He furrows his brow. “Let’s get you home and you can tell me all about what you’re celebrating.”

“Fair enough.”

“Hey, what happened to that drink?” the redhead asks, pulling on my shirt.

I turn around. “Yeah, sorry about that. I have to go.”

She stands there pissed as hell looking at me. I shrug, not really caring about being cordial right now.

“You’re an ass**le,” she mutters.

“Yeah, I am,” I toss back at her.

We hit the outside a few seconds later and the sudden burst of air makes my stomach turn. Beck and Ruby walk in front of me not saying a word. They turn into the side alley where Beck’s Jeep is parked. I start to feel sicker with each step. I stop at his car but have to brace my hands against the brick of the building and hang my head. Inhaling and exhaling over and over, I catch my breath.

“You’re not going to barf in my car?” he asks.

I shake my head no and climb into the backseat with my head spinning.

Over his shoulder as he drives he asks, “Where are you parked?”

“I have no f**king idea.” I laugh.

“Are you for real?”

“What crawled up your ass?”

He slams his foot on the brake and jerks the car into PARK, then turns around. “I don’t want to see you ruin everything you’ve worked so hard to accomplish.”

His words are sobering. “I found out today I have a kid out there somewhere that I never knew about.”

Ruby’s head snaps in my direction.

Beck’s eyes soften. “Let’s get your vehicle and get you home and I’ll throw on a pot of coffee and we can talk about it.”

“Okay, man. I think my bike’s down on Melrose somewhere.”

Beck rides my motorcycle and Ruby drives his Jeep to Laguna. I fade in and out of consciousness until we hit the beach. The smell of the sea air awakens my senses. I stare out the window and into the vast body of water. Childhood memories assault me one after another—making sand castles, flying a kite, shell hunting. My phone is vibrating like a motherfucker, but I ignore it. When we get to my house, I sit at the kitchen table and cradle my head in my hands.

Beck makes the coffee and pulls three mugs from the cupboard.

Ruby sits beside me. She takes my hand. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I take a breath. “You know the girl I told you about?”

“The one with the French name?”

I can’t hold back a slight smile. “Yeah, S’belle. Well, her name is Bell.”

She nods, obviously already knowing this.

Beck sets three cups of coffee on the table and has a seat.

I take a sip of mine. “I . . .” I ponder how to say I f**ked her one night without a condom and never thought twice about the lack of protection.

“You slept with her and she got pregnant?” Ruby asks.

I stare down at the table. “Yes, I slept with her one night my senior year of college when I had a girlfriend.”

“Dahlia?” she asks.

I nod, not really remembering how much I told her during any of my previous drunken ventures but ascertaining that I blabbed about plenty. “She told me today . . .” I tell them both everything that happened earlier this evening. They listen, no judgment or comment.

When I’m finished baring my soul, Ruby asks, “Do you know if it was an open or a closed adoption.”

My eyes rise to hers. “I have no idea. What does it matter?”

“An open adoption usually has an option of contact.”

I shoot her a quizzical look.

“I’m adopted. I’ve known since I was six years old, but my adoption was closed.”

“Your parents told you when you were young,” I comment.

“Yes, they didn’t want me to feel any less loved and I didn’t. In fact, I grew up feeling extremely special. But a part of me wanted to know who my birth parents were. I went through the whole nature-nurture debate in my mind and when I turned eighteen I paid a woman five hundred dollars to locate my biological parents. She wasn’t able to find my birth father, but she gave me the address and phone number of my birth mother.”

“Why couldn’t she locate your birth father?”

“His name wasn’t recorded on the birth certificate.”

With my elbows on the table, I steeple my hands together and then look over toward Ruby. “Did you contact your birth mother? Did she tell you who he was?”

She shakes her head. “I love my parents—my adoptive parents, and once I had that piece of paper in my hand, I decided I didn’t need to know.”

Beck stands, lifting his empty cup. He looks down at Ruby. “We should go.”

She glances up at him and nods. She rises and shifts her eyes to me. “Ben, if you ever want to talk, call me.”

I walk them to the door and Beck leans over toward me. “You call me first the next time you feel the need to go to my bar. You know I’m always here to talk.”

I nod sincerely, shooting him an appreciative glance.

Staring at them as they walk to their car, I think about what Ruby said. Then I stand there wondering if someday in the future I’ll be sitting across from a person with a piece of paper in her hand with my name on it.

• • •

He runs down the stairs with a football tucked under his arm. He’s wearing a Chicago Bears football helmet and a blue jersey that’s too big for him. It looks so familiar.

“Hey, champ, slow down,” I call as he hurtles past me.

“Daddy, Daddy, I did it,” he says as he comes to a stop next to me.

I look down at his flushed face and brush his blond hair from his eyes. “What did you do, champ?”

“I roared. I roared,” he says with a gleam in his eye.

With a huge grin on my face, I bend down to pick him up. “You scored, little lion, you scored.”

The little boy’s laughter morphs into mine. His eyes look just like mine. His voice sounds like mine. Then all of a sudden, I become my father and the little boy becomes me.

Fuck, I wake up with sweat pouring from my brow. I look out into the ocean in an attempt to calm down. I couldn’t sleep, so I moved out to the deck early this morning to listen to the sound of the water crashing against the rocks.

“Ben?” a voice calls from somewhere below me.

My head thunders in pain as I quickly sit up in the lounge chair and look into the sky, assessing the time. The sun is overhead. Looks to be around noon.

“Ben?” the voice says again.

“Up here, Serena.”

I can hear the thumping of her sneakers against the weathered wood of the stairs and I see her dirty blond hair, much shorter than the last time I saw her, blowing in the wind. “Are you ignoring my calls?” she asks, taking the last step.

I shade my eyes with my hand. “No, I just have a lot going on. You cut your hair?”

She looks down at me in the lounge chair. “Yes, I did, and don’t change the subject. Do the words let’s have lunch tomorrow ring a bell?”

I throw my head back against the chaise. “Sorry.” I grimace. “Your hair looks nice.”

She kicks my leg off the lounge. “Thanks. Now come on, let’s go for a walk.”

I stare at her a beat, but don’t move. “Could you turn the volume down a notch?”

Her eyes widen in disbelief. “Are you hungover?”

I slowly sit back up, still squinting to see her through the brightness of the sun. My head feels as if someone is pounding a hammer right in the middle of it. “Yeah.”

“Get up. I’m not leaving until you talk to me.” There’s an angry edge to her voice.

I shake my head and another crack of thunder explodes inside it.

She stretches out her hand with disappointment more than evident on her face. “Come on.”

“Let me brush my teeth first at least.”

She crosses to the glass doors. “I’ll make us a cup of coffee.”

“Thanks.” I grimace as I stand.

Water gushes from the faucet as I try to scrub last’s night drunken encounter from my mouth. I hop in the shower, hoping that will make me feel better. When I head to the kitchen the smell of freshly brewed coffee assaults me, turning my stomach. I’ll pass on a cup this morning.

My sister rinses her empty cup and places it in the sink. She turns around. “Are you drinking again?”

“No, not really. I needed a release, so I went out last night.”

Her eyes glisten with tears.

“Serena, I’m doing okay. I’m not going down that road again. I promise.”

“I hope not,” she says, handing me a coffee and heading for the door.

I take a gulp and follow her. The heat burns my tongue and I leave the cup on the deck, taking two steps at a time to catch up with her. We walk the beach for a long while without conversation until she turns to look at me.

She finally breaks the silence. “I went to the cemetery yesterday and saw the seashells you put on Mom’s gravestone.” I glance over at her. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately.”

She takes a deep breath and inhales the fresh sea air. “Me too.”

“I’m sure she must miss the beach.”

She nods.

I stare out into the distance and catch sight of a sailboat going by. I point to it. “Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you could go back and change things?”

She bends down in the sand to pick up a seashell. “No, I don’t. There’s no sense in doing that.”

“Sometimes I do. I think it’s the littlest things that could make the biggest changes.”

She makes a face of contemplation but doesn’t answer. We walk for a bit and then I decide to just tell her. “I started seeing S’belle while you were gone,” I blurt out.

She stops to pick up another shell and when she rises she hands it to me. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Brushing the sand from it, I examine its beauty and think about its uniqueness. No two seashells are ever the same. I look at my sister. “She told me something yesterday that caught me completely off guard.”

“Would you like to tell me what it was?”

I’ve gone over in my mind who must know about the baby. I’m guessing S’belle’s family and more than likely Dahlia. What I’m not certain about is if Dahlia would have told Serena. I turn toward her. “Did you know about the baby?”

Her eyes widen. A look of shock crosses her face. “Do I know about what baby?”

I toss the shell I’m holding into the ocean and watch it hit the water.

She grabs my arms. “What are you talking about, Ben?”

I feel my throat tightening. “My baby.”

She stares in disbelief, her mouth open. “Your—your ba-a-b-b-by?” she stutters.

I nod. “S’belle, Bell, I mean, got pregnant that night I spent with her in college. She had the baby and gave it up for adoption.”

My sister’s hand flies to her mouth.

“Yeah, I was a little shocked too.” I try to keep the edge off my sarcasm.

“Let’s sit down,” she whispers, walking toward the rocks and choosing one. I sit beside her and bend to sift the sand with my fingers.

“How do you feel about it?”

“How do you think I feel?”

“You’re upset?” she asks.

“Fuck yes, I’m upset. There’s been a kid out there in the world for the past six years that’s mine and I never knew he or she existed until yesterday.”

She takes my hand. “What did she say?”

“She told me she gave birth on St. Patrick’s Day and gave the baby away.”

She looks at me for the longest time. “Are you sure it was yours?”