He draws in quick, shallow breaths, staring at me, speechless. If he didn’t know, then he could shake his head, and I wouldn’t hate him. We could go from there.

If he knew, maybe he kept it quiet because he knew he’d be up on the mountain all winter, and maybe he didn’t anticipate we’d fall in love. Maybe he thought he could run from this like he runs from everything.

Just talk to me.

His beautiful green gaze falls to the space between us, and there’s nothing he wants to say to me.

The whir of an engine grows louder, and I know it’s Noah on his way home.

He pulls up next to us, planting his shoes on the ground. “Hey, what’s going on?”

I give Kaleb four more seconds, waiting for him to do or say anything.

When he doesn’t, I climb on the bike behind Noah and wrap my arms around him.

“Let’s go.” I bury my head in his back. “Hurry.”

We speed off, and for the first time, Kaleb doesn’t pull me back to him.

Tiernan

I run up the stairs of the deck, breezing past my uncle and all the commotion in the shop as I hear the truck tires grind the gravel behind me. I pick up my pace.

Noah made good on his threat to put me on the website and scheduled an impromptu photoshoot with the motorcycles. I won’t take good pictures today, but at least it keeps me away from Kaleb.

I wipe the tear from my face.

“What’s wrong?” I hear Jake ask.

“I don’t know,” Noah tells him as I hurry for the front door. “She ran away from Kaleb.”

“Tiernan!” my uncle shouts.

“Let’s just do this,” I call out, swinging open the door. Where’s the photographer?

An SUV and a Jeep sit parked in the driveway, and I know they’re setting up lighting and such in the garage, but I should take a moment to compose myself.

I need to get in my room—my room—and lock the goddamn door for a few minutes.

Why was he in such a hurry to toss my birth control this morning? He didn’t even think about it. He didn’t hesitate. It was like a lightbulb went on and the solution to a problem he’d been facing finally occurred to him.

I stalk through the living room, but a hand wraps around my arm and pulls me around. I jerk out of Kaleb’s hold, glaring at him through watery eyes.

“Kaleb, stop,” his father orders, entering the house.

Noah follows. “What happened with you two?”

But I just stare at Kaleb. “This is why you wanted me pregnant,” I tell him. “You wanted to trap me before I found out about her.”

“Pregnant?” Jake repeats. He darts his eyes to Kaleb. “What did you do?”

Kaleb’s face is flushed, sweat glistens on his neck, and his eyes look pained. He’s wrecked.

And quiet. Always quiet, because if he doesn’t have to address any problems, then they don’t exist.

I barely have the strength to breathe. “Even now, you won’t talk to me,” I say quietly.

Jake inches in. “Are you pregnant?”

“No.” I shake my head, my sadness turning to anger as I look at Kaleb. “Thank God,” I spit out.

Kaleb steps in, hovering over me with an edge to his expression. He’s mad now.

Noah pulls him back. “Kaleb, back off her.”

Jake presses a hand into his chest.

But Kaleb throws them off, growling, and I back up, tears welling again as he swoops in and picks me up, holds my face and forces his mouth on mine. I choke down a sob, the assault of his scent reminding me how happy we were just this morning.

Before we came back to the world.

I push him away, crying out as Noah and Jake pull him off me.

I breathe hard, falling to my feet and backing up, farther away from him.

“Cici Diggins is pregnant,” I tell Jake and Noah. “Very pregnant.”

Kaleb doesn’t look at anyone but me, but I see Jake and Noah staring at me, stunned.

“It could be anybody’s,” Noah argues.

“Yours?”

“No,” he retorts like I’m crazy. “God, no. I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Did she say it was Kaleb’s?” Jake straightens, releasing his son.

“She didn’t have to,” I tell him, but I lock eyes with Kaleb.

If it’s his, I might learn to live with it, even though that means living with her in our lives.

If he knew about it all along, though…

“Say something,” I tell him. “Say something to me.”

Anything, please.

“Or write something, then,” I ask. “Tell me anything. Tell me you love me.”

He just stands there, though.

And I stop crying, my heart broken but not. Maybe it’s just not there anymore, because I draw in a deep breath, knowing someone will have his kids, but it will never be me. I can’t live in another house where someone I love won’t talk to me.

“We’re all set,” I hear a woman say from the kitchen.

It only takes a moment, but I blink away the tears and follow her into the shop, desperate to get away.

“Let’s get you ready,” she chirps.

I nod, pushing Kaleb and Cici out of my mind.

They change me into a pair of short jean shorts and a black off-the-shoulder top that shows my belly. I sit down to have my hair styled and my make-up done, Noah having accounted for everything when bringing people up here, I guess. I feel like I’m on one of my parents’ movie sets.

“Not too much,” the blue-haired photographer tells the make-up artist. “I want natural. I want her to look like someone the average guy can get into bed with.”

Someone clears their throat behind us.

“Kidding,” the lady quickly replies, and I guess Jake is standing behind me.

Then to the artist again, she says, “You catch my drift, though, right? Pretty, not porno.”

The man with short-cropped blond hair and tattoos on his fingers nods, blending concealer under my eyes, probably to get rid of the splotchiness from my crying.

The stylist fluffs my waves, sprays my hair, and I open my mouth, stretching my face, because I haven’t worn make-up in so long, it’s like cake on my face.

Noah pulls up a stool and plops down, waggling his eyebrows at me as the stylist moves to his head next.

“Keep Kaleb away from me,” I tell him in a low voice, but it’s more a beg.

“Sure.” He sighs. “I was in the mood to bleed today.”

I give him a sad smile. We finish readying, and I move, as if on auto-pilot. Mirai is flying in tonight, and whether or not she’ll recognize me is irrelevant. She’ll know things happened here, and I won’t blame her for not understanding. I don’t think I do myself anymore.

I’m hurt, but at least I’m leaving stronger than when I came.

“Noah?” the photographer named Juno calls.

I straddle the dirt bike, spotting Kaleb’s black T-shirt off to my left by the shop doors, but I don’t dare look. Noah climbs on the bike behind me, jeans and bare chest, because we’re supposed to look sexy as if this image is supposed to have any basis in reality. Motocross racers will probably laugh and pick apart our lack of proper attire and equipment, but sex sells, I’m told.