Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
GAbrIEL
I swore I could feel the panic seeping from my pores, and I swallowed hard, trying not to throw up again. Part of me wanted to pour myself a drink, but I hadn’t relied on it yet and I wasn’t going to start now.
I just needed not to remember.
I needed not to think of Mal. And his face when he looked at me with disgust.
I saw that look in my dreams. Every time I closed my eyes. Every time I allowed myself a calm moment, I heard my best friend scream at me. I felt his fist against my face, and there was nothing I could do.
Every time I breathed, I heard my best friend. He walked around this cabin, waiting for me to do something with my life, and I ignored him.
Only I couldn’t do that anymore.
Briar was here.
The woman who haunted my dreams right along with her brother. She was here , and a distant part of me knew that something big had happened.
“She’s pregnant.”
Because Briar was pregnant.
How the hell had that happened? I knew how it had happened. But just one night? I’d kept my damn hands off my best friend’s sister for all of the years I knew her. I’d walked away when our glances got to be a little too much. I’d fallen into the arms of others when I needed to forget because Briar could never be for me.
But the one time I’d given in, we’d not only changed our lives with Mal and each other—we made a life.
Holy hell.
“Gabe.”
I turned a little too quickly as I swayed and then Brooks was there holding me steady. Ridge stood behind him as Wyatt pushed his way in.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” Wyatt had a first aid kit in his hands and probed at the wound. I winced, but it didn’t hurt. Then Ridge moved forward to tug on my shirt.
I frowned, then looked down at myself. I was covered in mud from when I’d passed out and had cut the side of my head. I hadn’t even realized I was bleeding.
“Briar’s pregnant,” I blurted.
“We know,” Brooks whispered.
“It’s my kid.”
Ridge nodded. “We figured. You passed out, buddy. That’s fucking scary. Are you okay?”
No. I killed my best friend.
But that wasn’t what he was asking.
“I don’t know. I mean…she just surprised me. I don’t pass out, guys. That’s not me. But…holy hell. I missed everything .” I hadn’t ever thought I’d be a dad. It didn’t really cross my mind. The rest of my family was moving on, but that wasn’t really me. I’d wanted to take over the world with my music. Starting a family hadn’t been part of that.
Yet Briar had gone through how many months of her pregnancy without me? What trimester was she in? When was her due date? What was she planning? I knew nothing . And yet I could have known more. Instead, I’d pushed everyone away and nearly lost out on something I never knew I wanted.
This baby.
That is…if Briar let me anywhere near her.
Holy hell.
I saw my brothers exchange looks, and I frowned. “What?”
Brooks shook his head. “I can’t say you’re taking this well, but you are. I…I don’t really know what to say, but let’s get you into clean clothes. And a shower. You really need to shower.”
I sniffed myself and nearly passed out again.
Brooks led me to the shower, and I stripped off my clothes, resting my palms against the tile.
“What the hell am I supposed to do, Brooks?”
“Well, you’re starting it. And then you’ll talk to Briar and figure it out. You’re smart, Gabriel.”
“I was smart enough to use a condom.” I paused. “I remembered that safe sex talk you and Dad gave me.”
“Things happen. Hell, you know our family. We like to do things out of order.” Grief crossed his eyes, and I could have kicked myself.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t. Don’t worry about it.” Brooks cleared his throat. “You’ll find out what happened, Gabriel. And you’ll grovel and get in her good graces. And then get in her family’s good graces. Because you fucked up, but she’s here. That has to be something.”
“I want to believe you,” I whispered.
“Well, you might make more of an impression if you didn’t smell as if you rolled in mud and sweat,” Brooks said dryly.
Wyatt cleared his throat as he walked in, Ridge behind him. “Seriously. Let’s get you some soap. You’re going to need some soap.”
I looked over my shoulder at my patient brother and I had no idea what to say to any of them. He was being so calm. All of them were. My brothers had been through hell, but they were standing straight. They weren’t naked in a shower trying to wash off their sins.
“What am I supposed to do with Briar?”
“That’s not an answer I have for you.” He paused, his gaze going distant. “There’re some days that I can still hear Amara’s voice. When I’m washing the dishes, or taking a walk and smelling that cedar as it slams into my face and all my allergies. And I can hear her voice. I can still hear her laugh. But I can’t always see her face.”
I faced my brother now, washing the soap out of my hair. Brooks never talked about his late wife. Just like Ridge rarely talked about who he had lost. And what Wyatt had gone through, too. We Wilders weren’t good at talking. Our cousins were better at it. But they had been through their versions of hell as well. But perhaps Virgil had been their guide through the circles of hell, and this branch didn’t have one. Where was our Virgil? Our guide?
Brooks’s throat worked as he swallowed hard. “It’s only been what, four years? And I couldn’t think of her face a couple of days ago. And then I blinked, and it came back. Because I knew Amara. She was my everything. And I remember every fight, every bad decision, and every mistake.” My brother let out a breath, his jaw tightening. “We walked through the abyss, through life, knowing that we don’t have enough time. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I can’t hear her laugh anymore. I don’t know who I am without that laugh. Without that smile. But I still talk to her. I still wish that things could’ve been different. That it would’ve been me lying in that bed wasting away. But it wasn’t. And I’m forced to do the one thing she had asked me to do my entire life.” He paused, and I swallowed hard, before turning off the water. “She told me to live. And I hated her for that. I hated my wife for telling me to live when we knew she wasn’t. So I’m going to do something that Mal would’ve done for you.”
I flinched at hearing his name but swallowed hard anyway.
“Live. I don’t know what you’re going to do, what future comes with Briar, and the fact that she’s carrying your kid. I don’t know why you won’t let us say your best friend’s name. And why you’re shutting out the world. But just live, Gabe. That’s all we want from you.”
“Well, we could use a few other things,” Wyatt muttered. Ridge handed me a towel, and I wrapped it around my waist, watching water droplets slice over my ink and piercings.
I had barely even looked at myself in the months since losing Mal. Since losing everything.
And if I had picked up the damn phone, Briar wouldn’t have been standing on my porch nearly full term, leaving me passed out because I was such a damn idiot.
“I’ll live. I don’t have a choice. Because Briar and the baby deserve that.”
I stared at Brooks, and I hoped to hell he didn’t hear the lie. But then again, maybe he did. I had killed my best friend, right after I had betrayed him. But walking away from Briar now would make Mal even more ashamed of me.
So I would live. Whatever life I could breathe into the husk that lay before my future.