ASHLEY :

We're standing around the grill when the sliding door opens, and the chick from the picture on Ryan's phone comes out onto the deck and toward the stairs.

Ryan waves his arm and yells, "Hey babe, come down and meet the guys!"

I turn away from the grill to see her stopped halfway down the stairs, with a strange expression on her face. She stands there giving us sort of a blank stare for several seconds, then says, "Sweet bleeding crucified Jesus!" and bolts back toward the house.

We look at each other, and Andy finally asks Ryan, "Dude, your chick isn't a crazy fangirl type, is she? That would just be awkward."

"No, not even a little bit. Not trying to sound rude, but I couldn't even swear that she knows who you guys are," he says.

Juliet pops her head out the door, giving us a confused look, and behind her, we hear Brenna say, "Yay! Mommy here!" followed by the sound of shattering glass.

Juliet turns and dashes into the house, yelling, "No, no, no!" and the three of us start running toward the stairs, with Andy in the lead, as he was closest.

We reach the door just in time to see Juliet grab little Brenna and scoop her up just before she reaches what I assume is the kitchen door, settling her on one hip.

"Hold up there, little bit! Didn't you hear that noise? Something broke, it could hurt you," she says.

"I get owies?" Brenna asks.

"Yes, you might get big owies, sweetie."

Juliet turns toward the door, and her eyes immediately go so wide I almost expect them to actually fall out, while her free hand flies up to cover her mouth.

Andy pushes past Ryan and I, moving toward Juliet. "Babe, what is it? Is everything OK?" to which she simply shakes her head, still looking completely freaked out.

He moves up next to her, following her gaze, and his mouth drops open, moving as though he's trying to speak, which makes him sort of resemble a beached fish. This starts to worry me a bit, because when Andy can't form words, something big is going on.

"What the hell is going on? Is somebody hurt in there? " Ryan inquires, snapping out of the semi-trance we've both been in, and moving forward.

"No. Not yet, anyway," Juliet mumbles through her fingers.

"Although that conversation we had earlier does worry me a bit now," Andy finally says.

"What the hell are you guys babbling about?" I blurt.

I hear a woman's voice muttering something in the kitchen, then another says, "Lighten up, she's cool. And poor Andy is just sort of stuck right now."

"She may be cool, but she's not my fucking problem!"

A pair of female hands reach out and take Brenna from Juliet, then Ryan's fiancee comes charging back into the living room, with smoke practically pouring from her nostrils. I have to say, I'm honestly not sure I've ever seen anyone more pissed off than she is right now.

She stops in front of Ryan, giving him such a glare that I almost expect to see his skin start melting off. He looks completely bewildered, while Andy and Juliet still look rather shell shocked.

"What's wrong, Kaela? Why are you looking at me like that?" he inquires, almost hesitantly.

"I'm looking at you like this because the only thing that's keeping me from doing something to you that we might both regret is the fact that I'm aware that this... fuckery wasn't actually intentional! Do you even have a clue what the hell you've done?"

He simply shakes his head, sort of edging away from her, closer to Andy and Jules. Andy is whispering something into her ear, and apparently Ryan manages to decipher whatever it is, because he drops the grill scraper he's been holding the whole time, whips his head toward them, and sort of groans, "Please tell me you did not just say what you just said!"

They both just look at him, not saying a word, and he turns to look at whoever is in the kitchen and says, "Seriously, hon?"

He obviously doesn't get the response he's hoping for, because he just drops his face into his hands and mumbles, "Jeez, I'd better not go outside again for awhile, I'll probably get hit by lightning !"

"You'll get hit by worse than that if you don't fix this mess," his fiancee growls. "Right. Fucking. Now!"

"Am I allowed to ask what the hell is going on here?" I inquire of everyone in general. "You two seem to be in some sort of shock, Ryan is about to have a nervous collapse, and she's apparently ready to break something!"

"More like somebody!" she retorts, giving me a glare that could peel paint. "I just have to decide which method will cost me the least cleanup time!"

As I look at her more closely, I realize that there is something familiar about her. I run things through my head as quickly as I can, but I don't think she's someone I've slept with, and I don't remember doing anything to get this sort of reaction even if she was. Do I even know someone named Mikaela?

Wait a second... Mikaela?

Miki?

I quickly walk to the kitchen door, shoulder myself between Andy and Juliet, and look into the room to see something I never in a billion years expected to see. In the center of the room, holding Brenna in her arms and surrounded by shattered glass, is my ex-girlfriend, Fianna.

She left me almost exactly twenty-six months ago.

Brenna was two last week, and was apparently around three months premature.

Which means that she was around four months pregnant when she left. She hadn't been trying to get attention when we had that fight at Andy's, she was stone-cold fucking serious!

So why the hell did she take off, and keep my kid from me?

Nevermind, it doesn't matter why she did it, because it's going to come to a screeching halt, as soon as fucking possible.