Page 110 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

JACKSON

“ P regnant?”

The word fell from my lips and hung in the air between Hailey and me. What did she mean, pregnant?

Is it mine?

My heart thundered in my chest. How long had it been since we had sex the first time? A few weeks. Almost a month? Something like that. What did that mean? How long had Hailey known she was pregnant? How long had she known and said nothing to me about it?

I leaned back on my heels and Hailey’s hand slipped out of mine.

Hannah crept back toward the front door. “I think I’m going to duck out and give you guys some time to talk privately. Text me if you need anything, Hailey.”

Hailey’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Hannah didn’t wait for her little sister to answer. She left the apartment with her shoes in her hands—she didn’t even want to hang around to put them on. She wanted to escape.

Slowly, I turned back to Hailey. “Hails, how long have you known about this?”

She scooted back on the sofa and pulled her knees to her chest, making herself as small as possible. “I didn’t find out until I got back from New York.”

“You’ve known for a week and you didn’t tell me?”

Ouch. That hurt. Hailey and I were best friends. We told each other everything. It had been that way since the beginning of time for us both. No problem was too big for us not to be able to solve together. Why would she intentionally keep this from me?

Hailey buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean to hide it from you, Jackson. I just needed time. I needed to figure out how I felt and—”

“How you felt? What about how I felt?”

“Jackson,” she pleaded. Her voice cracked and her hands fell from her face.

I could see the tears she was trying so hard to hide from me.

“Please. This is a lot to hear. Believe me, I know. We were safe. We used protection. I’m on birth control.

This shouldn’t have happened. But it did and I don’t know what I should do. ”

“You’re not in this alone,” I said firmly.

“You could have let me in. I could have helped. I could have picked up snacks and sandwiches and shit and held your hair back while you were sick. I could have been there. I should have been there. But you took that chance from me and made my decision for me, Hailey. That’s not fair.

You didn’t give me a chance to show up for you. ”

Her tears flowed more freely. She wiped them from her cheeks and shook her head.

I put my hands on her knees. “Why are you keeping me on the outside?”

A baby. This was bigger than us. It was bigger than how I felt and what I wanted with her. This changed everything.

Everything.

And she had chosen not to let me in on that.

I felt betrayed. And angry. I felt like everything I thought I knew about me and Hailey half an hour ago had suddenly been shaken loose like leaves from trees in the fall and now I was left standing under bare branches wondering where the hell everything went.

“I’m not ready for this,” Hailey whispered.

“I can’t do this, Jackson. Look at me. I’m a mess.

And you have your whole career just getting off the ground.

I don’t want to ruin that for you. You’ve worked so hard.

Neither of us have wanted to settle down like this.

It isn’t in our plans, especially so soon.

I don’t want you to give up on your dream because of an accidental family you never wanted in the first place. ”

“Is that what you think?”

Hailey hiccupped and her bottom lip trembled.

I shook my head. She didn’t know me as well as I thought apparently. “I can’t believe you would think I wouldn’t want to be there. You seriously don’t think I’d want to do this with you?”

“I—”

“Hailey.” It was difficult to keep my anger at bay.

“You’re putting words in my mouth and you’re making choices for me that I would not make.

You’re making wrong assumptions and telling yourself an inaccurate story in your head.

Don’t you know me well enough to know I would never leave you to do this alone? ”

“Because you’re a good man,” she said. She moved to the edge of the couch and stared into my eyes.

“Not because you want this. Or chose this. It just happened. Just like we did. We didn’t sit down and talk about it.

We just started kissing and now we’re here.

Neither of us decided we wanted this, Jackson.

We fell into it. And I refuse to let falling into something like this be what the rest of our life becomes. ”

“Jesus.”

“What?”

I pushed to my feet and pinched the bridge of my nose.

How could I have been so far off base? I thought I was going to show up here and tell Hailey how much I loved her, how much I always had, and that things would be different. Better.

But things definitely didn’t feel better. The moment of elation I’d had when I heard the word “pregnant” was long gone. I felt hollow and deep, like my soul stretched down into a spiraling pit of darkness.

I could handle betrayal. But one of this magnitude at the hands of my best friend?

This was a special kind of hurt I hadn’t felt before.

I turned my back to her and faced the fireplace.

“Talk to me, Jackson. Please don’t shut me out. I don’t know how to handle this. I don’t know if I’m doing or saying the right things. I just don’t want to make a mistake and throw our lives away over this.”

“Over this?” I breathed. “How can you say it like it’s nothing?”

Because she doesn’t want it. And I do.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

“Jack, please. I didn’t mean to make you upset. I just… I needed more time.”

More time. More time to decide if she was going to tell me at all.”I should go,” I said.

I moved across the living room and through the kitchen. Hailey was hot on my heels. She caught my elbow when I went to put my shoes on and pulled me back to her.

“Don’t go. We can talk about this. I know I’m a mess and I know this is a lot to process. There’s no right way to handle something like this.” Hailey searched my eyes desperately. “It’s okay if we’re on different pages right now. I don’t want you to leave.”

“No right way to handle it?” I asked. A bitter laugh left me and I shook my head. “No, I suppose you’re right. But there are wrong ways. And this feels pretty fucking wrong to me.”

Her bottom lip trembled and fresh tears sprang to life in her eyes. “Jack, please.”

I pulled my arm free. “I need to leave.” If I didn’t walk out, I was going to say things I couldn’t take back. I didn’t want to hurt her the way she’d hurt me. There was no sense in that. She was vulnerable and hurting already for all her own reasons.

I could have helped her with that if she’d given me a chance.

Stop. I shook my head. It wasn’t fair of me to assume I could fix things for her. It wasn’t fair for me to be mad about this. But damn it all to hell was I ever mad.

“I never meant to make you feel like this,” Hailey whispered. “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how. Or when. And I wanted to decide what I was going to do about the baby first.”

I nodded but didn’t say a word. What could I say?

It was her decision to make. Not mine. I supposed I just assumed she and I were close enough and she trusted me enough to share this with me.

It wouldn’t have happened without me, after all.

I didn’t want an opinion or control of the situation. I just wanted to be in the know.

I wanted to hold her hand. I wanted to drive her to her appointments, no matter what kind of appointments they were.

I wanted to be her best friend, like I’d always been.

“I get it,” I said. “I get it. Okay? But I need to leave. I need to process. This doesn’t feel right to me, Hailey. This doesn’t feel like us.”

“We haven’t felt like us since that night. Don’t spin this around and make me the one who ruined everything when you were the one who hit it and quit it and then got on a plane in the morning like nothing ever happened.”

My temper pulsed at the sides of my skull. Turn around and walk out. Don’t say a word. Don’t hurt her.

I put my shoes on, turned to the door, and wrenched it open. I paused in the hall to glance back at her. Hailey was standing there with her arms wrapped around herself. Her nose was pink from crying and her eyes were glassy.

If she’d asked me then and there to stay because she needed me, I would have. If she’d asked me to hold her while she cried, I would have. If she’d told me she loved me like I’d wanted to tell her, I would have kissed her and promised everything would be okay.

But I didn’t know if that was true.

So I left, and I didn’t look back as she sniffled behind me.