Page 118 of The Hot Shot

Chess looks up at me. “Don’t ever be sorry about something like that.” Her green gaze searches my face. “It’s okay, you know, to be friends with her. Maybe you can give each other something no one else can.”

“God, please don’t say that.”

“Say what?”

“That I have something no one else can give her. I hate the idea of Britt hurting, but I don’t think I’m the one to help her. She seems to think...”

I hesitate, and Chess frowns. “What?”

“Before you walked in, Britt started saying that she thought we were meant to be together.” I run a hand over my face. “She’s kind of messed up, Chess. She was talking about having another baby with me. I think she wants to... re-create...”

I can’t finish.

“Shit,” Chess whispers.

“She needs help, Chess, but I can’t give it to her. I tried to tell her that there will be other chances. She’ll find someone and have kids one day. We both will.”

If I hadn’t been looking right at Chess, I would have missed her flinch. She’s good at hiding it, giving my hand a squeeze as she puts on a brave face. “You will.”

Chess lets my hand go and opens a drawer to fill it with socks.

I stand there in heavy silence. “Something I said upset you.”

She glances my way. “Of course I’m upset. Your pain is mine.”

I believe that. I feel that. It’s a comfort I never expected but appreciate. Even so. “That’s not it, though. Something hurt you personally. What is it?”

The line of her slim shoulders tenses. She opens the next drawer. “I’m fine, Finn. Really.”

I take her hand and halt her movements. “Chess, come on. Something has been bothering you since Britt showed up here. You think I can’t see it?”

A glimmer of panic lights her eyes before she glances away. “Now isn’t the time to talk about this.”

Breaking free of me, she heads out of the closet.

I follow her. “There’s never a right time to talk about painful shit. But I’m here.” Catching up to her, I clasp her elbow, and she halts. I move closer, until my chest is pressed against her back. “Talk to me. Please.”

I’m tall enough to see her eyes flutter closed, and the pain that etches her face. “I can’t have them. Children. Babies.”

It’s the last thing I expected her to say. “What?”

Her breath shudders. “I’m basically infertile.”

Shit.Every comment I’ve made about having kids swims through my head. It had to have been a slap in the face for Chess. But she let me ramble and cry on her shoulder. “Honey...”

She moves away from me and starts pacing. “I found out during the whole latex fiasco. I’ve always had bad periods, horrible cramps, whatnot. I thought the latex issue was related to wearing... Anyway, they did a whole checkup thing and discovered that I had cysts in my uterus.”

She talks faster and faster. “I had them taken out, but it wasso bad that there was significant scarring. The docs told me that I have little to no chance of becoming pregnant. Deformed uterus, and all that.”

“Chess...”

She talks over me, the pitch of her voice rising. “It isn’t as if I’d been going around dreaming of babies or anything, but when the choice is taken away from you...” She shakes her head, blinking rapidly.

Before she can move again, I grab her hand and tug her onto my lap as I sit on the couch. Her posture is rigid when she turns to face me. “It isn’t the same as what you went through, but I know how it feels to lose something you didn’t even know you wanted.”

“I’m so sorry, Chess.” I tell her, cupping her cheek.

She leans into my touch, and her hand comes up to rest on my chest. “It is what it is.”