One Night...

Chapter 4

"Scarlett, wait!" Andrew called out, his body flying out of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and into the parking lot, as if he was on fire. He had no clue what he was going to say to the blonde girl, but he just knew that if he didn't follow her out of that shop, he'd regret it for the rest of his life, and he was already feeling a lot of regret. He didn't want to add to it. His heart had sunk when he saw her face as she rushed out of the shop, tears pricking in her perfect ocean blue eyes, and he thought he'd never forget that look as long as he lived. He tore into the parking lot, sure everyone in the coffee shop was staring, and he glanced around frantically, trying to figure out where she was, but he didn't even know what car she drove. He didn't know anything about her, literally, except that she was a drop-dead gorgeous apparent lawyer and that she was now the mother of his child. As his eyes scanned the parking lot, he wondered to himself what he could have possibly done in his life to deserve this predicament, when he saw a golden blonde head climbing into the front of a silver Mercedes sedan. He ran faster than he'd ever run in his 27 years and threw himself in front of the door as she was about to close it.

"Scarlett, please wait," he yelled, out of breath both from the sprint and from the situation. She turned to him, already sitting in the driver's seat with her keys out, tears now flowing from her eyes, and he gasped. "I'm sorry, Scarlett, please don't leave. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. Or to make you cry. Or to, you know, get us into this in the first place..." his voice trailed off, and she let out a sob before putting her keys down, head hitting the back cushion of the seat, and she just stopped, letting the tears flow as she sobbed silently to herself.

"You really don't have to..." she said through tears, sadly shaking her head as she glanced up at him before closing her eyes. "Please, just leave me alone and let me suffer by myself, OK?" she begged between sobs, and he shook his head, leaning through the door into the seat with his hands on both sides of the open door. "I can't do that, Scarlett," he said to her quietly, and he felt tears pricking in his eyes too, but he wiped them away, willing himself to be a man in the situation. "Listen, I know you think I'm a complete jerk, but there's no way I'm going to leave you sobbing in a coffee shop parking lot after you just told me you're carrying my kid. There's just no way. So why don't you let me drive you somewhere? Home, or wherever you want to go? Because you can't drive like this, and I'm not leaving until you're OK."

She looked up at him, not sure what to do, but his warm smile and sweet eyes drew her in, immediately calming her. It was the strangest thing how those eyes could make her feel like that, this virtual stranger able to relax her with a simple look. She wiped the tears away, hiccupping a little bit, and she sighed. "OK, yeah. You can just take me home, I guess," she said before hesitating. "No, my roommate is filming a video there today, poor thing, she's been dealing with me and my emotional mess of a life for the past week, I don't want to bother her." Andrew cleared his throat a little. "Maybe we could go to the park?" he asked timidly, looing at her while nervously scratching the back of his neck. "There's one across the street. We could, you know, talk for a while, get to know each other... I could... profusely apologize for being the world's most awkward reactor," he said with a small smile, and she couldn't help but smile a little too. "Yeah, OK," she said, still out of breath from crying.

He grinned, taking her arm and ushering her out of the driver's seat, walking around to the passenger's seat with her and opening her door for her as she climbed in. He closed the door behind her and grabbed her keys, jogging around to the driver's seat and hopping in, taking off for the park across the street. It was close to his West Hollywood apartment where he'd lived since he started to work for Shane, after he moved out of the apartment complex where his ex-girlfriend Gabbie lived, trying to get away from her and everything associated with their breakup. He went to the park often, to run, to listen to music, to quiet his thoughts or sort out his problems. He felt immediately comforted when he was there, surrounded by trees, ponds and people walking their dogs, and he hoped maybe Scarlett would feel comforted there too.