Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
GAbrIEL
M y gaze caught Briar’s, and I tried coming up with something else I could say in this moment because right then and there, nothing came to me. Yes, there was so much more to say, but ‘I’m sorry’ pretty much covered the beginning parts.
I swallowed hard and looked at that face I had known for as long as I had known Mal. Briar had always been in our lives ever since we had started the band. We had been in school, trying to figure out what we wanted for our degrees, and ended up dropping out and forming a band instead. And then Mal had brought in his sister, and she had clicked with us. It helped that she was a songwriter as well and had been able to write beside us as we figured out who we wanted to be. And then our band had exploded, and Briar had always been there. Yes, she tried to stay out of the limelight because that’s what she liked about her job, but the media knew her as the songwriter who helped the stars, and Mal’s sister.
So I knew her.
And it seemed that I had fucked up more royally than I had even imagined.
“I’m sorry for passing out. I haven’t been sleeping and…I have no idea why I did that. It was shocking, I guess.”
“I nearly passed out myself. I’m not really going to judge you.” She winced as she said it.
A smile played on my face. “You’re welcome to judge me. I passed out when I first saw you. Before you could even really say a word to me. Judge away. I’m judging myself.”
“Well, it was a bit shocking to see me all watermelon size and all.”
I finally forced myself to look down at her midsection, at the very large evidence of her pregnancy, and swallowed hard. “I know you said you were pregnant, and I can see it, but wow. You’re pregnant .”
“For somebody who writes songs for a living, you aren’t doing great with words.”
Briar was still pissed at me, and I knew it was my fault she’d had to wait so long to tell me. I’d pushed her away. “I’ll try to find the words.”
She shook her head, her hand on the swell of her belly. Her copper hair flowed around her face, her cheeks a little fuller than they had been the last time I had seen her. I couldn’t see any evidence of residual scars from the accident, and for that I was grateful. It had taken a while for my hand to heal, and I no longer had to wear the boot. When I’d last seen her, Briar had a small brace on her wrist, and I pressed my lips together, trying not to throw up at the memory. She’d been hurt, and I hadn’t been able to protect her. Just like I hadn’t been able to protect Mal.
My vision went gray, and I tried not to stagger back, to show her my weakness.
Briar gave me a strange look. “It was a shock to me when I realized that I was pregnant. When I saw those pink lines, and then the words, because of course I had to take seven tests to actually prove to myself that I was pregnant, I didn’t believe it. But Teagan kept looking through the tests to double check. And then she continued to make me pee on sticks until we went to the doctor and did a blood test.”
I could imagine the two of them doing exactly that and nearly smiled. “I’m surprised Teagan didn’t fly down here and kick my ass.”
Briar winced, and I quickly looked around as if Teagan was going to pop out of the bushes at any moment. I liked Teagan as she was Mal’s sister after all, but Briar and I had always been closer. Apparently too close, as evidenced by everything in front of me.
“I didn’t tell her or the rest of my family you were the father until recently. That was a point of contention, but you know, that’s how my brothers are. It’s always a point of contention.”
I knew a little bit about her father, and the hell that she, Mal, and their siblings had lived through in their small town, but I didn’t know everything. Mal had always been secretive about his childhood and had wanted to move on from the past. Yes, the pain in his words when he had written songs had always flowed through, but he didn’t talk about it in detail.
And Briar only ever mentioned it in passing, so I’d never asked. It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to know, it was only that I knew it wasn’t my place at the time. They would tell me when they needed to.
Then we’d run out of time.
“Teagan’s here, by the way.”
I stiffened, and once again looked around, and Briar laughed. A full-on laugh that hit me like a two by four, and I couldn’t help but smile at her. I had always loved her laugh. And that was a problem.
“She’s not standing behind you.” I nearly turned and her eyes danced. “She’s out with your sisters-in-law. They went to check out the vines at the winery or something. Don’t worry, she’s not going to find you and kill you yet.”
“It’s that yet part that worries me.” I slid my hands into my pockets, nearly feeling a slice of normal. I quickly squashed that thought. I didn’t deserve normal.
“As I said, it took me a while to tell them who the father was, and I had waited because I was trying to get ahold of you.”
I heard the accusation in her tone, and I let it hit me. Because it was my fault. I still wasn’t ready to see the world or talk to most people, but seeing Briar like this had been like a bucket of ice water poured over my head.
I couldn’t stand still in my own mourning and purgatory anymore.
Not when Briar needed me.
“I’m sorry. For ignoring you. For ignoring everyone. I don’t even fucking know who I am anymore, but this isn’t me. I mean, it clearly is, but I don’t want it to be me.” I ran my hands over my face and began to pace. “I feel like I’m waking up from a dream, and nothing really makes any sense.”
“That’s how I feel every day. Or at least how I’ve felt every day for the past seven or so months.”
I turned to her again, trying to think about what I’d done over the past few months. Nothing. I’d done nothing. And she’d been alone . “I would say that I’m sorry you did this all alone, but as is evidenced by how you saw me, I don’t know if I would’ve been the right person to help you at the beginning of this. Holy hell, Briar. You’re pregnant .”
She studied my face, those gorgeous gray eyes piercing. “You know what’s funny? I really expected you to fight this. Or at least question if I was telling you the truth that this baby was yours. And yet, even though you look just as flabbergasted as I feel most times, you haven’t at all. You believe me.”
I looked at her, confusion washing over me. “Of course I believe you. You don’t lie, Briar.”
Tears began to spill down her cheeks, and I cursed. I moved forward without thinking, cupping her face to use my thumbs to wipe away those tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I cry at the drop of the hat. It’s either crying or peeing. Sometimes at the same time.”
My lips twitched as I let my hands fall, and I shook my head. “So what they say is true? Pregnant women need to pee all the time?”
Her nose scrunched. “You would too if a little foot was kicking at your bladder all the time. Thankfully, it seems that she’s asleep, so I’m not running to the bathroom right now. Although if I keep talking about it, I’m going to have to go.”
Once again I looked down at her belly and swallowed hard. “A girl. The baby’s a girl.”
It felt as if I were walking through cement, slowly coming to terms with what she was saying. But it didn’t feel like it was real. It felt as if I was watching this happen rather than being inside the moment. I could barely feel the warm breeze on my face or smell the cedar in the air. I could hear kids laughing in the distance, an event of some sort going on that I knew my cousins were handling. And it all came in slow motion, as I looked at my reality, and yet it didn’t seem as if it were mine.
“Do you want to go back to my place? Just to talk? That way, in case there’s a bathroom emergency, there’s one right there.”
It looked as if she wanted to laugh but couldn’t through the weight of what needed to be said. “That would be good. That’s why I’m here after all.”
I nearly reached out and held her hand, but that wasn’t my place. Hell, I didn’t know what my place should or would be. Instead, I just gestured toward the path, and we made our way toward the tiny gray cabin. The Wilder Winery and Retreat had multiple cabins all over the land, as well as homes in which some of my family lived. I didn’t have a place here but was using the cabin that happened to change hands through my family often. Many of my cousins-in-law and sisters-in-law had lived in this place, and now it was mine. Although I hadn’t been taking very good care of it. As we walked inside and I took a good look around, I was grateful that I at least scrubbed some of the counters and visible places before I had left, but it still didn’t look up to par. I was pretty sure my cousins-in-law would probably skin me alive if they saw it like this.
“I’m a slob. Sorry.”
“You weren’t always. Mal was the slob.” Her voice cracked a bit, and I reached out without thinking to squeeze her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know what you’re sorry about this time. But I’m trying to do better about mentioning Mal’s name. I didn’t at all for the first couple of months.”
I paused, wondering if I’d even said my friend's name aloud. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that.”
“Nothing. There’s nothing to say about that. My brother’s dead.”
Cold arced through my veins, and I staggered back as she stared at me, her gray eyes glassy.
“Mal is gone. And I hate every day that he’s not here. I can still hear him singing in my ears whenever I close my eyes. I can hear that laugh of his as he’s telling a joke that nobody finds funny and yet they can’t help but laugh along because it’s just him. I can see him in a sunset, because he always liked to stay up late and rarely saw the sunrise unless he had to for work. I can see him in everything around me, whether it’s when someone’s wearing his favorite color, or when someone in my town looked at me and saw the girl who lost her way and lost her brother at the same time—hence why I moved back to my place in Austin.”
“Briar…” I began, but she shook her head, cutting me off.
“Mal got out of Ashford Creek. And so did I. We got out and found our way. And yet I nearly went back because I had nowhere else to go. In the end, I made it back home to Austin, but it was a fight. All because Teagan and Callum and my other brothers needed to protect me. I was pregnant and I wouldn’t tell them who the father was. We were all breaking inside. Bodhi can’t even look at us, and yet I see Mal’s face every time I look at him.”
Bodhi was Mal’s twin, and I swallowed hard, thinking about what that would feel like, to lose not only your brother, but the one that you shared a womb with. My mouth filled with sawdust, and I walked into the kitchen to grab something to drink. Part of me wanted to reach for booze, but I didn’t. Instead, I filled two glasses with water and handed one over to her.
“It’s a small town up there, and everybody wanted to know who the daddy was, and I never told them. Because it was never their business. And my dad?” She shook her head. “Well, you can guess what he said.”
“So he’s back?” I asked, knowing that she and Mal’s father had been in and out of their lives far too often.
“He’s gone right now, but he’ll come back when he needs money. It’s what he always does. Before I moved back to Austin, he said a few things to me, called me a few names, but then I didn’t care.”
“And that’s my fault.”
Briar winced. “For not talking to me? Yes. But Baby Girl? No. We were safe. We used a condom, and I was on birth control. And yet your super sperm did their thing.”
My lips twitched, even as that fire that I loved about her danced in her eyes. “That’s one way to put it.”
“I yell at your super sperm often whenever I’m pissed off that I’m in this situation.”
Again, I nearly laughed. I wasn’t sure the last time I’d laughed. “Well, that’s good to know.”
Briar sobered, her shoulders falling. “I came here because you never answered my calls. You didn’t answer the band’s calls. Or your agent’s. You never opened that letter from my lawyer.”
I froze, then looked at the stack of unopened mail that my family had sent over and swallowed hard. “Your lawyer,” I echoed, my voice hollow.
“I don’t want or need anything from you, Gabriel. I know you’re mourning. I know you’re hurting, and we didn’t ask for this. I wasn’t even sure I was going to keep the baby, and then I realized that I wanted it. Wanted her. Maybe I was grieving so hard that I wanted to cling onto something that had to do with life, but I did. And I’m going to keep this baby girl, and I’m going to raise her, and she’s going to have tons of uncles and Aunt Teagan to take care of her. So I don’t need you. You deserved to know. But that’s all.” She met my gaze, as my world crashed down around me, and I tried to figure out what I was going to say. And yet there wasn’t anything.
She had done all of this alone for months because I had had my head up my ass and had ignored everything.
Nothing was rational about my thoughts or the situation.
“You’re acting so calmly right now. It’s scaring me, Gabriel. I was honestly expecting the fiery Wilder with a temper.”
“I’m not calm. My best friend is dead, and the one time I fuck his sister, I get her pregnant,” I blurted, and both of us stared at each other.
I hadn’t meant to say that. Holy hell.
“Well, I fucked you right back, and yet I’m the one holding this baby. I’m the one with swollen ankles and mood swings and food cravings that make no fucking sense. I’m the one that really has to pee right now, so you’re going to have to stay here and sit in your own feelings while I do that.”
She made her way back, and I swallowed hard, my mind going blank as I tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. I heard her washing her hands before she came out, and she continued to glare at me.
“You don’t need me. I mean…I’m an asshole. I know that. I missed so much and left everyone. But I don’t want to walk away and pretend I had nothing to do with this.”
I wasn’t even sure what I wanted, but the sane part of me screamed deep inside. If Briar left right now, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew I didn’t want her to go.
I’d never wanted her to go. That had always been a problem when it came to Briar Ashford. And the baby? I didn’t know if I wanted to be a father, but now I didn’t have a voice. And while I’d run away from my life for months, I couldn’t run away from this.
I might be the Wilder failure, but I couldn’t fail at this.
“I don’t need anything from you. My lawyer sent something in case you wanted to sign over your rights because you clearly didn’t respond to anything else I sent. So you don’t need to be part of this. However, your sisters-in-law know that I’m pregnant and know that it’s yours. And Ava mentioned that Faith has a cousin now, and well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Briar burst into tears, and I cursed under my breath before moving forward, wrapping her in my arms. She sank into me, her belly pressing against mine as I froze, realizing that there was a little foot kicking at me.
I rested my forehead on hers as she put her arms around my waist, and that little foot continued to kick at me.
I pulled back, wide-eyed, as I looked down at her stomach.
“Did she kick me?”
Briar wiped her face vigorously and nodded. “She does that. Apparently, she’s awake.”
My hand moved down before I thought better of it and froze right above her stomach.
“May I?”
“At least you asked. Nobody in Ashford asked,” she mumbled, and I met her gaze before slowly pressing my hand to her stomach. It felt weird—I had never touched a pregnant person before. It wasn’t as if there were many in my life, and yet, when a little tap pressed against my palm, I quickly let go.
“Oh my God.”
“She can’t hurt you right now. She can only hurt my organs. And my spine,” Briar said dryly, and that kick of humor reminded me so much of Mal, it felt as if the world were falling out from beneath our feet once again.
But instead of panicking, I put my hand back on her stomach, and felt the baby move.
“How could you do this by yourself for so long?”
“I wasn’t by myself. I had my family. What’s left of it.” Her voice broke, and I cursed. “I tried. I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. So I don’t need you. I can do this.”
I looked up at her then, as the baby continued to kick, and something twisted inside, some yearning I didn’t realize was there.
“I should have answered my phone.”
“Yes. You should have. The band misses you. The world misses you. I miss you,” she said, tears falling again. “But I don’t need you. I can do this.”
“You can do anything you put your mind to, Briar. But before this, I never walked away from my responsibilities. And I don’t want to do that now.” I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
“I don’t know what to do, but I don’t want you to do this alone. And I know you have a family that loves you, but this baby is half me. I’ll do what I have to in order to figure out how to be human again, but along the way, I’ll be here too. I promise. Not that my promises are worth a damn right now. But I’m going to try.”
I met her gaze again, and she nodded, light shining in her eyes. “There’s the Gabriel I remember,” she whispered. “Mal would totally come back as a ghost and kick your ass if you signed over your rights and never talked to me again. I’m just saying.”
I didn’t realize I was crying with her until she reached forward and used her thumb to brush a tear from my cheek.
“I miss my brother, Gabriel. But I also missed you . We’re about to be parents, and while I’ve had a few months to deal with that, you’re brand new to this, so you’re welcome to panic a bit. But you don’t have much time to continue to do so.”
Such the practical Briar. It almost felt like old times.
“I feel like I’m walking in quicksand right now.”
“You don’t walk in quicksand, you sink. So let’s not sink, okay?”
I swallowed hard, feeling four steps behind. “How are you so rational right now?”
“Because if I’m not, I’ll break down and I don’t have time for that. This baby needs me to be strong. So if you could be strong as well, that would be great. Especially because I’m pretty sure I hear Teagan coming over, and she’s probably ready to kick your ass.”
Before I could say anything to that, or let the fear crawl over me, the door opened, and Teagan walked through, looking just like her sister, yet a bit taller and a little more slender.
“So, Gabriel. You do know how to answer a door at least. There’s that.”
“Hey, Teagan,” I said, before I stepped toward her and opened my arms. “I’m so fucking sorry about Mal.”
And with that, Teagan let the tears fall and glared at me. “Fuck you,” she growled, before wrapping her arms around my waist and crying. I moved to pull Briar into the hug, and suddenly my arms were full of Ashford women, both of them crying into me. I was so far out of my depth, it wasn’t even funny. We stood there for a few moments and once again, this felt like an odd dream I couldn’t wake up from.
“Okay, there’s enough of that,” Teagan said as she moved back, wiping her face. Briar did the same and gave me a watery smile.
“You know, I never cried like this before.”
“I just cried in front of you, too, you know, so we can just call it hormones.”
“Hormones aren’t contagious, jackass,” Teagan muttered, and I smiled over at Mal and Briar’s sister.
I had been so deep into my own darkness, I hadn’t thought about anyone else. And while I was still to blame for what had happened, I needed to stop hurting everyone else. I knew that, but I knew it was only words at this point.
“I don’t want to sign away my rights,” I repeated.
Teagan stared at me, but I only had eyes for Briar, the girl that I had never let myself see. The girl that I had never wanted more of because if I did, I knew I would cross a line.
The woman that I had crossed a line with.
And the woman that was apparently having my baby.
“Just don’t go back to ignoring us. You can’t. Because if you do, you’ll hurt more than me. More than your family. More than yourself. And I’m already panicking enough for the both of us.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and knew that my life was never going to be the same. Then again, it hadn’t been since the accident, hadn’t been every day since. And while I knew I would probably fuck this up like I had done everything else, I knew I could never hurt Mal’s sister again. Or walk away from the consequences of my decisions.
As much as I wanted to hide away again, as much as I wanted to drown in that darkness, I wouldn’t.
Briar needed me.
And for once, maybe I wouldn’t mess everything up.
It didn’t seem likely.