Four years, eleven months, and twenty-two days to be exact.”

“
What?”

“Oh, I’ve been counting, because four years, ten months, and two days ago, I learned I was pregnant.
Alone
and pregnant. Four years and six months ago I left everything real. I left my home, my friends . . . everyone, and moved to France to hide my condition, and four years and two months ago I had
your
son. Blond and blue, just like every Covington in this godforsaken town except you. Don’t act like you’re the only one with permanent reminders of what happened around here. I’m reminded every morning, every night how you walked away without a word.”

Blond and blue? A boy? I have . . . a kid? The tension in my hands drop. My fingers, numb and cold, don’t feel attached to my body. My head spins, and Annabeth, standing there delivering a punch I never expected, smiles like she’s holding the winning lottery ticket.

“What are you talking about?” I swipe my hands through my hair, pulling at the roots. Pulling and wishing I hadn’t heard right. That can’t be possible. We were always careful. “Are you sure? I don’t think . . . he can’t be mine.”

Her eyebrows disappear into her bangs. “You think I’d sleep around when I have you? How dare you even suggest—”

“But we were careful. You were on the pill. I used condoms.”

“And that one that broke?” She crosses her hands behind her back. “Does it even matter how? It happened, and he’s yours.”

“Excuse me.” I dart past her. I grab the doorknob. Hell, if I don’t get outside fast, I’m going to fucking puke all over the place.

I lean over the railing and do just that. God. A kid. No wonder Cassie ran. The blood that had just found its way back into my heart drops again, making me dizzier than before. Annabeth couldn’t have been that cold-hearted, could she?

“
Did you tell Cassie?” I turn. “You did, didn’t you? Why wouldn’t you tell me as soon as you saw me? Why didn’t you tell me when you were pregnant?”

“You left me. And then you wouldn’t answer my calls. Or my e-mails. I wasn’t telling you that through text.”

“But when you got back? When I saw you here?” I grip the column and bang my head against it lightly. What the hell is happening?

“I tried. At the yacht club I asked you to take a walk with me, but you chose Cassidy. I asked you to come say hi to my parents at the Battery, but again, you chose Cassidy.”

I turn in a circle feeling locked inside a bubble with no room to move. No air to breathe. “You just had to say it, Annabeth, fucking say the words and I would’ve stopped to listen.”

“Don’t give me that crap.” She folds her arms and steps back. “You won’t even tell anyone why you left and you think I should just walk up to you and blurt, ‘hey, Quinn, you have a son, shoot me a text if you want to meet him.’ You, of all people, know it’s not that easy.”

“It would’ve been better than finding out this way.” I reach in my pocket and grab my phone, eager to call Cassidy and tell her I know about having a kid, to talk her into coming back. To tell her it’s okay, though I have no fucking clue what I’m to do with this . . . news.

“I needed just an hour to tell you properly, but you wouldn’t give me fifteen minutes. I would’ve settled for ten, even. My parents had him sitting on a cannon at the Battery. I just wanted you to walk over and say hi and you wouldn’t. Then I could’ve explained that my ‘nephew’ isn’t my nephew at all, but your four-year-old son.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“It’s no one’s fault.”

“That’s debatable. You told Cassie. I won’t forgive you for that.”

Annabeth
shakes her head and closes her eyes. “I told your mom telling her was a bad idea.”

“My mom knows?” This is fucked up. Two people hiding the truth, hiding a—my—goddamn kid from me? “I’ve got to . . . just—” I dash out into the yard.

Wes took my car and Ellie has hers. I purse my lips and punch the air with my fist. I sprint out of the house and toward the barn, needing distance from me and the news. But it follows, God it fucking haunts me, chasing me like a pack of hunting dogs.

Sharp gouges in the soft dirt too singular to be deer tracks slow my escape. The barn door, pushed slightly open, rattles on its track.

“Cassie?” I sprint through the opening and flip the switch on the wall. My heart tightens in my chest. Please be in here.

The lights flicker to life, casting a venomous glow over the truck. I follow the gouges in the dirt to the rear where they stop. Flipping the tailgate down, I clamp my teeth together.

A sexy black stiletto tips over as I climb into the truck bed. I grab one and dirt falls off the heel. Skirt stuffing, or whatever that crap is that goes under gowns, drifts across the bed like loose hay. Where is she?

I grab the stiff material and the shoes and throw them on the floorboard of the cab. Cranking the truck to life, I spin out of the barn and take off toward the main road. This town isn’t big; I’ll find her. Then I’ll deal with Annabeth. And my . . . son.

No wonder Cassie fled. News like that made me run like damn zombies infiltrated the plantation. She’s probably back in her bed, back with her friends, back in Boston, without me. But she could’ve at least said good-bye to my face.

Then
I could have grabbed her, made her see that it doesn’t matter what Annabeth throws at me; I’m not losing Cassie. I can have a kid in my life and still love Cassie like there’s no tomorrow. If I’m even allowed to see my son.

“I have a son,” I whisper.

I take the circular road leading to Magnolia Hill, and after one loop around the cemetery, realize my chances of finding Cassie have significantly dropped. Maybe she went to the city. Or the airport. Surely she wouldn’t leave. Her suitcase is still in her room back at the house. I drive North out of Lucas Hill and head toward Charleston.

I pound my fist against the steering wheel. I should’ve stayed with Cassie, jumped in the carriage with her. I should’ve been there when fucking Annabeth showed up.

Sprinkles hit the windshield and I flip the wipers on. A mile or so down the road, steam rises off the roads, mixing with the cool rain, fogging the windows. I wipe away the moisture and glance at the darkening sky. The farther I drive, the lower the clouds collect. Then hail attacks the truck. I pull off the road and cut the engine, smart enough to know better than to play chicken with a hailstorm.

I stare out the front, head pressed against the rear window. I don’t know where to look, who to call. The only person with the answers is Cassie and she’s gone. I crack my window and a raindrop sneaks in and lands on my arm. Wiping it away, I glimpse the tattoo representing Kat. I push my sleeve up and follow the vine. Tap the barbs. I do the same with my other arm, tracing the reminders I forever embedded into my skin.

I’ve learned to live with the day-to-day reminders and have welcomed the new memories, like the one from Dad’s office. I rock back in silent laughter. Cassie flipped when she turned into a blueberry. Memories like that have helped me move out of the past. I don’t avoid Dad’s office
anymore.
I don’t avoid a lot of things, because she helped me want to rebuild my family. To gain their trust and forgiveness. What will they do with this new bit of information?

I check my phone. Where is she? I just want to know she’s okay. If she doesn’t want to be with me, I’ll find a way to deal, but I need to know she’s not dead somewhere on the side of the road. I need to know she’s safe. And I need her to know, no matter what her reasons, that I still love her. I fucking love her crazy.

Lights stream across my windshield from a passing car. The car turns around and parks behind me.

Wes jerks the passenger door open and climbs in. “Kat found her. She’s fine.”

The boulder on my chest fills with helium. Thank fucking God. I jerk the truck into Drive.