Chapter Twelve
Brooke
I watch as Matthew fusses around me like I’m made of glass. He’s been at it for a solid five minutes, straightening the blanket, adjusting the curtains, now fluffing my pillow like some overprotective mother hen.
“I’m fine,” I laugh, shaking my head.
“Are you sure? Do you need more water?”
I glance at the nightstand, where three full bottles are already lined up like soldiers, and raise an eyebrow. “I think I have enough, thanks.”
“What about the bathroom? Are you sure you don’t want to pee before I go?”
“No,” I say, a little loudly.
He pauses, searching my face like he doesn’t quite believe me. I sigh. “You’re keeping your mom waiting. Will you please just leave already?”
The truth is, I want him to stop fussing but more than that, I want him gone before his mother decides to come up here and sees me lying in his bed, surrounded by his things, sleeping on his money.
Because no matter how many times he calls this ours, some part of me still knows it’s his, under his name, paid for with his money.
I smile faintly as he finally grabs his jacket and heads for the door, throwing one last worried look over his shoulder before leaving. The apartment goes quiet the moment it closes behind him.
I lean back, closing my eyes, ready to let sleep drag me under, when my phone starts ringing on the nightstand.
With a groan, I reach for it without opening my eyes and press it to my ear. “What?”
“Am I speaking with Brooke Masters?” a clipped, unfamiliar voice asks.
“Basen now,” I mumble. “But yes.”
“This is Oliver Johanson from Marx United,” he says, his tone suddenly far too formal. “I’m sorry to inform you, Ms. Masters, that it has come to light you broke company protocol and, in doing so, risked the safety of both crew and passengers on Flight 261 earlier today.”
My eyes snap open. The words hit like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. “I-what?”
“As such,” he continues, voice cold and detached, “effective immediately, your employment with Marx United Airlines is terminated. Your final pay check and any remaining benefits information will be mailed to the address on file.”
I lay there, phone pressed to my ear, staring at the ceiling but seeing nothing.
Terminated.
Just like that.
Everything I built, everything I worked for, gone with a scripted HR call and a few lines about protocol.
My throat tightens, but I can’t even speak. All I can do is listen to the silence after he hangs up, the dull hum of the city outside, and the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
Just like that, I’m unemployed. Pregnant. And completely untethered.
I don’t remember putting the phone back.
I don’t remember closing my eyes.
One second, it felt like the walls were closing in around me, the next, I’m waking up next to Matthew.
Through the slats of the blinds, I can see that the sky outside is ink-dark now. Matthew’s fast asleep on his stomach, facing away from me. His slow, steady breathing is the only sound in the room.
I sit up slowly, every muscle in my body heavy and stiff, like I’ve aged ten years in the span of a single nap.
And then it hits me, the conversation, the voice on the phone, the words that detonated everything in my life.
They play on a loop in my head, each sentence a little sharper than the last.
I got fired.
The words don’t feel real. They bounce around inside my skull like they belong to someone else’s story. I got fired.
Why? Why the hell did I get fired?
I know the protocol. Of course I do. Stay seated until the seatbelt sign is off.
Don’t get up during taxi. It’s drilled into us from day one, in training, in recurrent safety checks, in every damn pre-flight briefing.
But we all do it. All of us. All the time.
Every single flight, someone gets up too early, and someone gets up to handle it. That’s part of the job.
And this time… it wasn’t even a choice. It was an emergency. That bag was seconds away from braining a seventy-year-old woman. What was I supposed to do? Sit there and watch it happen because the seatbelt sign was still on?
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until I see stars, trying to keep the panic from bubbling up again.
I should call Stephanie.
The thought hits me like a spark. Stephanie, she was right there. She saw the whole thing. She knows it wasn’t carelessness; it was instinct. Training. Duty. She’d vouch for me. She would.
Only… the only way they’d know exactly what happened is if someone told them.
The thought lodges itself somewhere deep in my chest. I try to shake it off, but it sticks.
Stephanie was the only one who saw me fall. She was the only one close enough to see how it all happened.
But she wouldn’t… would she?
No. No, she wouldn’t. We’ve flown together for years. We’ve covered for each other through delays, last-minute sick calls, scheduling nightmares. She wouldn’t throw me under the bus.
Except… except maybe she had no choice. Maybe someone else saw. Maybe she was asked for a report.
She couldn’t have done this to get ahead, she’s already the purser. She’s already there. What’s left to climb?
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly bone-dry. Reaching for one of the bottles on the nightstand, I twist the cap open and take a sip, but the water’s gone warm, stale. Useless. With a sigh, I swing my legs off the side of the bed, careful not to wake Matthew, and pad barefoot into the kitchen.
The fridge hums quietly as I pull the door open, the cool air rushing over my flushed skin. I grab a fresh bottle of water and down half of it in one go until I can’t swallow another drop. Then, without really thinking, I open the freezer and reach for the pint of Ben & Jerry’s tucked in the back.
One good thing about being pregnant, I can eat what I want, when I want, and blame it on cravings.
Not that I let myself go overboard. Pregnancy isn’t a free pass, not really.
I still think about nutrition, about health, about doing right by the little life growing inside me.
But right now, I need something tasty to forget my career just imploded.
I slide back into bed, and take a slow bite of the ice cream. The sweetness hits my tongue, but it doesn’t comfort me the way I hoped.
They’ve never fired a flight attendant for something this small.
I chew that thought over with another spoonful.
Never. Not for something like this. Not for a simple, split-second judgment call that, under any other circumstance, would have been praised as “quick thinking” or “good instincts.” I’ve seen crew members screw up far worse, real breaches, actual safety violations and walk away with a warning, maybe a notation in their file.
This? This isn’t even something that would have made it into a performance review.
It feels like a cop-out.
Could it be… maybe they didn’t want to carry me over maternity leave? Maybe they looked at the numbers, at the cost of benefits and coverage, and decided it was easier to get rid of me now, while they could justify it, than deal with the logistics later.
The thought makes my stomach churn.
But that’s not supposed to happen. Not anymore. This isn’t 1980. Women have babies now, they take maternity leave, they pump during breaks, they come back and do their jobs. It’s supposed to be protected. It’s supposed to be safe.
Still… I can’t shake the nagging feeling that this is too convenient. Too clean. Too perfectly timed.
If they’d done it a week later, after I told them the doctor wanted me off work, after I filed the paperwork for leave, I’d get it. It would make a twisted kind of sense. But now? Right now? It feels off.
I haven't even officially told them I’m pregnant yet. I rest the spoon in the pint and press my palm to my stomach.
“There has to be something I’m missing,” I whisper into the room.
Matthew
I stretch, waking up to the faint light of early morning bleeding through the blinds. It’s barely six. My body feels heavy and loose.
I must’ve crashed the second I came home from dinner with Mom. I remember stopping by the kitchen to put Brooke’s dinner in the fridge and telling myself I’d just lie beside her for a second.
Apparently, that second turned into eight hours.
I roll onto my side, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and freeze. Brooke’s awake. She’s lying next to me, eyes already open, watching me with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Good morning,” I say, smiling at her through my grogginess.
She smiles too, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s faint, thin, and wrong.
Immediately, I’m awake. “What’s wrong?” I ask, sitting up straighter. “Is it the baby?”
She shakes her head quickly. “Baby’s fine.”
I wait, but she doesn’t go on. Instead, she pulls her knees up a little, sitting back against the headboard like she needs the support. When she finally speaks, her voice is so small it almost disappears into the space between us.
“I, uh…” She swallows. “I got fired.”
For a second, I don’t understand the words. Then they sink in, and my mouth falls open. “You what?”
“I got fired,” she repeats quietly.
Rage floods through me, fast and hot. “What the hell do they mean firing you? They can’t fire you for being pregnant, that’s illegal.”
She shakes her head again. “I didn’t even get to that part. I haven’t officially told them I’m pregnant yet.”
That stops me cold. “Then… why?”
She exhales and starts explaining. “Yesterday, during landing, this passenger got up before the seatbelt sign went off. His bag was about to fall on this older woman, so I got up to stop it. Technically that’s against protocol, but it’s also standard practice, we’re allowed to get up if there’s a safety concern.
And that was one. It was an emergency.” She throws her hands up, frustrated tears burning behind her words.
“But they didn’t care. They didn’t let me explain.
They just said I’d violated procedure and I was terminated effective immediately. ”
I clench my jaw so hard it aches. “Who do you think told them?”
Brooke looks away, her fingers worrying the edge of the blanket. “Stephanie’s the only one on the crew who saw it happen. She does have to file a report after something like that.”
“But why would she?” I ask, trying to make sense of it. “If she saw it was an emergency, if she knew why you did it, why wouldn’t she defend you?”
Brooke doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she stares down at her lap, her face twisting like she’s just realized something awful. “Oh God…”
“What?” I press.
Her voice trembles. “I told Stephanie I was pregnant.”
The world stills for a beat. “Okay…” I say slowly. “And?”
“And I told her I hadn’t told the company yet.” Brooke’s words tumble out in a rush now. “She was worried about me after the fall, and I told her I’d get checked out.”
I frown, not following. “What does that have to do with her report?”
“Everything,” Brooke whispers, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.
“Stephanie’s technically our manager when we’re in the air.
She’s responsible for the crew. So, if she knew I was pregnant and didn’t report it, if something had happened to me or the baby, she’d be the one on the hook. She could lose her job.”
My stomach drops, a cold, angry weight settling in my gut. “But why would they fire you if you’re okay?”
She bites her lip, staring down at the comforter like it holds an answer. “Maybe… maybe they were afraid I’d sue or something. I don’t even know at this point.”
I blink, trying to process that. “Should we?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Sue them?”
Brooke lets out a hollow laugh, not because it’s funny, but because the idea sounds so far away, so impossible right now. “They fired me over something stupid, Matthew. Something that isn’t even normally a write-up, and they terminated me. What’s to stop them from doing the same to you?”
I shrug, though the thought chills me more than I want to admit. “Then we’d sue them together.”
She shakes her head, her expression heavy and tired. “These things take time,” she whispers. “Months. Sometimes years. And meanwhile, both of us would be out of jobs, with a baby on the way.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. She’s right. The reality of it hits hard and fast: lawyers, court dates, bills piling up, and two unemployed parents trying to raise a child. It’s a nightmare neither of us can afford.
Brooke exhales shakily and wipes at her cheeks, but the tears keep coming. “I can’t put us through that. Not now.”
“Hey,” I murmur, reaching for her hands again, holding them tight this time so she doesn’t pull away. “Then we won’t. We’ll focus on us. On the baby. On figuring this out together.”
I squeeze her fingers a little tighter, trying to anchor her to something steadier than all the what-ifs spinning in her head.
“You’re supposed to not be stressing, so don’t,” I add gently, brushing my thumbs over her knuckles.
“One thing at a time, okay? And hey, Ma said she knows a few affordable apartments in Brooklyn.”
Her brows lift, just a fraction, like she’s not sure if I’m serious or just trying to distract her.
“Real places,” I say quickly. “Bigger than this. Close to a park, good schools, space for a nursery. We could go see a couple next week if you’re up for it.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “Brooklyn, huh?” she whispers, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Guess we’re really doing this.”
“We are,” I say, certain now. Brooke bites her lip, still not convinced.
“How about Lealise?” I ask suddenly.
Brooke’s head snaps up, and she actually laughs. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “Why would you want our daughter to have a terrible name?”
“It’s not terrible,” I protest, grinning. “It’s unique.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, smirking. “Then let’s name her Sequa.”
I burst out laughing, the sound bubbling out before I can stop it. “She’d hate us.”
Brooke lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “She’ll hate us anyway.”