Bash: Hey, Gwen. It’s Bash. We drank shitty margaritas together two weeks ago. I sent a text when I got home, but I don’t think it went through.hr

    EIGHT MONTHS LATER…

    I EYE GWEN’S CONTACT IN MY PHONE AS I SIT AT THE CALGARY airport. It’s been eight months since that freak November snowstorm. Thirty-two weeks since I sent the first text to her. Thirty weeks since I sent that follow-up. And I stille back to our very one-sided chat.

    I look over the messages for what feels like the millionth time. All marked as delivered.

    Since she didn’t respond to either, sending another now just seems pathetic. The answer is probably to read between the lines. And with the way my life has been turned upside down in thest year, I’m not sure I need to volunteer myself for a full-on rejection. I’m already grappling with heavy feelings of inadequacy.

    Making a hot twenty-seven-year-old spell out that she’s avoiding me might just be my killing blow.

    So I decide to keep it simple—do my mental health a favor. She ghosted me, and I don’t need to be the creepy dude who can’t let it go.

    Simple.

    Still, it stings.

    I put my phone away and stare at the moving walkway at the end of the terminal.

    And I think of her.

    I think of that night.

    She wasn’t wrong about it bing a core memory. I should be focused on heading to my newfound son’s birthday party but, fuck, if she’s not perfectly burned into my mind.hr

    “Cecilia.” I force my lips into a smile, but I’m sure it looks more like a grimace. I’m trying not to hate the woman standing in front of me.

    But it’s fucking hard.

    Which is probably why my “nice to see you” sounds like code for you’re a piece of shit. This is the second time I’ve seen her, and she’s been nothing but cool, distant, and awkward. Not an exnation or an apology as far as the eye can see.

    Her lips are pursed, and it feels like she’s looking everywhere but at me. Beyond me to the road, down at the rosebush beside her front door.

    Coward.

    “Yes, well…” Her hand floats up to her throat, a diamond the size of arge grape adorning her finger. “You know, Tripp is a good boy. He wanted you here. And what the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets.” She smiles, but it’s pinched, like she finds the sight of me distasteful.

    I re back at her, running my tongue over my teeth. At least we have that inmon. Because I find the sight of her distasteful too. I thought that this whole thing might feel easier today, but it doesn’t. I’ve had months to stew in my bitterness. It’s thick in my chest and tight in my jaw.

    I don’t know how a person is supposed to feel after finding out they have an adult son whose existence was intentionally kept from them.

    Some parts of me are happy. I’m trying, and to his credit, Tripp is trying too. As in, we exchange the odd text. Usually, it’s me congratting him on his game—because I watch all of them now. Hell, I even bought a jersey with his name on it. I guess I’m a fan now. Even if I’m not a fan of his mother.

    A bigger part of me feels paralyzed by the injustice of it. The missed years. The missed opportunities. I suppose some people might take this total fiasco and make margaritas or what-the-fuck-ever. But me?

    I’ve spent thest several months torturing myself over it. Squeezing that lime juice right into my damn eyes like some sort of masochist.

    Because I want so much more. I want all the birthdays I missed. I want the first steps back. High school graduation. His NHL draft—the one I looked up on the inte, only to watch his name be called and see him hugging his mom and stepdad. It was the happiest of moments.

    And I was nowhere to be seen.

    “Okay, well, if this meet and greet from hell is over, I’m just gonna…” I point over her shoulder and into the ptial house, where music and chatter filter toward us.

    Cecilia’s eyes narrow, her mouth popping open as though she’s about to say something. But before she can, her husband, a tall, broad man with salt-and-pepper hair and a kind, dopey face, rounds the corner. His tucked-in powder-blue cored shirt reveals a slightly thick midsection over his khaki trousers. He reminds me of an aged, all-state quarterback who still meets up with teammates to relive their y-by-ys.

    The grin he hits me with is genuine, though.

    I’ve only met Edward once before, and just like then, the guy is impossible to hate.

    “Sebastian!” His deep voice booms across the foyer, and his arms go wide as he greets me with a genuine excitement that his wife couldn’t even pretend to muster. “Get in here. What are you doing, Ceci? Let the man in.”

    She steps away as Edward reaches forward to shake my hand. “Great to have you here,” he says, following up with a firm handshake.

    “Edward. Beautiful home. Thank you for having me. But please, call me Bash.”

    Heughs, stepping back and gesturing me through. “Well, in that case, call me Eddie. I mean, hell, we’re all family here.”

    From the corner of my eye, I see Cecilia flinch. Then she covers for it by holding her willowy frame tall and tense.

    For a sh, I feel a pang of sympathy for her. I’m certain this is not how she envisioned her son’s twenty-fifth birthday party.

    But then, she did this to herself. And as much as I like to consider myself a good person, I’m not the soft, doting type. If she needs someone to feel bad for her, that person can be Eddie.

    He leads me through the house, spouting off about Tripp’s statistics fromst season and practically overflowing with pride. And why shouldn’t he? He raised Tripp as his own. Tripp ys with Eddie’sst name on his jersey.

    He’s his dad.

    “Tripp will be so pleased you’re here. And everyone is just out back…” Eddie carries on enthusiastically, going through everyone else who is in attendance as though he thinks I’ll know who he’s talking about.

    I’m hit with the stomach-sinking realization that I’m an interloper here. The scruffy, surly guy who lives in the mountains, who works two jobs and has no family. If simply driving through the neighborhood in West Vancouver made me feel out of ce, actually walking through their massive, modern home is a shing sign telling me I don’t belong.

    I never did. Even at fifteen, I didn’t fit—and Cecilia’s parents knew it.

    My mrs grind, and I suck in a deep breath, lifting my shoulders. I might not be one of them, but I’m proud of who I am, and I’m not in the habit of letting ridiculously rich people make me feel small.

    So I move through the open sliding doors onto the back deck with my head held high. Tripp spots us and rises to greet me. “I’ll leave you to it,” Eddie says before making his exit.

    Then my eyes are back on my son.

    He may not look like Eddie, but the mannerisms are all his. The copper tinge to his hair and the heart shape to his face are all Cecilia. I think the dark eyes mighte from me, but it’s hard to say when, in so many ways, he feels like a perfect stranger.

    “Bash, hey!” We start off with a handshake, then he pulls me into a hug. Hard psnd on my back, and the affection in his greeting surprises me. He’s always been friendly enough, but I wouldn’t call our interactions warm. More stiff than anything. “So d you could make it.”

    He reeks of gin and cologne, so I wait until I step away to take a breath of fresh ocean air.

    Tripp shifts to the side, and the view beyond him unfurls. Just over his shoulder, I can see the rocky, wild coastline that graces this neighborhood’s shores.

    My gaze scans the horizon, where the humid August air shimmers in undting waves above the water. Farther up the grass, a catering station stands next to arge white tent,plete with a checkerboard floor, and then—

    Beautiful doe eyes, morevender than blue. Eyes I haven’t seen in eight months.

    All the air leaves my lungs in one rough exhale. Because I’d know those eyes anywhere. I’ve dreamed of them.

    I stand frozen, heart racing as quickly as my mind as I soak in the woman before me.

    She looks just as shocked as I am.

    What are the chances?

    Tripp smiles like a politician and gestures toward her with a look of fondness on his face. “Bash, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Gwen. Gwen Dawson.”

    The word girlfriend falls through me,nding hard and heavy in my gut.

    Yeah.

    What are the fucking chances?