Chapter 9
I’m not sure which hurts worse—my heart or my hand.
Hopefully the asshole’s cheek hurts worse than both.
“Britt! Wait up!” Krista runs down the corridor and wraps her arms around me, pushing me into the cinderblock wall. “I’m sorry my brother is an asshole.”
“You don’t have to apologize for him.” The anger is still potent, but the adrenaline is fading. Tears sting behind my eyes and burn my nose. I need to get out of here.
I take off again, heading away from the auditorium as quickly as I can.
She falls into step, keeping her arm looped through mine. “Are you really pregnant?” she asks after we turn the corner that leads back to the lobby of the venue.
As we push through the double doors into the casino, I take a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other, focusing on moving toward the bank of elevators that will take us to our room.
“Yeah.” The word comes out shakier than I want, and I clamp my teeth on my trembling lip.
Almost there, Britt. Then you can fall apart.
But why should I fall apart? He was a dick. Just like I always thought he was. The asshole isn’t worth my tears. Resolved, I take in a deep breath, and the tears disappear.
Am I hurt? Yes.
But did I expect things to go differently? Not really.
I’m not disappointed in his actions. I’m disappointed because he proved me right. So what if, for a split second, I believed there could be something more between us?
What does that mean for the baby?
All along, I’ve planned to raise this baby without him. I have a steady job working for my brother at the brewery, and he’s letting me live in the apartment above his restaurant. It has two bedrooms. Noise from the brewery is minimal, so I don’t see that being an issue after the baby is born. At some point, I’ll have to figure something else out. But for now, I have what I need.
What we need.
“Britt?” Krista is standing inside the elevator, holding the doors open for me.
I step on, grateful that it’s only us.
She pushes the button for our floor, and her eyes catch mine in the gold-hued mirror. “Why didn’t you tell me about you and Ryder?”
I turn to face her and lift a shoulder. “I thought you would hate me.”
Confusion carves a line in between her eyebrows. “Huh?”
“I didn’t want to be like those girls you went to college with. The ones who tried to use you to get to him.”
She slices her hand through the air before lifting her index finger. “A, you’re nothing like those girls. B—” She lifts a second finger. “We’ve been best friends since second grade. Those girls knew who I was before they approached me, I think.” A third finger. “And I’ve always pushed you to be together with him.”
“I know.” My stomach knots. “But I couldn’t shake the worry there. And I was scared to tell you because then it would have been more real, you know?”
I didn’t need it to be any more real than it was.
The door dings open, and we step off the elevator and turn in the direction of our room.
“I’m going to need to get back into Ryder’s room and get my stuff,” I tell her as she swipes the keycard to our room.
“Pfft.” She waves a hand. “I got it.” As I head into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, she picks up the phone next to the bed. In a few minutes, and with a few key words, she’s planned for my stuff to be picked up by the hotel concierge.
“Thanks,” I say once she hangs up.
“No problem. I take it you don’t want to go to dinner and the concert tonight?”
“Not particularly.” I slump into the tall chair in the corner and survey the way the setting sun casts a ray of light along the Strip. The neon is only just now starting to turn on, reminding me of last night.
“I’ll let my mom know.” She pulls out her phone, and her fingers move along the screen.
“I don’t want?—”
“I told her that you and I decided to grab dinner by ourselves.” She pockets the phone again. “They’ll be at the show, but I’ll tell them that we got distracted.”
My heart squeezes. She’s going to miss her brother’s show for me. “You could still go.”
“The fuck I will.” She sticks her tongue out at me.
“He’s your brother.”
“And you’re my best friend. Hos before bros.”
I groan. “Kris, why are you quoting One Tree Hill at me?”
She shrugs. “Seemed appropriate.”
We sit in silence for several moments, me in the chair and her flopped on the bed, before her phone pings.
She rolls to one side, pulls it from her pocket, and holds it above her. “Mom says she’ll see us later and told us to enjoy dinner.”
Even the thought of food turns my stomach upside down.
“Are you hungry?” I ask her.
“Not really.” She drops her device to the mattress. “I’m too pissed to eat.”
“I don’t want you to be mad at your brother.”
Even though I appreciate her support, I don’t want to drive a wedge between them.
“I seriously wish I was an only child right now. What was he thinking?”
I stay silent. I couldn’t answer the question if I tried. It’s one I’ve asked myself several times already, and I’ve yet to come up with a plausible explanation.
“He’s such an idiot. Wait a second.” She scrambles up to sitting and faces me head-on. “You’re pregnant.”
“Y-yeah.”
Where is she going with this?
“I’m going to be an auntie!” Wearing a smile that stretches from cheek to cheek, she bounces up from the bed and wraps her arms around me in an exuberant hug.
“Yeah.” We’ve always talked about being aunties to each other’s kids one day. In this case, she’ll also be the baby’s biological aunt—something I would have sworn would never happen in a million years.
She pulls back to sit on the edge of the bed closest to me.
“We need to go baby shopping when we get home. I need to stock up on presents for this kid. When are you due?”
“I’m about two months along now.” I can’t help but rest a protective hand on my mostly flat stomach. “January twenty-sixth, according to the doctor.”
“Does Jagger know? Your mom?”
With my lips pressed together, I nod. “They both do. Jagger was the first one I told. When I got fired, I had nowhere else to go. He helped me tell Mom.”
Mom was a single parent. I don’t think she relishes the idea of that for me. But my case is different. I’m going in with my eyes wide open. She was blindsided when our deadbeat dad left right after I was born.
“Didn’t that jackass fire you because you were sick?”
“Too many call-ins.”
“Because you were pregnant?”
“In his defense, not every callout was because of that. Some were hangovers after our girls’ weekends. A few days when I had the flu last winter. And I called in sick the last time I went to visit Ryder.”
“Which was eight weeks ago.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. “Yeah.”
“Did you do that a lot? Was I completely oblivious?”
“For the last year or so, I’ve met up with him every couple of months. Before that it was only when our weekends were set around one of Downfall’s concerts. And we were really careful to keep things a secret.”
She snorts a laugh. “I’ll say. I thought you hated him.”
“It started that way. But then one night, we were slinging barbs at each other and the energy just…shifted. I walked away, fuming. He followed me and kissed me. After that, arguing with him became this weird sort of foreplay.”
“First, ew. No more details like that, please. Second, where the hell was I?”
“That was the night you pulled a disappearing act with the lead singer of Saints and Sinners.”
Saints and Sinners opened for Downfall years ago. Nowadays, they’re headlining their own shows.
Her eyes glaze over, and her voice is breathy when she says, “Oh, yeah.”
I give her a sad smile. “Now we both can say we slept with a rock star, I guess.”
“I still want to murder my brother.”
“Honestly, I’ve always known that the asshole on that stage today is who he really is, but he begged me to give him forty-eight hours to prove he isn’t.”
“And it only took him twenty-four to show you how right you were.”
The ache in my chest throbs at the thought. “You’re really not going to the concert if I don’t go? You’re okay with missing the first show of their residency?”
For a split second, a look of regret and sadness crosses her face, but then she catches herself, evens her expression, and sits up straight. “Of course.”
“Liar. You love your brother.”
“Loving him and liking him are two completely different things.”
“Kris.” I study her for several moments before I stand.
She frowns up at me. “What?”
I tamp down on my anger and disappointment. “Come on.”
“Come on where?” That frown deepens, and her brow creases.
“We need to get ready.”
The knock on the door is perfect timing.
“Ready? For what? We’re going out?”
“We’re going to their show. You’ll regret it if you’re not there.”
It’s my job as her best friend to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“You’re sure?” she asks, worrying her lip.
My hand is on the doorknob when I answer her. “I’m positive.”
Good thing I sound more certain than I feel.