Second Chance Sweethearts by Liwen Y Ho

Author:Liwen Y Ho
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

8

Nate

What was he doing here?

Nate swallowed a spoonful of ice-cold frozen yogurt and squeezed out a smile. Across from him at the small round table sat Charity, chatting away like a non-stop jackhammer. Her bright smile told him she didn’t seem to notice he was only half-listening, mindlessly nodding every now and then. Oh, how he regretted accepting her invitation to join her today. It had seemed like an easy choice, especially when she’d cornered him in the church pew as soon as service ended. But this date—he was sure she saw it as a date—was a bad decision when his heart still belonged to someone else.

Six weeks had passed since that fateful day he ran into Missy at the doctor’s. Six weeks during which he’d wavered back and forth between calling her or moving on. His heart told him to reach out because there had to be some good explanation for her pregnancy. Apart from an immaculate conception, however, he didn’t want to consider any other reasons. Surely, there was no way Missy, sweet, innocent Missy, had given in to temptation.

All the dreams he’d had for them were now crushed to the ground, much like a house demolished by a tornado. The structure of their relationship was bent and broken, with only a foundation remaining. But it was a foundation, nonetheless.

He sighed. What a terrible friend he was. He couldn’t just give up on a decade of friendship. Missy had always been there for him when he needed her; how could he not do the same for her?

He looked up, suddenly aware that Charity had stopped talking. Instead, her mouth hung open and her eyes were fixated on the front door. Nate turned around, following her gaze. He immediately spotted the object of her fascination.

Missy, head down and cheeks flushed, held the door open as Susan and the twins walked in. She followed suit, pulling the sides of her pink sweater over her round belly. The belly that was causing Charity to gasp in horror.

“Do you see that? What happened to Missy? Is that why she moved back to Sun Valley?”

Nate set his cup of frozen yogurt on the table with a loud thud. His stomach turned at the tone of her voice. Disapproval, judgment, condemnation … Nate almost expected Charity to produce a stone in her hand and throw it in Missy’s direction. A fierce sense of protection came over him. “Please stop staring.”

“But do you see her? There’s no wedding band on her hand. She must’ve gotten knocked up in the city and then dumped.”

“It’s not our place to gossip or to judge. Didn’t you hear Pastor Paul’s sermon last Sunday? We need to consider the plank in our own eye first before pointing out the specks in other people’s eyes.” As soon as the words left his mouth, his stomach turned again, this time from disgust with himself. The day he’d discovered Missy was pregnant, he’d wondered the same things about her. In a matter of seconds, he had condemned her in his mind.

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