Series: The Laws of Opposite Attract Series by Vi Keeland
Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Once inside my room, I paced. All that mattered was getting to Alex and figuring this out. I needed to find a way to talk to her tonight, needed to make sure she was okay. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. It killed me that Alex was hurting and I couldn’t comfort her. It killed me even more that I was the cause of her pain. Never in my life had I wished so badly that I could turn back time. But this whole thing would’ve come out eventually.
I needed to talk to someone. The first person I thought to call was Holden. He was the only one of the guys who knew how things had been developing with Alex. Although he wouldn’t have a solution for me, I needed to let this out before I went insane.
After dialing him, I pulled on my hair as it rang.
He picked up, and I could hear his baby daughter, Hope, babbling. “Hey, man, what’s—”
“I’m going out of my mind, Holden.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re never gonna believe what just happened.”
“Try me.”
“Do you remember me mentioning a girl I dated back in college named Kate?”
“Vaguely, maybe?”
“We weren’t together that long. Like a few months.”
“Don’t freaking tell me you have a child you didn’t know about. Am I gonna have to start calling you Colby?”
I laughed bitterly. “That scenario might be easier than the one I’m currently dealing with.”
“Well, fuck. What can be worse than that? Tell me what’s going on.”
“Alex and I were having a nice weekend. It’s her birthday. Tonight was supposed to be…” I hesitated, deciding not to share what was supposed to happen tonight. “It was supposed to be special. But her stepdaughter just showed up here, maybe to surprise Alex for her birthday. Well, turns out Alex and I were both surprised.”
“I’m not following.”
“Her stepdaughter and my old college girlfriend, Kate, are one and the same.”
“Oh. Shit. No way!”
“Yeah.”
“How did you not figure this out before?”
“I’d never seen a picture of her stepdaughter. And Alex always referred to her as Caitlin. Caitlin went by Kate in college. Now that I think of it, Kate was from Connecticut. So is Alex. But that’s such a minor similarity. I would’ve never thought to connect the two. Everyone I went to school with called me Brady, remember? That’s what I told them my name was—figured it was short for Brayden. I’d had that stupid idea that I wanted to create a new identity at college, and that shortening my name to Brady would somehow help. Boy, that came back to bite me in the ass.”
“Okay, so that’s why her daughter didn’t make the connection…”
“I guess.” I shook my head. “God, this is so messed up.”
“Alright.” He sighed. “It is…but listen, as hard as it may be to believe right now, it’s not the end of the world. What you had with Kate wasn’t serious, right? And it’s been a decade. Very good chance she doesn’t give two shits about any of this. So who cares?”
“Pretty sure Alex does. There’s no way she’s gonna get over the fact that Kate and I were together at one time, no matter how many years have passed. And there’s absolutely no way she’d do anything if there was a chance it would upset her daughter. I know her. It’s family first. Alex and Kate? They’re all each other has. Alex and me? We’re done.” My voice cracked. “We’re fucking done, Holden.”
“You need me to come there?”
“No, man. Thank you, though. I appreciate the offer.”
He sighed. “I don’t know what to say. This is the craziest shit that’s ever happened to one of us. I’m truly sorry.”
“Figures it would happen to me.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m more worried about Alex than anything, though. She’d finally decided to trust me. I don’t know if she’s told Kate the truth by now or not. Either way, it’s a shitshow.”
“Wait…back up. The daughter hasn’t figured it out yet?”
“Everything happened so fast. I’d just gone downstairs to meet Alex when I saw them both standing there. Kate recognized me before Alex could introduce us. Once I figured out what was happening, I didn’t know what to do. I basically pretended to introduce myself to Alex, made small talk with Kate for a minute or two, and then left. I can’t imagine what’s going on in Alex’s head right now.”
“Okay. Here’s what you’re gonna do…” he said. “You’re gonna breathe. Calm the fuck down. And don’t beat yourself up about this, Brayden. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Sure as hell doesn’t feel that way.” I exhaled. “At the moment, I feel like the worst person on the planet.”
“Sometimes things happen for a reason, even if we can’t figure out why.”
“I have a hard time believing that anything good could possibly come out of this.”