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Wes flares his nostrils and tosses his napkin on the table. “Motherfucker!” He stands up and grabs his coat. “That’s it. I’ve had it with him. I’m going to go over and put a stop to him ever contacting you again. You’re my wife and”—he points to my belly—“that’s my baby in there. Mine. Not his—mine—and I’m going to make sure he knows it.”
Panic fills me. I don’t want them fighting any more over me. I have to try and stop this before the whole situation spirals out of control.
“Wes . . . please don’t—I’m sorry,” I plead.
He shakes his head and licks the corner of his mouth, a move he always does when he’s frustrated. “I’m done, London. Done. This ends tonight. I want him out of our lives forever. No more interference from him!”
He turns on his heel and walks out the door, not giving me a chance to say one more word. I know it’s not fair that I told Jared about the baby first. It was wrong of me to do that, but at the time I felt like it was the right thing to do. I’ve played with Wes’s heart for far too long, and by telling his brother about the baby first, it pushed him over the edge.
I start to chase after him, but he’s too fast and he’s already made it out to his car by the time I make it to the front door. When I open the door, Wes revs the engine of his blue Mustang and squeals the tires as he backs out onto the street.
I rush back into the kitchen to grab my keys. I know exactly where Wes is heading, and there’s no way I want them to fight again over me. I have to stop this.
NOW
JARED
I stare at the beautiful Nova parked in the garage, and my thoughts instantly drift toward my father. He never did get to make it home to see how I got this thing up and running for him while he was gone. We worked on this car every spare moment we had together, other than the times he spent with me tossing a baseball or showing me how to play a guitar.
Dad was my hero. In my eyes he could do no wrong and was a superhero. I hope someday when I’m a father I can be half the man to my kid. Wes will be a good dad too. He’s caring and smart, and I know he’ll be around for the baby London’s carrying no matter what, because that’s the kind of guy he is. He’s not some asshole like me who loses
his mind and bails when things get tough. Doing something like that was never in Wes’s blood. I didn’t think it was in mine either until things got hard and I felt like I had no other choice but to leave in order to get my head straight. Now I’m trying like hell to make sure that I change that part of myself. I want to be the guy who’s dependable.
The front door slams shut, and my back stiffens.
“Mom?” I call, but she doesn’t answer, so I walk through the open garage door into the kitchen. I pause the moment my eyes land on Wes standing in the middle of the kitchen.
Wes rushes at me and grabs handfuls of my shirt. “You! I want you to stay the fuck away from London. She’s mine. You got that?” he growls.
“I’m not going to fight you.” I throw my hands up in the air. “She chose you, didn’t she?!”
God that stings to admit out loud, but it’s the truth. She made her choice to be with my brother—to start a family with him—and I have to respect that even though it kills me to know that I’ve lost her forever.
“I hate that she loves you—even after all this time.” He shoves me backward into the fridge, and my heart thunders in my chest as I stare into my brother’s wild brown eyes. “You got everything while I was overlooked! I always came in second compared to you. Do you know how much it hurt to know that Dad loved you more than me? If that wasn’t enough, how about when the girl I’ve been in love with since elementary school falls for my younger, hotshot, baseball-playing brother? You had everything I always wanted, and you fucked it up like what you had meant nothing! When you walked out on this family, you didn’t even bother to check and see how we were dealing with things because you were too wrapped up in your own grief to see that we were all hurting. Hell, you even turned your back on London, the one person who loves you more than anything else in this shit-hole world. She went through hell when you left, and I had to pick up all the pieces. I won’t let you hurt London again.”
His words sting because I never knew he felt like this. There’s so much pent-up rage in him, and it’s all directed at me. Wes is usually the calm one between us. It’s hard to stand here and watch him fall apart like this, but I have to be honest with him.
“I won’t apologize for loving her,” I say. “But if you want to hit me, do it. I treated you like shit and I deserve your anger. So if you want to hit me, so be it, but it won’t make me stop loving London. I’ll always love her, even if she’s with you.”
“Ahhhhh!” Wes screams in my face as he draws his arm back, fist curled tight, ready to blast me.
“Do it!” My chest rises and falls as I await the pain that’s sure to follow the blow as I give my brother permission to unleash his rage on me.
The next few seconds happen so fast. Wes’s fist flies forward, and I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing I have this coming, knowing that deep down I deserve much worse than this. The force of his punch to my face causes my head to snap to the right. Warm blood fills my nose and then runs down over my top lip and drips to my mouth. The metallic taste fills my mouth, and I open my eyes just in time to witness Wes drawing his elbow back yet again.
I’m not angry with him—not at all—and I want him to know that. “I’m sorry.”
Blow after blow, I don’t try to fight any of them, and I apologize every time I get the chance. I welcome the pain. It’s a reminder of how much I hurt everyone. Just as I’m about to lose consciousness, I hear an angelic voice scream my name. The voice rips through my foggy brain, and my eyes snap open just in time to see London rush through the kitchen and lunge after Wes just as he draws back yet again.
“London, stop!” I protest, but I can’t get the words out fast enough.
As she leaps onto Wes’s back, he draws his elbow back at the same time, landing it directly into her stomach. Instantly Wes realizes he’s hit her on accident and releases me to turn around. Wes and I both watch in horror as London grunts from the pain of the blow and drops to her knees. She releases a sob and instinctively wraps her arms around her stomach.
Wes drops to his knees beside her and attempts to comfort her. “Oh my God. London, are you all right? I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were there. Are you hurt?”
I slide down the wall, barely able to see out of the one eye that isn’t swollen shut, and watch as panic engulfs my brother.
London sits there on the floor, crying so hard that she can barely catch her breath. Every muscle in her body shakes violently as she lifts her chin to lock her gaze with Wes’s. “What were you thinking? Look at his face!” she shouts before she sucks in a ragged breath. “Look at what you’ve done to him, Wes!”
