Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 7 TESSA

I stare out the tiny airplane window pretty much the entire way home. My mom sits quietly in the seat beside me, and I’m not sure if she’s quiet because she doesn’t know what to say or because she’s giving me space.

It feels very much like I’m grieving a loss. I manage to keep the tears at bay, but taking off from this place and leaving it behind me feels wrong. I’m supposed to be moving here. I’m supposed to be married. Instead, I’m going home alone and it feels like I'm leaving a piece of my soul here…because I am.

Tristan is my heart and soul and walking away from him is hard. I'm giving him the space he needs to find it in his heart to forgive me. I know we both want this and want to figure out how to make it work, but he's struggling with how to trust me after I kept something so huge from him.

I don't blame him, and I think back a few days to when I found out about his tryst with Tiffany and his time on the third floor at his club. I was hurt by those secrets that didn't have any effect on me. The difference is that the thing I kept from him wasn't like that. It has a direct effect on him. It involves him.

I hate that I'm the one who caused this pain. I want to blame Savannah, or Tiffany, or even Brandi, but the truth is I'm the one who kept a secret that had the power to break us.

I was planning on telling him at some point, but it's out now. My intentions no longer matter.

I can't stop seeing the hurt in his eyes when I asked him if this is goodbye forever. I have so many questions about the future. I didn't even think to ask if I go home to our house on the corner now or if I should move back in with my mom. Is it his house or ours? He said he bought it for me, and I want to be there, to feel him there and see him in every corner…but it might be too painful to be there without him not knowing the answer to any of these questions.

The baby kicks as we touch down in Chicago, and I can't help but feel the loss more strongly as this is the place where I was forced to give up the baby that is half me and half Tristan. The same place where I got pregnant with the baby I’m carrying now, the place I left so Cam could keep his little secret and I could have this baby.

This place represents so much loss, and yet if I look hard enough, I can still find hope.

He’s out there.

The child Tristan and I share…he’s somewhere out there.

Savannah somehow manipulated her way into getting all the information in her hands, and Tristan’s mom has it now. All I have to do is ask.

But do I want to know?

Of course I do. It’s something I think about every single day of my life. Is he okay? Is he happy? Is he healthy? Those are the only things that matter, and Sue has the papers that could lead me to the answers.

He’s been with the only parents he’s ever known for seven years. I can’t just walk in and claim him as mine even if I wanted to.

But what if he isn’t happy? What if he isn’t well-adjusted? What if he hates his situation?

Is that something I could change?

Is it even within my rights to?

I have no idea how any of this works. How Savannah got the information is completely beyond me, but whatever she did…it couldn’t have been legal. Not when I was the actual birth mother and I was turned away a few years ago.

I ride in the backseat with my mom while Russ drives us back to Fallon Ridge and I contemplate what the next step should be. The car is awkwardly quiet on the way home, and I’m sure Russ and Sue have about a million questions, but I’m thankful they’re not asking them right now.

When we pull onto Main Street a little under three hours later, we drive past the house on the corner. Everyone in the car turns to look at it.

That’s our house, and I have the urge to go there.

But I also don’t want to be alone.

Luckily, I don’t really have to make that decision. After we say goodbye to Tristan’s parents, I walk with my mom toward her house.

“Stay with me a while,” she says. “I don’t want you to be alone with the complications you were having before.”

I press my lips together and nod. “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it.”

We unpack and settle in, and she makes me dinner, and we’re both quietly lost in our own thoughts for most of the evening. She heads to bed at her usual time, and I head toward my bedroom window.

I sit on the windowsill and cry.

At nine fifty-seven, I text Tristan.

Me: Back in FR. Sitting by the window wishing you were here.

It was a simpler time despite its many complications.

He writes back after a few minutes.

Tristan: Thanks for letting me know.

That’s it. That’s all he says.

He could bare his heart, or I could tell him what’s in mine, and instead, all I get is just a simple thank you for letting him know I made it home safely.

I search for some way—any way—to extend the conversation.

Me: Are you okay?

Tristan: I don’t really know.

His answer is honest, at least, and as I search for what to say next, another text comes through from him.

Tristan: I can’t do this. It’s too hard right now.

My chest cracks and what pieces were left of my heart seem to break all over again.

He’s staying in Vegas.

It’s too hard for him to even text with me.

What about the baby?

I want to ask, but I’m too afraid.

He made promises to me, to us, and I want to know if he still wants to be a father to the baby I’m carrying now. He fell in love with her as he held my hand at every appointment, as he rushed me to the ER, as we watched her on the screen at my ultrasound appointments. It’s not her fault that I screwed up, and I hate that she might be punished for my actions.

I hate that maybe he’s not just leaving me, but leaving us.

I hate my father for forcing me to do the unthinkable.

I hate the destruction this one secret has caused.

I hate Savannah for exposing it before I was ready to.

But beneath those layers of hate, my love for Tristan burns strong along with my love for the baby I’m carrying…and in this time of darkness, it’s that light that will keep me fighting.