CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Bryce
Afrisson of energy radiates from our linked hands where they sway as we walk down Main Street.
The trees are already losing their leaves and a nip in the air makes me glad I grabbed this beanie out of my glove box.
I kind of wish I could pull it down over Leanne’s ears instead, but it wouldn’t work over the top knot she’s sporting.
I can’t wrap my head around everything she just told me about Craig and her family. She’s used to putting everyone else first… but who puts her first?
Me. I will put her first, and that starts with scrapping my plan to broach the subject of Sarah and Sam with her today.
After the emotional turbulence she went through to explain all that to me, I won’t add to her plate just so I can unburden my own.
There will be another time—a better time—to tell her.
She reaches into the pocket of her black puffer jacket and pulls out her phone. With barely a glance at the screen, she rolls her eyes and stuffs it back where it came from.
“Do you need to get that?” I ask, hoping it wasn’t her office. I’m enjoying the time together, even if we are a little lost in our own heads.
She shakes her head. “No. It’s only my family.”
“Ah.” I nod. “Have you talked to them at all since Sunday?”
She shakes her head again, the action loosening a tendril of hair so it falls into her face. I pull her to a stop without thinking and use my fingertips to push it behind her ear. She shivers and her head tilts almost imperceptibly into the touch.
When I finally force my hand to drop away, she continues.
“No, I haven’t. The texts and missed calls have been piling up for days.
I’m honestly surprised they haven’t shown up on my front porch yet.
” Her countenance sags, like the prospect of having to explain things to her family is too daunting to comprehend.
“Do you want them to?” I ask, and get a noncommittal shrug in return. Alright, time to change the subject.
I glance up the street and find the perfect distraction two shops down.
I offer her a smile and tug on her hand, pulling her along until we stop in front of Pink starting another one solely because she is probably terrifies her.
“If you want to do this as friends, Leanne, then we do it as friends.” At this point, I’m pretty sure I’d do whatever this enigmatic woman wanted. If she asked me to jump right now, I’d say how high.
Fuck, I’m pathetic.
Her shoulders relax and she looks like a huge weight just lifted from them. How much time has she spent worrying about this particular conversation?
“So, is that what we tell—” she begins, but is interrupted by a voice from over my shoulder.
“Leanne? Oh my gosh, hi!”
I turn in time to see a mane of blonde hair sweep past me to engulf Leanne where she’s still rocking in the chair.
“What are you doing here?” Leanne asks. Her eyes go wide, then I watch all the walls I’ve been slowly dismantling rebuild themselves, brick by brick.
When the woman pulls back, I realize it’s Jenna. “I was looking for a gift for y—” She breaks off mid-word as she follows Leanne’s deer-in-the-headlights look until her green eyes lock onto mine.
“Bryce?” she questions, voice pitched high in surprise. Her head swivels wildly from me to Leanne and back again, the gears turning clearly in her mind as she puts everything together.
“It’s good to see you, Jenna,” I say in response, keeping my focus on Leanne, who’s frozen in place. Her face is stoic and closed-off, having done a complete one-eighty.
Jenna’s mouth drops open as she looks at her sister. “Wait… He’s… Your one-night stand was Bryce?” she shrieks, drawing the attention of nearly everyone in the store.
I duck my head and scrub my hand over my beard as heat blooms beneath it.
“Shhh…” Leanne hisses, color rising in her cheeks as well. But not in the sexy way I love so much—in anger and hurt. “For fuck’s sake, Jenna, could you have said that any louder? I think the person getting in their car outside didn’t hear you.”
Jenna surreptitiously glances around, taking in the curious stares of the other patrons. Then she hunches in on herself—shoulders lifting, neck shortening, chin dipping—clearly embarrassed when she finally meets Leanne’s eye again.
“I’m sorry, Annie. I was just surprised.” She steps toward her sister but then stops short and bites her lip. “Shit, I’m making this all worse, aren’t I?”
Did she call her Annie? I glance at Leanne and she looks bored almost, or resigned, like nothing about this surprises her in the least. I guess it wouldn’t, based on what she told me earlier.
Leanne stands up and grabs Jenna’s hand. “Come outside, Jenna. People are staring.” Then she pulls her from the store with one last longing look at the chair she just vacated.
I follow them out, not wanting to spend a second alone in that shop. The sidewalk is deserted but a chill wind whips down it, making me pull my jacket tighter around my chest.
“So, um…” Jenna attempts, but seems unsure of where to go from here.
With a beleaguered sigh, Leanne takes up the mantle, as any big sister would. “Yes, Bryce is the father.” I think she wants to roll her eyes, but instead, they pin me in place with an apologetic expression.
I offer her an encouraging smile. She can tell the whole world if she wants, and her answering smile makes me want to do exactly that—maybe shout it from the rooftops or something.
Jenna watches the interaction and begins to splutter. “So are you…? What are you…?” Her inability to complete a sentence almost makes me laugh.
She was never once flustered during her wedding weekend. She was cool as a cucumber, relaxed and at ease. It was Leanne who was strung as tight as a bow. I recognize now that’s probably why Jenna was able to be the way she was, because her sister was shouldering everything.
And knowing what else she was silently carrying, it’s no wonder she wanted it over with. Not that she ever said that to her sister. Only to me, and it’s not something Jenna ever needs to know.
“We’re friends,” I offer confidently, sidling over to stand beside Leanne, offering a united front.
“Friends?” Jenna asks, dubious. I’m sure she remembers precisely how not friendly Leanne and I were at the wedding.
“Friends,” Leanne says with a nod, giving my arm a small squeeze. I feel the solidarity between us falling into place.
“Okay…” Jenna sounds unconvinced, but she drops it for the moment, changing the subject abruptly.
“Why haven’t you answered any of our calls or texts?
Don’t you think it’s time you stopped shutting out the family?
” She looks me up and down, like it’s my fault Leanne is upset with them and hasn’t wanted to talk.
My brows knit and I tilt my head toward her. I’m really not a fan of her tone.
I’m about to say as much when Leanne steps in.
“That attitude is exactly why I haven’t.
You’re making this about you. I’m the one who’s pregnant.
I’m the one having to figure this out. Of course I want you all to be part of it, but when I’m ready.
I wasn’t ready to tell you last week, and you guys took that choice away from me. ”
Jenna’s eyes go wide. I doubt Leanne has ever been this blunt with her. “I… That isn’t what we meant to do. You were sick, and we were worried.”
“No, you were curious.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “You could’ve trusted that if I wanted you to know what was going on, I would’ve told you.
You could’ve respected me, but instead, you pushed and pushed, and now I don’t ever get to have that moment back.
I won’t ever get to tell Mom and Dad they’re going to be grandparents for the first time.
” The hurt in her voice breaks my heart almost as much as the silver sheen at her lash line.
She gestures between herself and Jenna when she continues.
“And we don’t get to have the moment of excitement and jumping up and down because you and Evelyn are going to be aunts.
So now, on top of figuring out what it looks like to be a parent unexpectedly, I get to grieve those moments that could’ve been. ”
Jenna is slack-jawed and her eyes are wet as the realization of exactly how hurt Leanne is settles over her.
I’m a little slack-jawed myself. I didn’t even think about the whole explosive revelation with her family in this way, at what she lost by not being able to control the delivery of the news.
This is something she’s always wanted, and nothing about it has gone the way she once envisioned it would.
Does she also grieve the loss of getting to tell her significant other she’s pregnant for the first time? Over the phone, blurted out in panic with me, is likely not how she pictured that moment. And me barging into her house a half hour later likely wasn’t it either.
The sadness I feel for her makes my heart constrict painfully in my chest. I got to have that moment once, and it was one of the best moments of my life—even after all I lost—and she’ll never have it.
Even my experience in telling Alex and Delia last week was better than what she got with her family.
Jenna sniffles and it brings me back to our messy reality.
She’s looking at Leanne like she’s never seen her before. “I’m so sorry, Annie. I’m sorry for all of us. You’re right, it wasn’t our place.” She looks truly heartsick as one tear rolls down her cheek.
Leanne huffs and her shoulders soften as she closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around her sister. I step to the side but catch something in Leanne’s face I wouldn’t have been able to read before our conversation earlier.
Leanne loves Jenna. She loves her family. She doesn’t like this tension between them any more than they do. But here she is comforting Jenna, in a situation where it should be the other way around. The focus is, once again, not on Leanne, because it never is.
And with that, I vow to do everything in my power to make sure it always is with me.