Part 117 (1/2)

Nate's eyes narrow. ”Maybe you should leave.”

”No.”

”I've nothing else to say.”

”I am not spending the rest of my life wondering what the h.e.l.l happened to kill what was growing into something different between us. And I refuse to return to b.i.t.c.hing and immaturity.” I catch his look. ”From either of us.”

”I told you, nothing to say, Riley.”

I catch him in a staring match, and wait until he's fully engaged. ”Boy or girl?”

”What?”

”Do you have a secret kid somewhere; one the mother won't let you see?”

”No, I f.u.c.king don't!” Nate shouts the words at a volume I haven't heard for a long time. I shrink back as he steps forward. ”Just f.u.c.king go, Riley!”

Anger, but his body language yells louder. He wraps his arms around himself, and his hands tremble. This staring match isn't what he wants because the minute the pain slips out from behind his eyes he pivots around to the kitchen and walks in, slamming the door.

Stunned, I wait and listen. No sound. Do I leave?

I can't. Whatever box of secrets I've broken open here, Nate won't deal with them. He'll be angrier and nastier in the future because I have.

I risk a venomous diatribe from him, but I no longer want to fight back. I want to help Nate lift whatever weight pushes down at him.

”Nate.” No response. I expect the door to slam closed again when I open it; but he stands in the centre of the room, arms still wrapped around himself.

”Why do you do this?” he snaps. ”Why do you push? Over and over, further and further. I can't let you anymore!”

”Look, I only came to apologise and call a truce. I accept and understand why Josh is a no go for you. That's all I wanted to say and to hear you agree to draw a line under us.”

”No, you don't understand.”

”Then explain to me,” I say gently.

”I saw Josh, and it was more than a shock. It hurt. Everything hurt again.”

My resolve breaks at his strange words. ”Nate, you've told me a lot in our time together. You can talk to me about what you need. What happened?”

He slumps against the bench and my heartbeat quickens with each moment following. ”s.h.i.+t, Riley. I'm confused.”

”Talk to me.”

For a long moment, Nate studies the ceiling and my discomfort grows. Has he forgotten I'm here? Or ignoring me until I leave? I s.h.i.+ft and my shoes squeak on the tiled floor.

He blinks and looks back to me. ”I told you I was engaged once, yeah?”

”Yes, and that it didn't work out.”

He looks me directly in the face. ”I'm gonna tell you something and I don't want you to say a word to anybody. Can I trust you with that? Or will you use it against me?”

”No, Nate. I said I care about you. I want to help you; and if that means you saying whatever is happening in your head because it'll help, I'll listen.”

Again a huge silence but this time he searches my face. I don't know what he sees, but I hope it's what I intended to hide when I came here today: how much I care for him.

He chews his lips, as if biting back the words. ”Charlotte and me. We'd been together two years. Got engaged because she fell pregnant. I loved her so f.u.c.king much, couldn't imagine life without her. Didn't want to lose her. When she told me she was pregnant, I freaked out. Then I saw it as a sign we should stay together; I even considered leaving the band to stay with her in Oxford.”

”Wow.” When he told me about his engagement, it was a shock but this isn't comprehensible. ”You do have a kid somewhere, then? Where? What happened, Nate?”

His shoulders slump and the rest of his story spills. ”We planned to get married without telling anybody because we were eighteen and could do what the f.u.c.k we wanted. I was caught up in the idea that we had each other and that was enough. I had Charlotte and she was my whole world, her and the baby my responsibility. I would've done anything for her. Them.” Nate stares at the floor.

”You don't need to tell me this, Nate,” I say softly.

”I need you to understand. I don't want you to think I'm making excuses and this is because I'm too immature to accept you have a kid.”

”What happened?”

Nate takes a deep breath and looks behind me at the door. ”Out of the blue a month later, Charlotte ended the pregnancy and the relations.h.i.+p. Walked away. Shut me out, wouldn't speak to me.” I scramble to catch up to his words, stepping forward as his voice turns hoa.r.s.e, but his arms wrap tighter around himself. ”Then I found out why.” I can't find words and what follows cuts more away from my anger with him. ”She wasn't sure the baby was mine.”

”Oh.” The word rushes out with my breath. ”Nate...”

”Can you even understand what that did to me? I loved her, but f.u.c.k...” Nate drags both hands through his hair and grips, staring at the floor again. ”She didn't ask me or involve me. About the baby. I know it was her decision to make, but she didn't involve me... And someone she... there was someone else. I meant nothing. We meant nothing.”

”Nate...” His confession and pain hits the weakest point in my defence, the sole place I had left I never thought he could touch. ”You carried this all these years?”

”Easier if I pretend it didn't happen and avoid it happening again. I was an idiot. Left myself open, allowed somebody to takeover my heart and mind, and was thrown to one side. I can't do that again. I can't go through this s.h.i.+t when somebody f.u.c.ks me over again.”

His anguish radiates across the kitchen, the words pouring from his mouth leaving him exposed and raw again. In front of me is the teenage Nate, confused and unable to see anything but the black and white of the situation.

I finally understand. This man never moved on; stuck with his pain from the past dictating his life. A lot of guys in eighteen-year-old Nate's situation, like Logan, would run. A guy on the edge of success would do anything to dodge the curveball thrown in his path.

Nate chose to let it hit him full on. And so did I.

He interrupts my thoughts with another outburst. ”You know what? She f.u.c.king married him. The other guy.” He drags in a breath. ”And they have a f.u.c.king kid!”

I've tapped the spring before, know Nate's pa.s.sion, and experienced how deep the emotions run as they spilled out in the heated times we've loved and hated, but I've never seen this horrible mix of anger and hurt in his eyes. This man is unpredictable and I don't know which way our conversation will go.

”She married him back then? Instead of you? Are you sure she didn't lie and the child is yours?”

”No. Not then. I don't know when they married. And the kid isn't old enough to be mine.” His mouth thins. ”My kid would've been Josh's age.”

The clouds of confusion lift, revealing the truth why Nate dropped everything between us and switched off. Me. A child. Lies. Vulnerability. But no matter how much he hurts, applying all this to what we have is wrong.

”Is this because of Josh's father too?” I say quietly. ”Do you think I rejected him?”

Nate frowns as if the thought hadn't occurred. ”I don't know. Maybe. Because n.o.body knew you had Josh, I thought maybe you pretended to him too. Like, never told him.”