***

Declan shifted uncomfortably as the woman across from him continued to sob. His life was starting to resemble a circus. He never knew what the next act was going to bring. Ella was out with her friends and he had been looking forward to some down time. Of course, a few hours into the evening and he had been pacing around, restless and at loose ends. When his phone rang, he was surprised to see Julie’s name on the ID. She had wanted to give him the name of the doctor she was using for the paternity test as well as his appointment time. She had also asked for his address so that she could send him some photos of Evan. He had thought that a bit strange since he was likely to see her again soon, but didn’t question her further. Now here he sat watching a woman he barely knew sob. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Lifting tear soaked eyes, Julie gasped out, “So sorry, Declan, I . . . shouldn’t have come here.”

He had the desire to reply, “No shit,” but thought better of it. He had no idea what the problem was. She had been crying since the moment he opened the door. The only thing he had managed to get out of her was that Evan was fine and at a friend’s house. “Julie, uh, is there someone I can call for you?” If possible, that seemed to make the crying worse. But he was a guy and he had no idea how to handle something like this. Maybe he should call Ella. She would definitely be better at this than him. Yeah, brilliant idea. Call your girlfriend and ask her to come over and talk to your previous one-night stand, oh, and the mother of your child. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all. Instead, he kept his mouth shut and hoped that she would get herself together sooner rather than later. Would she be offended if he turned on ESPN?

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the crying tapered off into sniffles and she dug a wad of tissues out of her purse. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Declan,” she sniffed. “I had no business coming here.”

Even though he completely agreed with her, he took pity on her because she did look embarrassed. “It’s fine Julie. Are you okay now?”

Giving a self-conscious laugh, she said, “If you’re scared I’m going to cry again, I promise, I’m cried out.”

Even as he felt like he had to ask, he desperately hoped she wouldn’t answer. “Is something wrong?” When she ran a hand through her hair and was quiet for a moment, he started to think she was going to ignore his question . . . no such luck.

“I had a fight with Graham.”

“Graham? Oh yeah, that’s your fiancé?”

She looked surprised for a moment, but then gave a small smile. “Oh, that’s right; I mentioned him to Ella. Yes, we are engaged. He um . . . shit, I shouldn’t be telling you of all people this, but he’s upset about you coming into our lives.”

It was Declan’s turn to be surprised. “Your whole issue tonight is over me? Evan doesn’t even know I’m his father so why would your . . . Graham have a problem with it?”

Almost as if she didn’t want him to think badly of Graham, she began with, “He really is a great guy, but this has thrown him for a loop. He has always accepted Evan and me as a package deal. I think he sees himself as a father figure to him. Suddenly, with you coming into the picture, he feels threatened.” Almost sheepishly, she admitted, “I think he is afraid I have some kind of feelings for you which is absurd. He knows it just happened the one time and that I never saw you again, but he’s afraid that it will happen again now that you are back.”

Releasing a loud breath, Declan shook his head saying, “That’s crazy. I’m sorry that this has caused problems in your life, but I’m not sure how I can help you. I’d be happy to tell him that he has no worries there, but it’s doubtful he is going to believe me if he trusts you so little.”

Julie cringed, “Ouch, you don’t pull any punches do you?” When he opened his mouth to reply, she cut him off. “No, you’re right. This isn’t your problem even though it involves you indirectly and yes, he should trust me enough to know that he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

When the doorbell rang again, Declan rolled his eyes and hoped that it was someone selling something. Some Girl Scout cookies would be way better than a hysterical, sobbing female. When he opened the door, Ella threw herself into his arms, legs around his waist before he even knew what was happening. Obviously not seeing Julie, she gave him a suggestive wink and said, “I thought tonight you could touch yourself while I watched. I’ll be happy to help though, if you need it.”

He was wrong, things could always get worse. Any other time, that offer would have landed Ella squarely on her back in about two seconds flat, now he was just dreading her finding out that they had an audience. “Um, Ellie . . . baby, I have company.” It took a moment for his words to hit home. He knew the second they did because he felt her body stiffen in surprise. As her legs went slack, he let her slide down off of him. When she slowly turned around and noticed Julie for the first time, she looked both surprised and uncertain.

“Oh, hi, Julie. I . . . uh, didn’t see you there.”

As she studied Julie’s red, puffy face, and wet eyes, Ella seemed to grow even more uncomfortable. Declan put his arm around her reassuringly. He could appreciate the fact that walking into something like this might be a little unsettling to Ella and he wanted to let her know without embarrassing Julie that there was nothing going on here. “Ellie, Julie was upset and needed someone to talk to. I wasn’t expecting you this evening. I mean, of course I’m glad to see you, I just thought you were having a girls’ night.” That sounded lame as hell, even to his own ears. What he really wanted to do was push Ella toward Julie and make some excuse to leave. This was one of those times when he wished he smoked so he could use needing to run out for cigs as an excuse to escape. He tried to gently push Ella toward the sitting area, but she had dug her heels in and refused to budge.

She gave Julie an over bright smile before turning back to him. “I’m just going to go. I should have called first.”

He made a grab for her elbow, shaking his head, “No, honey, please stay.” Julie stood too, offering to leave instead. It seemed to him that pretty much everyone in the room at that point was heading for the door and the one that actually left before he could stop her was Ella. Yeah, this evening had really turned out outstanding. Now the room was filled with an awkward silence and he wanted nothing more than for Julie to leave so he could call Ella and explain. Women made everything so damned complicated. Thankfully, Julie took her cue from his expression and grabbed her purse from the table.

“I’m sorry for trying to involve you in my problems. I . . . just didn’t have anyone to talk to and I obviously screwed up your night.”

Declan ran a hand through his hair as a wave of exhaustion hit him and he decided that some honesty was in order even if it made him the bad guy. He didn’t want a repeat of this evening. “Julie, I’m sorry my reappearance has caused problems with you and Graham, but that has to stay between you two. He probably wouldn’t appreciate me even knowing about it. If you have anything to tell me that involves Evan, then call me day or night, but I can’t be your girlfriend. I will take the paternity test as planned tomorrow and I will help you out if you need it financially or with whatever Evan needs. I will be happy to take him if you and Graham need some time away.”

Dropping her head, Julie said, “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking coming here. I guess the main problem was that no one else knows, so I didn’t have anyone to talk to. Ugh, that still isn’t your problem. I know this must have been really awkward for you and for Ella. Please tell her I’m sorry for upsetting her plans.”

Declan could tell by the gleam in her eyes, she had heard Ella tell him all of her plans before she had discovered Julie was there. “Yeah, I’ll do that. We’ll talk when we get our test results back. Good luck with Graham. I hope things work out the way you want.” She apologized once more and was gone. He immediately picked up the phone to call Ella, but then decided against it. This was probably one time that he should make the trip in person.

***

As soon as she got home Ella fell face down in her bed. She didn’t know what was worse, having Julie overhear what she said or that she was at Declan’s in the first place. The whole thing had seemed so strange. She hadn’t seen Evan anywhere so was Julie there by herself? Was she trying to get Declan back? Of course, she hadn’t really had him to start with, but they had been intimate for that one night. She knew firsthand that that wasn’t something a woman would ever forget.

For the first time, she felt insecure in their relationship. She wasn’t even sure if what they had been doing qualified as a real relationship, at least to him. They had sex and spent a lot of time together. But was it more than that to him? She didn’t really have any experience to fall back on to guide her. All she knew was that when she left Declan hadn’t followed her as she had half hoped he would. Julie was still there and she was home alone. When she had started this whole thing with him, she hadn’t really thought much about what would happen when it was over. Suddenly, she realized it could end at the drop of a hat. There might not be a long speech about how great it had been, it might just be over. Her mother was always telling her that she never looked at the big picture and maybe in this instance she was right.

Just as her pity party was well and truly under way, there was a brisk knock at her door. She stiffened and debated ignoring it. There could only be two possibilities at this time of the evening, her mother or Declan. She wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with either of them tonight but the knocking continued and she didn’t want her neighbors to start complaining. A quick look out her peephole showed the person she hoped was the lesser of the two evils. Taking a deep breath, she swung the door open and hoped that Declan wasn’t here to have that talk with her now.

When he pulled her gently into his arms with a husky “Ellie,” she let out the breath she had still been holding. He was embracing her so tightly that it bordered on pain, but she had no desire to stop him. She needed whatever she could get from him right now. Maybe she wasn’t handling this revelation as well as she had thought. Things were so new between them and now things were going to change, they had to. Declan had a son now and with that would come new demands on his time. Julie would also be in his life in some capacity now. Would what she had walked in on earlier become the norm? She had felt like an outsider and she hated that. She had no official place in Declan’s life, but Julie did. She was the mother of his child. How could she ever compete with that?

But she was distracted from her list of worries as Declan placed a series of kisses along her neck causing her to shiver. He pulled back to look at her. “You left so fast, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you. Are you . . . were you upset over Julie being at my apartment?”

Ella pulled back and tried to pretend a worldliness that she was far from feeling. She was a horrible liar and knew that her face always gave her away so she directed her gaze to the wall beyond his shoulder before answering. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I know that Julie and Evan are in your life now, and it’s really none of my business. I shouldn’t have shown up without being invited.”

Declan turned her chin so she was facing him and could see the wary look on his face. “That’s a lot of bullshit you’re shoveling there, Ellie. I didn’t think we were in the habit of lying to each other. You’ve never censored yourself before so don’t bother to start now.”

He was right of course, she always blurted out what was on her mind. What was the worst that could happen? “Alright, you asked for it, remember that. Julie being there with you made me very uncomfortable. I felt like I didn’t belong even though we are sort of together now, aren’t we?”

Pulling her back into his arms, she felt his lips brush the top of her head. “Yes, baby, we are. I knew you felt that way; it was written all over your face before you bolted. Let’s have a seat and I’ll fill you in on one of the weirder hours of my life.”

When Declan finished telling her about Julie’s visit, she had to agree with him on the weird factor. “Isn’t Claire her friend? Wouldn’t you think she would call her if she was upset instead of you?”

“Yeah, you’d think. I don’t see it happening again though. I was pretty blunt with her after you left. I know it sounds bad considering the circumstances, but she’s a stranger to me. I was pissed off at being put in that position, especially since I knew you were upset over it.”

Ella cuddled closer to him, relieved that there had been a simple explanation for what she had walked in on. She was still uneasy over Julie’s place in his life, but she told herself she was just paranoid. Julie was engaged, and had no interest in Declan other than his connection with Evan. After the dust settled, they would work out some kind of schedule and he would only see Julie in passing. She could live with that. She reached up to slide her hands in his thick hair, pulling his lips down to hers. “I’m okay now. I’m just glad you’re here.”