The Tea Series Read online

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t want her to show up at the wedding and make a scene.”

  “Really? That’s what you’re worried about? Handsome, I’m not worried about some old girlfriend trying to make a scene at our wedding. She couldn’t get in, and if she did, what’s the worst she’s going to do? Throw the cake at us?” Teagan tried to keep it light, but she was terrified. She had a terrible feeling. She knew the other shoe was about to drop, and she knew it wasn’t going to be a beautiful Louboutin. It was going to be uglier than a blind cobbler’s thumb.

  “Teagan, I love you. This all happened before we got together.”

  “What happened, Jessie?”

  “She got pregnant.”

  “Okay.”

  “She decided to keep it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have a daughter.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s all you can say?”

  “For the moment. How long?”

  “Less than a year.”

  The calm evaporated. Teagan could have maybe handled a kid that was six or seven. After all, Liam had Jordan and loved every minute of it. Less than a year? That meant that all the time that this woman from his past was pregnant, waddling around, picking out baby clothes, having her baby shower, having a kid, Jessie was dating a totally clueless Teagan.

  All those times he was late coming home seemed evil now.

  Just how much of that was work, and how much of it was him seeing this woman? And their baby!

  He had betrayed her.

  He had lied to her.

  He had kept it from her. A sin of omission — big time.

  His family had lied to her.

  She was over there sitting with his mother, and everybody knew except for her.

  He’d made a fool of her.

  Over and over and over again.

  “Please take me home.”

  “Sweet — ”

  “You know what? I don’t want to go home. I want to hear every single detail. From the moment you met her, everything you did with her — everything! — right up until right now. What have you told her about me, Jessie? Did you get her permission to marry the stupid blonde chick? Are we supposed to have visitation every other weekend? Did you make all those plans with her without even talking to me? Were you planning the rest of my life without my input? I want to know everything.”

  “I — ”

  “No, stop. I don’t want to know anything. It doesn’t matter. No matter what you tell me, it’s not going to sink into my brain right now, and you’ll leave something out, and then I’ll feel betrayed all over again. I don’t want to know.”

  “Teagan — ”

  “My imagination is worse than…” Teagan threw her hands up in the air in surrender. “I said take me home.”

  “We need to talk about this.”

  “You were fine not talking to me for all these months; take me home.” Her voice was stone cold. “I swear to God, Jessie, I swear on Cara’s life, if you say one word to me, it will be the last word you ever speak to me. I need time.”

  His car hadn’t stopped completely in the driveway before she’d jumped from it, slammed the door, and called Cara when she was walking up the stairs.

  But she’d hung up before it had connected.

  She needed to think.

  Needed to decide what she was going to do before she brought her family into it.

  If she decided to stay with him then she didn’t want her family to hate him forever.

  If she decided to leave him… She couldn’t even think about that yet.

  She stumbled into her apartment over the garage, didn’t even turn on the lights. She sat in the darkness and tried to decide what she thought. Those thoughts were continuously interrupted by great bouts of crying. She didn’t really even know why. Wasn’t sure what hurt her most.

  The fact that he had lied.

  The fact that he had betrayed their bond.

  The fact that some other woman had shared his first parenting experiences and they would never have that “first” between them.

  Was he at the hospital when she gave birth? Did they share that too? And if he wasn’t, what did that say about what kind of man he truly was?

  If she could get past this, and she wasn’t at all sure she could, she would be bound to this other woman for the rest of her life. Jessie would always have a child with her. That was a bond. One that couldn’t be broken. And if she was really the psycho that Jessie claimed her to be, that meant that she was bound to a psycho for the rest of her life.

  When she’d run it through her mind over and over again and no new understanding, questions, or emotions were to be found, she picked up her phone and called Cara.

  “Okay, so help me. How old is the baby?”

  “He said less than a year.”

  “Oh, because that’s not what you said to me.”

  “What?”

  “Teagan, when you were explaining it all to me, you said that you asked him how long and he said less than a year.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “But you didn’t define it.”

  “Cara, my brain isn’t working really well right now. Would you please just spit it out?”

  “Sorry. Less than a year could mean that the child is less than a year, which would be a problem; I see your point.”

  “A problem? He gets another woman pregnant while we are dating, and you calmly tell me that’s a problem. Then he lies about it the whole time he is claiming he loves me, and you call that a problem?”

  “Just listen.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “He said less than a year, but he didn’t say what was less than a year. Maybe he’s only known about his daughter for a year. Then maybe she’s six and he just found out.”

  “Yeah, right. Why would that psycho bitch wait for almost seven years to tell him?”

  “What makes you think she’s a psycho bitch?”

  “He said she’s psycho.”

  “Maybe she is from his perspective, or maybe she’s just a scared woman who got caught up in a bad situation. Why are women always so hard on other women, and why am I the one saying this to you when it’s usually the other way around?”

  “Because, Cara, I’m having a mental breakdown.”

  She called me Cara. Not dingleberry. Not good. That last comment should have snapped her out of it.

  “Do you want to talk to Mom?”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “She won’t mind.”

  “Not until I figure out how I feel. I don’t want everybody to hate him if I decide to stay with him.”

  “Nobody is going to hate him, Teagan. Not unless you want us to.”

  That made her smile a little bit.

  “Teagan, you need to talk to Jessie. You have done an admirable job of being incensed and outraged. You’ve had a good cry. You even called your favorite sister, but now you need to talk to him. You guys need to work this through together. That’s what being in a relationship means. It means when things get ugly, you work at it. Work through the ugly. Remember?”

  “I know you’re right. But I don’t want to do this. It hurts too much. I’m not sure I even want to know what happened or to work through it.”

  “If you aren’t willing to work through the ugly, then you need to call Jessie and say goodbye. You can’t have it both ways.”

  “Okay, dingleberry, I know you are trying to do the shock thing and make me think about life without Jessie and how I can’t live without him because I’m so in love with him and then I’ll accept this love child and move forward, but I really don’t think I can do that.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing, Teagan. I know that things are hard right now, I get that, and I’m more grateful than you will ever know that you picked up the phone and called me when you needed to talk to somebody, but you need to turn to Jessie, not me. He will be your husband. This is between you and Jessie.
Please, Teagan, call him. I’ll wait with you. I’ll hold your hand while you talk to him on the phone. I’ll sit in the other room while you guys talk if it will make you feel better, but please call Jessie. You love him. He loves you. Until just a few hours ago you guys were building a life together. At least hear him out.”

  “You’re right. Go home. I’ll call him.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure it is what you want to do and not just what I bullied you into?”

  “You aren’t that big of a bully, dingleberry.” She smiled.

  I gave her a big hug. Got in my car. Backed out of the driveway and waited two houses down. If she called Jessie and things didn’t go well, she would call me back.

  About ten minutes later, Jessie flashed his lights and pulled up beside me.

  “Your sister said you would be out here waiting. She said go home.”

  “Okay.”

  “And, Cara?”

  “Hmmm?

  “Thanks.”

  “I hope it works out, Jessie. I know how much she loves you.”

  I drove home to the guy I want to work through the ugly with. For the rest of my life.

  Shattered Tea

  ONE

  I CLIMBED INTO bed and snuggled up to A.J.

  He pulled me in close. “Everything okay?”

  “Not even a little bit. Teagan had another talk with Jessie. When I told you that he’d told her everything earlier, I was wrong. He told her that he didn’t want a big wedding. What he neglected to tell her is that he has a daughter.”

  A.J. didn’t seem surprised.

  I’d like to say that I was all mature about it, but it really pissed me off. Teagan is my sister. If her boyfriend has some deep dark secret, and my boyfriend knows about it, it is his duty to tell me. “Is that what you didn’t want to get in the middle of?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m trying really hard to keep you out of the middle of it, at least where my family is involved, but at the same time, you know what? That’s a pretty damn big secret to hold, A.J.”

  “It isn’t my secret. It wasn’t my place to say anything. If you told me a secret, wouldn’t it be your right to determine when and if it should be shared with the masses?”

  “I know that it wasn’t your secret.” I wiggled into a comfortable position. “Just for the record, I don’t have any secrets like that.”

  A.J. got very still. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

  “You’re scaring me. You’re acting like you do have a secret like that.” I turned so I could see him in the tiny bit of light that was coming through the blinds. “A.J., do you have a secret like that?”

  Because I swear to God, although I kept thinking that Teagan should just get over it and get on with it, I was twenty-seven kinds of hypocritical. If A.J. had a kid walking around out there that I didn’t know about, I was gonna have a heart attack and then maybe commit a homicide. Or two.

  “It’s not a secret, and it’s not like that.”

  I sat up. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that just like everyone else in the world, I have a history. Things happened to me before I met you, and I haven’t shared every moment of my life. Not because I’m hiding anything, just because I haven’t.”

  “Please tell me you don’t have a stack of kids out there somewhere.”

  I thought he’d laugh. He just looked sad.

  I couldn’t breathe. “A.J.?”

  “Cara, I don’t have a stack of kids out there.”

  “Do you have any kids out there?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then why do you look so sad?”

  “Come here.” He pulled me back down so that I wasn’t sitting anymore. I lay on my side. It seemed that he didn’t want me staring at him while he told me whatever it was that he was about to tell me.

  “Before I met you, I dated a girl named Amanda.”

  “I remember. Suzi talked about her. Suzi wasn’t exactly her biggest fan.”

  “Yeah, well, I should have listened. I’m not sure what you want me to say. Do you really want to hear about my previous sex life?”

  “I don’t want details about your sex life. If that’s all we’re talking about, then we don’t need to talk about it at all.”

  A.J. started running his hand lightly over my back. It’s a comfort thing, as much for him as for me. It’s not really a sexual thing, although it is kind of sexy. It’s more like a connection while we talk, which is about as sexy as you can get. I think he started doing that the very first time we lay in bed talking all night.

  “You know, I don’t want you to ever feel the way that Teagan feels right now, so I’ll tell you everything. If I’m telling you too much, stop me.”

  “That works.” I tried not to panic. This couldn’t be good.

  “I met Amanda at work. I was the photographer; she was the model.”

  “Great. She’s beautiful. Suzi left that part out.”

  “Beautiful?” He snickered quietly. “Maybe on the outside.”

  He took another breath, like the whole conversation was hard on him, so I reminded myself that since I was the one who asked for the information, I needed to just shut-up and let him get it out.

  “At the time, I thought we were perfect for each other. She was really outgoing and always had something to do. I was more into my work, and I was in my starving artist phase. Had fifty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment and only two pairs of pants. She had about a thousand pairs of shoes and about fifty thousand dollars’ worth of makeup and hair stuff. I guess opposites really do attract.”

  My thought was that opposites attract, but they don’t last. That’s what my mom always said. The other day, she mentioned — in her ‘mom’ kind of way — that Teagan and I needed to refocus and get more positive. But my mind went straight to the dark side. Suzi and Barry came to mind because they’re about as opposite as you can get. That brought me to a dark place. Of course there are some exceptions to every rule, but still… A.J. was talking.

  “Our relationship was reckless and stupid. We met and were living together in days.”

  “I know that one.” I smiled. “First we were living together. Then we...”

  His voice was as stern as I’d ever heard it. “That was nothing like this. Cara, you mean everything to me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You know that, right?”

  “I feel the same way.” I started to say something else but got interrupted.

  “Good. You’re doing that thing you do when you ask a question but then don’t allow the person to answer.”

  “Sorry. I’m one hundred percent listening, and I won’t interrupt again.”

  “Thanks. So, I moved in with her.” He waited a heartbeat to see if I would compare and contrast, since he had moved in with me as well, but I kept my promise and didn’t say a word.

  “We’d been living together for a few weeks when she came home one night and told me that she was pregnant.”

  My heart stopped. It was Teagan all over again. What the hell? I go my whole life without a single case of childhood weirdness coming into my reality, and in a matter of hours, that changes. I go to tell my mother I’ve got an issue or two, and instead I find out that she has been abused and Teagan was assaulted.

  Tonight, I go over to comfort Teagan because Jessie has this big dark secret that threatens their future, and I find out that A.J. has that secret, too. Not the same secret or anything, but a secret.

  Maybe it isn’t that things happen in threes, because I was lost on which three we were in right about now. I didn’t think I could figure it out even if I used a calculator with an abacus override. Maybe it’s that things come in clumps. Maybe Mom was right, and there was nothing new. There were just a bunch of things sloshing around in the universe, and you happened to get caught up in the muck.

  I didn’t say anythi
ng. Not because I was that good at keeping promises, but because my brain and mouth weren’t working. Normally in times of stress, even if my brain didn’t work, there was no shutting my mouth down. But right then, neither were working.

  A.J. was so lost in the past he didn’t even notice.

  “I was scared, but I was excited. I always wanted to be a dad, and even if the timing sucked — and it couldn’t have sucked much harder — I figured we’d make it work. I figured I’d sell all my equipment, probably be lucky to get half for it, but that would give me about twenty-five grand and be enough to pay for school. I could learn to do something that would be a regular nine to five.”

  He was quiet for a minute. I let him have some time. Mostly because I still didn’t know where this was going, but I was pretty sure this was one of those moments in life when you look back and know your world tilted off its axis just a little bit.

  A.J. continued. “We decided not to tell anybody. Amanda was really pissed when I told Suzi, but Suze had promised to keep it to herself until after a safe amount of time had passed and we told everybody. I thought we should get married. After the way my parents were, I was totally focused on giving the baby a perfect life. I wanted one hundred percent involvement. Amanda refused the whole idea of marriage. She insisted that married models didn’t get as much work. Total BS, by the way. She should have known that I’d know that — since I was in the industry — and I should have paid closer attention and taken that as a warning, but I didn’t.”

  He took a deep breath and spoke even more quietly. He’d stopped rubbing my back. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I didn’t do anything. Just listened.

  “That very first weekend after she told me, she came in late. Really late. And drunk. Completely shit-faced. I couldn’t believe it. Why would she drink? What about the baby? Does one drunken night mess up a baby’s life? Or is it just one stupid night: no harm, no foul? I didn’t know the answer, but every worst case scenario went through my mind, and I lost it.”

  If A.J. confessed that he’d smacked her, I’d understand. I’d completely lose all respect for him, but I’d understand.

  “I yelled at her. Screamed. I told her we were going to the hospital. Maybe they could do something. What was she thinking, getting drunk while she was carrying our baby? I don’t even know everything I said, but I yelled loud enough that the neighbors called the cops. The cops showed up, and they talked to each of us separately. The cop that was talking to me said that if Amanda wanted to be a total bitch, all she had to say was that I’d hit her, and my ass was in jail. She didn’t do that. God, I wish she had. Instead, screamed loud enough for the whole world to hear: I don’t know why he even gives a fuck. The baby isn’t his anyway.”