19. Harlowe
CHAPTER 19
HARLOWE
F or some deranged reason, in my mind, it made sense for Brooks to sleep on the couch.
Dumb. I know.
It was like sharing my actual bed with him made this whole thing more personal. We hadn’t even had sex in a bed yet.
Though I’d offered to sleep on the couch because I was a lot smaller than he was, so I’d fit better, he wouldn’t hear of it. When I came out in the morning—early—he had one leg off the cushion, resting his foot on the floor, and was at an angle.
Now I felt bad. He had a game to play and each game closer to the playoffs became more important. They were handily in first place, which guaranteed their playoff spot, but only if they finished there, too. Four games left. Technically, they could still lose it, but it was mathematically unlikely.
Or at least that was what all the sports recap shows I’d recently been watching insisted.
It was surprising that Brooks was still asleep. As far as I knew, he usually got up early to get a workout in before whatever he had to do with the team. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know what they did to get ready for a game.
What this meant to me was that I needed to get the hell out of my apartment if I didn’t want to face him this morning—which I didn’t. Having sex with him last night had me a big swirl of pregnancy emotions that I didn’t want to deal with and I surely didn’t want him to deal with before a game. His head needed to be there.
Telling him that what we’d done last night had been a mistake wasn’t something I looked forward to because it had been. A mistake.
All of it was.
Him saying that the baby and me were his top priority was causing me some problems. I was getting too attached, for one. Second, it made me think he cared about me as… more and there couldn’t be more. It was only in my imagination that he’d want me that way. Sex was one thing. A life? A relationship? Marriage? All very different.
Becoming attached would mean depending on him and I couldn’t do that. Not for anything that didn’t involve this baby because that was one area that I was absolutely sure he wanted to be a part of. That didn’t mean I’d be strong enough to turn down any chance to be with him. Fucking pathetic.
We were in each other’s lives forever now because of this one-time oops and me thinking everything he did meant something it didn’t would just make co-parenting harder when I was already struggling with the idea of my turning this tiny baby that I myself had no idea how to take care of over to him for visits.
Maybe he’d agree to no overnight visits until the baby was older because I wasn’t sure that I could handle being away overnight from something that I’d just grown from scratch.
My brain was all over the place, but I had plenty of time to think about it on my drive into work. Did I go into the restaurant earlier than I needed to? Yup, but there was always work to be done and I still wanted to reach out to Camden before too much time had passed.
It was still too early when I got to Cleats & Kegs, so I hid away in my office and tore through a bunch of ordering I needed to do and paid the invoices that needed to be paid. I did a precheck of everything for the day and even fully got the front set up for open. All chairs were in their places, all condiments on the table.
It was amazing what you could get done when a fetus wasn’t chaining you to a toilet. Finally, others started to arrive, which meant it was time for me to call Camden. It was Friday. She didn’t have class, but the question was: Would she answer my call?
At first, I thought no because I was on my fifth ring thinking it would be sent to voicemail when she finally answered.
“Hello.” It was an abrupt greeting probably intended to make sure I knew she was still angry at me.
“You answered,” I said with honest surprise.
She sighed into the phone. “Well, there could be something wrong with the baby and I wouldn’t want to ignore that.”
Because though she was angry at me and probably contemplating ending our friendship or at least changing it, she’d still care if the baby was in trouble.
“The baby’s fine as far as I know, Camden. Can we please talk about this?”
“Talk.”
“No.” I shook my head. “In person. Over the phone… we’ve never settled a disagreement that way.”
She snorted. “A ‘disagreement’? That’s what you think this is?”
I rubbed the spot in the middle of my forehead that had begun to throb. “No. That’s not what I meant. I meant that anytime we’ve had any kind of problem, we talk it out face-to-face. I’ll throw in a cheeseburger if you want to come to Cleats & Kegs. Or I’ll bring it with me if you’d rather I come there.”
Though the idea of running into their parents wasn’t ideal for me. Not when they didn’t know and at least Mr. Briggs wasn’t going to be happy about it.
I’d heard as long as I’d known Camden that the boys shouldn’t bring a woman into the equation until they retired. Once, Camden and I had overheard her dad tell Brooks to do what he had to for his release, but not to get feelings involved. Until recently with their brothers, I didn’t think any of them ever had. OK. Maybe Silas because we all knew he’d wanted Amity since forever, but he wouldn’t admit it or act on it until this year.
“Is Damien on grill today?” she asked and I snorted. He made the best burgers.
“He is. Tell me when and I’ll have them ready.”
She agreed to head over almost right away. We’d be open, but Luz and Zia could handle everything without me. I hadn’t actually planned on serving, unless we got super busy, which shouldn’t happen until later.
After ending the call, I went to the kitchen to put in an order for two cheeseburgers and fries, noting that it was for Camden and me because Damien knew exactly how we liked them.
Twenty minutes later, I headed out the front with a plate in each hand to find Camden standing there with a steely gaze. I nodded to the table nearest her, which was also nearest the kitchen, which meant it was slightly away from any commotion of the main area.
She slid onto the bench seat as I set her plate in front of her then put mine across from it. After grabbing two diet pops, I came back and got myself comfortable across from her.
“This smells so good,” she said as she looked at the cheeseburger.
“I told Damien it was for us, so he probably put some love into it.”
Damien was a bit older, in his forties and a really good-looking guy who loved his wife to death. Worshiped the ground she walked on, which I think helped make him one of the sweetest guys I knew. Luz had once made a flirty comment to him and he’d stopped what he’d been doing, told her that he was very happily married, and how she was talking to him was inappropriate, so it shouldn’t happen again.
And it hadn’t, even though I knew that was just how Luz talked to people. She was a flirt even when she didn’t mean to be. But from that point on, she’d made sure to talk to Damien differently.
Camden took a bite of her burger and rolled her eyes. “He sure did.”
I only took a small bite of the burger because I needed to do something with my hands and the nervousness roiled through my body. I had never been nervous or anxious where Camden was concerned, not even when I’d realized that I was half in love with her brother because I’d known I wouldn’t act on it.
Then apparently, I had.
“This is awkward,” I told her because I’d never lied to her, aside from omitting that I had feelings for her brother.
“It usually is.” She took a drink as she looked away.
“Can I please explain what happened?”
She twirled her fingers to tell me to go ahead as she dipped a fry in ketchup. I swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Camden. You have to know that. I’ve been around your brothers for years and it’s never been a problem. I really didn’t mean for any of this. Having sex with him. Getting pregnant.”
“It’s like no one ever means for this shit to happen.” She rolled her eyes and I couldn’t blame her. It was the same thing this one girl in high school—who we’d thought we were friends with—had said after she’d slept with Urban. Then when Urban hadn’t immediately made her his girlfriend, the girl had spread a couple of nasty rumors about Camden.
“But I mean it,” I said. She finally looked up at me. “I really never meant for anything to happen.” I wet my lips quickly and tapped my fingers across the table in a soothing rhythm. Something about it made me feel better. Then I took a deep breath and blew it out. “There’s only one thing I’ve never told you.”
She raised an eyebrow, which reminded me there were two things.
“Right,” I said. “Two things, but now you know who the baby’s father is, so it’s back to one thing.”
“OK.” She folded her arms in front of her and rested them on the table, momentarily forgetting about the food in front of her.
The small amount of burger I’d eaten was threatening to come back, but this time, it wasn’t morning sickness. It was admitting my deepest darkest secret to my best friend when I’d spent years hiding it.
“I kind of had a stupid crush on Brooks since we were teenagers, but I brushed it off,” I said quickly before she could respond. “I pushed that shit away and you can attest to that. But it never really went away, which is why I didn’t want to go help him during the All-Star break.”
“So this is my fault?” She raised both eyebrows at me and waited.
I shook my head. “Of course it’s not your fault. I’m just laying it out as it happened because that’s when all of this happened. I spent years making sure I wasn’t alone with him just so my stupid self wouldn’t have to deal with it and also, I didn’t want to get my feelings hurt.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Why would your feelings get hurt?”
“Because he’d never want me,” I told her truthfully. “I knew that, so me falling for him was an exercise in futility. It was pointless.”
Camden rolled her eyes. “That’s such bullshit. He’d be lucky to get anyone remotely as awesome as you.”
That played into one of my big fears. My insecurity. “I’d never be good enough for him, Camden. I knew that.”
She scoffed. “That’s bullshit, Harlowe. You’re too good for him. For any of them.”
My cheeks heated. Taking compliments wasn’t exactly a strong suit of mine. “Well, after that one single time, I promised myself that I’d never tell you because I didn’t want this to happen, then your brother’s stupid, super sperm made that impossible.”
She groaned and pushed her plate away from her. “Please don’t talk about my brother’s super sperm. The burger can hear you.”
I snickered. “Well, there was a condom, so…” I gestured with my hand. She rolled her eyes and since I couldn’t get a read on her, which was highly unusual, I asked, “So do you forgive me?”
Camden’s hazel eyes that looked much browner than mine settled on me. “You’re my best friend, Harlowe. That’s not changing. I was just really mad and still am, honestly, but I’ll get over it.”
My shoulders released all the tension they’d been holding since last night as I’d worried about how this very conversation was going to go.
“How are you doing?” she finally asked as she glanced around the restaurant. I had my back toward the door and mostly everything else, which was good. Otherwise, I’d want to hop in and help every time I saw someone who needed something, even though Luz and Zia would take care of it.
“Surprisingly, I’m hungry,” I told her as I picked up a fry and popped it into my mouth.
“Are you going to throw that up?”
I snickered again. “I don’t think so. I haven’t been sick in a few days. The doctor said it’d pass the closer I got to my second trimester and I’m almost there. Two more weeks.”
Camden blew out a breath. “I can’t believe you’re having a baby.”
I shrugged. “Neither can I.”
“And I’m finally going to be an aunt,” she squealed quietly. “I’ve wanted one of my brothers to accidentally knock someone up so that I could mush over a baby.”
We laughed together about that. Camden loved babies and would make an excellent aunt. She’d be the fun one who picked the kid up for great adventures.
“Well, we always wished we were sisters, right? This makes us family—at least, I think.” Though in a perfect world, I’d actually be her family by marrying her brother but I wasn’t twelve writing Mrs. Brooks Brigg on every sheet of paper I could find. I didn’t do it then and wouldn’t do it now.
Camden snorted. “Girl. We were already family. But does this mean you’re now with my brother? That’s going to take some time to get used to.”
“No,” I told her, absolutely sure that I was right about that one. “He wants to be involved with the baby. Wants to help me through the pregnancy, but I didn’t really expect anything else. Your brothers are a lot of things, but they don’t tend to shirk responsibility.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “But if all of that’s true, why is he currently looking at you like he either wants to eat you up or spank you, which, frankly, makes me want to vomit either way?” She shivered, shaking her shoulders to make sure I got the message, but all it did was make me snicker. “So gross.”
I spun in the booth to figure out where she was seeing this and sure enough. Brooks was near the door with his big arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face, but there was something in his eyes that made every word Camden had said absolutely true.
“I don’t know,” I said as I quietly turned back to her. “I haven’t talked to him since yesterday.” Though I had a sneaking suspicion that was part of the problem.
She leaned down and took another bite before saying, “I think we’re about to find out.”
It was like the air shifted in the bar and even without her telling me that, I would’ve known that Brooks was headed right for us.