asked.
“Exactly. We have a bit of a history—”
“I tried getting out of it,” he interrupted. “It was no use.”
“Oh.” He’d tried getting out of it? Somehow, she thought she’d be the one with more reservations, but perhaps she was wrong about that. Benji had been her first love—the bad boy with the motorcycle who swept her off her feet, much to her parents’ chagrin. And she’d loved him passionately until he dumped her and she left town with her mother—pregnant. She’d never told him about her pregnancy or her plans to leave, and while the guilt of that laid heavily on her shoulders, she’d honestly thought she was doing him a favor.
“I know this is complicated...” she began.
“Yeah, a bit.”
He angled his steps toward the parking lot, and she had to quicken her pace to keep up. Was he actually annoyed with her? It hardly seemed as though he had any right. She’d been the one unceremoniously dumped on the night of her prom. They’d been just about to go inside when she’d asked him the question that had been plaguing her for weeks: How would they stay together when she went off to college? It was a reasonable question, considering that Benji hadn’t finished all the classes he needed to graduate that year, so he’d be staying behind. Somehow, that had turned into an argument that ended with Benji telling her that they’d never last anyway, and he’d driven off on his motorcycle, leaving her in the parking lot with a corsage and a broken heart.
“It looks like things have turned out well for you,” she said, giving him an uncertain smile. “You look good.”
It seemed like the polite thing to say, although what the social etiquette was in a situation like this, she had no idea.
“So do you,” he said, ambling toward the row of squad cars. “Mind if I ask you something, now that I’ve got the chance?”
“Not at all.” Again, that seemed to be the polite response, even though she wasn’t exactly keen to face his questions.
“So how come you just disappeared like that?” He glanced down at her, his gaze fixed on hers for a moment longer than necessary, then he nodded toward a cruiser. “This one is mine, by the way.”
Little did he know that the least of her sins was the disappearing act, but if she had to be honest, she’d disappeared because she was afraid to face reality. And he had no idea how much reality had been hanging in that balance.
“It was a complicated time,” she said hesitantly. “My parents had just told me that they were getting a divorce. They’d been fighting constantly for months. Then, when my mom said she was moving out, I—”
Her world had crumbled. She’d felt adrift—seventeen, alone, pregnant and without the stability of her parents’ marriage to buoy her up. She could still remember how she’d begged them to reconsider, to go for therapy, to do anything to keep them together. They hadn’t, obviously, and their breakup had decimated her.
“So, what happened, exactly?” Ben asked. “There were rumors about your parents and why your mom left.”
“What kinds of rumors?” she asked, irritation rising. Her father had stayed in Haggerston, and the town should have known what kind of husband and father he’d been—not exemplary.
Ben unlocked her door and she got in. A moment later, he got into the driver’s side and, without looking at her, said, “People said she met someone else.”
“She wasn’t cheating on my father,” Sofia said dryly. “She’d just had enough. Sometimes women reach their limit.”
“But you both left without saying goodbye to anyone,” he said, finally looking in her direction. “I found out when I came by your place, and your dad told me you were gone. You never did answer my emails.”
“We were broken up, if you recall,” she said defensively. “I didn’t just leave town without telling my boyfriend. I left without telling my ex-boyfriend. I was no longer your business.”
“Technically,” he replied evenly.
“What does that even mean?” she demanded. “We were seventeen. We were kids. Do you honestly think I owed you something after you broke my heart?”
She felt the hypocrisy of the words as they passed her lips. She’d left pregnant with his son—of course she owed him something! But he didn’t know that, and his argument right now was surrounding the fact that she’d left at all without telling him her plans. And while she knew that she had to tell Ben about his son—and her son about his father—she’d wanted to wait until the time was right, until she had full control of the situation. Now that she was working with Ben, she’d have to tell him sooner than she’d planned, and her stomach sank at the thought.
“Yeah, I think you did owe me something,” he said, and the heaviness in his tone made her wonder if perhaps he did know more than he was letting on. “We weren’t just a couple, we were—”
She waited, but he didn’t finish the sentence.
“We were each other’s first loves,” she concluded. “Even if that relationship was over—”
“I still loved you. That hadn’t ended for me.”
Sofia froze, his words tickling something deep inside of her. He met her gaze, held it, then put the key into the ignition and the cruiser rumbled to life. So if he’d still loved her, why dump her? Why leave her alone in the parking lot of the community center in a tulle gown? That didn’t sound like love to her; though something in his voice suggested that he still felt something for her, and she couldn’t help the heat that rose in her cheeks.
“Anyway,” he said, breaking the silence. “Like I said, it’s been a long time.”
Her cell phone rang, and Sofia glanced down to see her father’s number. It was a welcome interruption right then, and she picked it up before it could ring twice.
“Hi, Dad,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual.
“Hi, kiddo,” he said, using the same endearment he’d used as long as she could remember. “We, uh, have a situation over here.”
“What kind of situation?” she asked.
“Jack is sick.”
“Sick? How sick? Does he have a fever?”
“I don’t know. He’s throwing up, though, and it’s not stopping.”
She sighed. “Did you give him the gluten-free cereal for breakfast?”
“Of course.”
“With the almond milk, not the dairy?”
“Uh, yeah. I think.”
She closed her eyes. “What else did he have, Dad?”
“A cannoli.”
“A cannoli? You gave him a cannoli?” she demanded. “That’s full of everything he’s allergic to!”
“I
