We sit for a moment in awkward silence. And there’s no good segue, so I just jam the throttle: “Rachel. He’s not mine.”

Her mouth falls open.

“That’s why I said not to believe everything you hear.”

“But—you were—going to marry his mother?”

“I thought he was mine. I had no clue he wasn’t. God. I don’t know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning.”

That makes me laugh. She makes it sound so goddamn easy, but what is the beginning?

The night I hooked up with Zoë for the first time? The night the condom—from her stash—broke before I’d filled it? The day she told me she was pregnant and it was mine? Or the day Connor told me he’d seen her with someone else?

None of those, actually. The beginning of the end was the day I looked down into my son’s eyes and saw the truth.

“When Zoë told me she was pregnant, I was totally freaked out. But once I got used to the idea, I didn’t hate it. And I started manning up. I registered for a program to get my GED. I buckled down and started turning things around, doing more around the office, taking the business more seriously. I vowed not to fuck up with Gabe anymore. So I could be a good dad and a good husband. And then…”

I stop. My stomach flips, just like it did that day.

“I was in the middle of the fucking GED course. We were doing the genetics unit. The part where they use eye color to explain how genes are recessive or dominant, you know?

“I went home and I picked him up. He dangled there, kicking his little feet and grinning at me. And his eyes were brown.

“I mean, they’d been basically brown since he was born. Kind of a muddy color. Everyone kept saying they’d get lighter, but they didn’t. They were getting browner.”

She stares at me.

“Zoë has green eyes. I have green eyes.” I cross my arms. “And there it was, right in front of me. Justin’s eyes should be either green or blue.”

“Brody, I—”

“I asked Zoë about it. She probably could have bullshitted me. I think I wanted to be bullshitted. But I think she needed it off her chest. I think the lie was killing her. And she just kind of folded. Confessed everything. Two-timing both me and Len, getting pregnant, figuring out it had to be him. He’s married—to someone else—so the path of least resistance for her was to keep the whole thing with Len a secret, let me believe I was Justin’s dad, and put my name on his birth certificate.”

“Oh, Brody.” Her eyes are so tender. “I can’t even…”