Page 30 of Everything After (Everything Trilogy)

LILY

I’d turned to Jack expecting support and for the second time since Alfie had left, Jack handed me my ass on a plate. How did I fuck up so badly? If I’d been failing Alfie, why didn’t he say something sooner?

From my perspective all I’d been doing was my job. A job that wasn’t as easy for women to be taken seriously in, as it was for my male counterparts in the industry.

Exhausted from crying, I had fallen into a fitful sleep and woke when I heard a boat approaching our waterfront property.

With my heart beating hard, I climbed out of bed and stared with an uneasy feeling toward our small jetty in the dark. Relief, fear and apprehension ran through me, in that order, making it vibrate on a totally different frequency than it had been once I saw it was Alfie and Oscar.

I wasn’t made to live alone, and with the added vulnerability of being famous I usually had someone around whenever I was home. But since Alfie had left I’d stayed alone, and I’d constantly been on edge that strangers might come calling at night.

“Lily, get up,” Alfie bellowed the moment he entered the house. The fury in his tone hit me hard and I knew immediately that he hadn’t come back because he had missed me.

I felt a bolt of shock down to my soul when I reached the top of the stairs and saw him look impatient when he shifted his weight from hip to hip.

As I took him in from the top of the stairs, my heartbeat grew faster because I still loved him completely and took in my beautiful man. And despite his obviously livid expression, I’d wanted nothing more than to throw myself into his arms.

Pure, unadulterated wrath swarmed in his dull eyes when mine met his. “Get down here,” he ordered in a menacing tone as he jerked his index finger toward the floor.

My heart pounded as I rushed down beside him, guessing immediately that he’d found out I was pregnant. As I stopped next to him, my body buzzed with fear when pure rage rolled off him.

Alfie’s jaw tensed so tight that a terse muscle popped near his ear, doing little to hide his raging temper.

He rolled his shoulders as he stared me down.

For a few seconds silence hung in the air as I waited for the incendiary device that was brewing inside him to go off and shatter the calm between us.

“Do you have something to tell me?” he pressed in a chilly, ominous tone. The weight of his icy stare sent another bolt of shock through me, which left a tingling feeling in my lips, fingers and toes long after its initial impact.

“I-I was going to tell you—” I began.

“When?” he bellowed, cutting me off and making me jump.

My heart crumpled in my chest at the malice in his tone.

“When were you going to tell me that you were pregnant? When were you going to tell me that I was going to be a father? Who else did you figure you had to tell before it was my turn?” he barked. “I am the father, right?”

For a moment all my internal turmoil stopped. I’m not sure if it was due to the shock of Alfie’s confrontational questions, or that I was completely horrified by the whole situation.

“Of course you’re the father,” I countered, horrified that he could think I’d been with anyone else.

“You’re certain of that?” he challenged. His fists clenched down by his side, and I’d never seen him so livid.

“I can’t believe you’ve insulted me like that,” I muttered quietly as I wrung my hands.

“Why not? I mean you’re pregnant and we’ve hardly seen one another. You’ve always been paranoid about your birth control, yet here we are.”

“I’ve never even looked at anyone else since we’ve been married.”

“So, the baby you’re carrying is just your bad luck?”

I shrugged because it wasn’t a case of lucky or unlucky, it was that I felt totally unequipped to wrap my head around how we could make a safe and nurturing environment for a child with both of us off making music all the time.

“Speak,” he ordered and rolled his shoulders like he was trying to wind the tension in them away. I could hardly blame him for being furious with me. But even though I knew Alfie would never hurt me, the aggression in his tone almost blew me away.

He had every right to be mad, but I believed anything I said would be taken by Alfie and twisted to suit his narrative, given how incensed he was.

“You don’t even have anything to say? How about I give you an opening sentence. I’m sorry you found out that we are going to be parents by your best friend instead of me?”

“I know sorry isn’t enough for how you found out. That shouldn’t have happened,” I muttered quietly, feeling stupid and ashamed while I tried desperately to gather my thoughts.

He strode away from me and spun on his heel, arms wide from his chest. “How the fuck did he even know?”

“Elle,” I stated. “She came over to see me after you left. Then, as I was being sick, she suggested I take a pregnancy test.”

“Elle? You were sick weeks ago. You’ve known all this time? I thought you’d just found out.”

I nodded, devastated at my behavior, and that I hadn’t given Alfie the total respect, he deserved. But with the shock of the unplanned pregnancy, I hadn’t been thinking straight. Plus, I had called him but his voicemail had been full.

If only I had known what to do and reacted in a timely manner when I’d found out, then we wouldn’t have been where we were now. I couldn’t begin to imagine how hurt Alfie must have been when Drew told him about the baby.

“Don’t you dare cry,” Alfie warned when my eyes filled with fresh unshed tears.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, Lily?” he queried while his fiery gaze held mine.

Of course, his reaction was perfectly acceptable since I’d omitted to tell him.

And I knew then, my decision to wait things out was likely the worst thing I could have done.

“I-it wasn’t supposed to be like this—”

“No? How was it supposed to go down?” he snapped, cutting my explanation dead.

“Right,” I said quietly, agreeing that I’d totally screwed up. “Go on, shout at me, I deserve it.”

“Shout at you?” he muttered. “You have no idea how pissed I am. Raising my voice won’t fix this.

” Lifting a clenched fist, he struck himself square in the chest. He might as well have struck me because the hollow thud I heard made my heart skip a beat and not in a good way.

A wave of nausea swept over me and as we were still in the hallway, I sat down on the bottom step.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice instantly softer and full of concern.

“I’m fine, I just feel a bit nauseous.”

“Okay. Deal with that and let me know when you feel better because this discussion isn’t over,” he said, sounding harsh. Turning away from me, he disappeared into the kitchen.

Alfie’s lack of consideration for the change in my condition shocked me to my core. Until that moment, even at the worst of times in our past, Alfie had never sounded indifferent toward me. But it was no more than I’d deserved.