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Fortunately for me, it’s not the first time.

“I see,” he says, and takes a drink from his glass of white wine. He seems at a loss for saying anything else, and I definitely can’t blame him for that.

So while he processes the extremely screwed-up nature of our families, I peruse the menu, and when the waiter returns we both place our orders.

It’s when the waiter leaves, and Graham is already sipping out of his second glass of wine, he says, “I shouldn’t be surprised at this.”

“I’m certainly not, but why should you not be?”

“I came out to my parents about six months ago.”

“You did?” Holy shit! He’s been terrified of that moment since we were so young, since he tried to make out with a girl his first year of college, just to make sure he was really gay, to see if he could swing it, and when he was done, called me and said he never wanted to touch another woman for as long as he lived.

And he’d sent me a photo of the girl. She was gorgeous. Definitely make-out worthy.

“How’d it go?” I don’t even need to ask. It explains everything at my parents’ house earlier, and the way he’s swallowing his wine quicker than a starving man chugs water. “That bad?”

“Pretty much the worst possible scenario I’d ever imagined short of being disowned.”

“Oh. Graham.” My heart aches for him. His pain is so evident in his expression. I reach across the table and take his hand in mine, squeezing it tightly. “I’m so sorry. Tell me about it.”

“I’d rather not.” He drains his glass of wine and sets it down, sucking back the taste of his drink. “I think we have enough to talk about with you, woman. Tell me who got you pregnant and why my parents approached, insisting I should marry you so this baby can have a decent upbringing.”

“Decent?” I arch a brow, teasing. It takes him a minute to smile.

“Yeah, I get the irony. But fuck decent. Tell me everything.”

It doesn’t take me more than a breath to let it all spill out. I tell Graham everything. We talk about Braxton and my pregnancy, I tell him about the food trucks. By the time our own food arrives, we dig in, laughing and talking as I continue spilling all my stories about Braxton.

He asks me about the pregnancy. I give him the rundown on how far along I am, that I am secretly hoping itisa boy and grows up to be just like Braxton, with a bit of Jimmy sprinkled in.

We laugh about our parents, he jokes that if it doesn’t work out for us, he’ll happily take over and I can be his beard.

We spendhoursat the restaurant, and I completely forget about my parents. I forget about everything except how good it feels to be with Graham, someone who totally gets me, and Braxton, a man who just might love me like I love him.

So when Graham suggests we head out and go a few blocks east to a jazz club he loves with live music, I don’t hesitate to say yes.

Chapter 25

Braxton

To say I’m fucking pissed as hell at 11:25 p.m. is the fucking understatement of the century.

Countless calls to Cara’s phone have gone unanswered all night long. I didn’t bother sending a text or leaving a voicemail.

It became clear she was avoiding me when she never answered, and it becamereallyfucking clear why she was avoiding me when Stella showed up after going out to get food, it taking her longer than an hour, and I know it was because it took her that long to stop being pissed at me.

When she returned to MadInk, after my fifth unanswered call to Cara, she didn’t just have a bag of Imperial Chinese food with her.

She had a photo on her phone of Cara, her arms wrapped around some asshole’s neck, her cheek on his shoulder, and both of them were fucking laughing. She had a photo of that same guy with his shirtsleeve rolled up. Cara’s finger on that man’s forearm, tracing what looks like a script tattoo and the way she’s looking at the ink, then looking at the guy in a fuckingthirdphoto…it’s the same look she gives me after she comes. The same look she gave me this morning when she said she’d be home. My home. Our home.

Stella was no longer pissed, but smiling, pretty damn vindicated. Even when I took her phone, sent myself the pics, and then hurled hers across the entryway at MadInk, crashing her phone into my favorite portrait of the Caribbean Sea, she still wasn’t pissed.

So, yeah, I came home and have spent the last two hours drinking. Heavily. I rarely drink, much more rarely drink to excess, but tonight fucking calls for it.

I don’t know who the fuck he is. All I know is that the asshole she was out at a bar with, leaning on him on a barstool, is not her fucking father. And since her brother is dead, it’s most definitely not him either.

Lucy is already kenneled for the night because the last thing I wanted to see was her jump for joy at seeing Cara whenever the hell she decides to come home.