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They stare at me like I have lost it, because I’ve never, ever, opened myself up like this, and I feel so misunderstood and so unloved and so hungry to be comforted because I hurt inside. My hormones are out of whack and I am feeling angry because I am here instead of where I want to be. I am here, misunderstood and judged, instead of with him, loved and accepted.
I don’t even know how to tell them they’re being unfair to me, but I’m trembling as I suddenly get to my feet, go get his iPod, and set it on the speakers I have in my living room. Then I just click PLAY and raise the volume high, letting a song speak for me. Orianthi’s “According to You” begins, a little bit angry and rebellious, describing something of the tumult I feel, how they see me one way, as less than perfect, but he sees me another way, as beautiful and strong.
“Is this how we deal, like a teenager with loud music?” my mother yells.
“Turn the volume down now!” my father yells.
I turn it down, and for a moment, just focus on this silver iPod, which to Remy and me could be a journal, or a microphone, or any other way of expressing any other thing. “You don’t understand.”
“Talk to us, Brooke!” my mother says.
When I turn, they look as forlorn as I feel. “I just did, but you’re not listening.”
They are quiet, and I drag in a breath, trying to calm down, even with all these hormones rioting in me. I want them to know that I am no longer a young girl. That I am becoming a woman, so I tell them. “I’m seven weeks pregnant. Right now, his little limbs are forming. And I say ‘his’ because I think it’s a boy, but it doesn’t matter, because a girl would be wonderful too. While we speak, his heart is growing stronger, and he’s generating about a hundred new brain cells per minute. In two more weeks, his heart will have divided into four chambers and all its organs, nerves, and muscles will be kicking into gear. He will have a nose, eyes, ears, a mouth, everything already formed, inside me. This baby is his. His and mine. And it makes me so, so happy you have no idea.”
My mother looks heartbroken. “We are worried. Nora tells me they use drugs in those places he fights.”
“Mama, he’s not into that. He’s an athlete, heart, body, and soul.” Coming over to them, I pat her hair and grab my dad’s hand in my other one. “He doesn’t have a family like I do, and I want him to have mine. I want you to welcome him into our family because you love me and because I’m asking you to.”
My mother visibly softens, but it is my father who speaks first. “I’ll welcome him into the family when he proves to me he deserves to be the father of my grandchild!” He stands up, huffing, and walks to the door, slamming it behind him. I hang my head.
“I shouldn’t even be up. I’m going to bed, Mom,” I whisper.
“Brooke.” Her slow, hesitant footsteps follow me to my bedroom. She stops at the door and says nothing as I climb into bed; instead, I feel her worried gaze on my back for a moment. “Didn’t you use protection, sweetie?” she asks quietly.
“God, I’m not going to even answer that,” I say.
She remains at the door while a heavy silence settles between us, and I curl into a ball and stare off into my pin wall, at the picture that Remington touched. I won’t cry. I swear, I’m sick of crying, and I’m trying not to hate them just because I’m lonely, misunderstood, and hormonal. I know they love me. All they know is that some guy got me pregnant and dumped me here and that this baby will be a challenge for me. They don’t know anything except that my life will change, and they’re afraid I can’t handle it. They can be so judgmental even though they love me, I feel myself building up my walls, refusing to share Remy with them. Refusing to share the most precious, valuable, and imperfectly perfect thing in my life. “Go home, Momma,” I say, and she quietly leaves as I remain in bed, staring at all the roses he sent me.
And I see those blue eyes. . . .
You’re mine.
Both of you.
My throat hurts, and my eyes follow.
“Brooke, I’m here,” Nora says from the hall.
I don’t answer her. I’m so angry. She seems to sense danger in the air, because she lingers by the door and doesn’t enter. “You okay? Did you lose the baby?” she asks. My rage roils inside me.
“Thanks for betraying me, Nora,” I mumble. “And thanks for showing your complete and utter appreciation for Remington and what he did for you!”
“They had to know you were pregnant, Brooke!” she cries.
“It was my secret to tell, not yours!” I burst out, shooting up to sit on the bed. “Why are you attacking him? He did nothing but save you! What, you wanted a chance to look good to them, so you screwed me over? Who told you? I know it wasn’t Melanie; she’d never do this to me.”
Nora’s eyes are also a shade of amber, just a fraction darker than mine, but that’s where all our similarities end. How can we be so different? She was always the dreamer, and I the realist, but even so we’ve never felt so apart as we do today.
“Pete told me,” she says.
I groan, forgetting they have something for each other.
“It slipped! He assumed I knew and I felt embarrassed I didn’t know! You wouldn’t be hiding it if it weren’t wrong, Brooke. He’s Riptide! You’ll be discarded just like I was, if not worse. Those men are dangerous, Brooke. You’re never free of them, never.”
“Remington is not like your sick ass**le of an ex-boyfriend! I am freaking in love with him and he loves me and I will have his baby if it KILLS ME, Nora!” I scream.
She blinks and I can’t even go on. Maybe I’m resentful that because of her, I almost ruined my life. Because of her—and me wanting to “rescue” her—Remington got hurt. “I’m sorry, Nora, I just . . .” I rub my face and shake my head drearily.
“I thought he was in love with me too, you know.” Her sadness creeps up on me, and I feel an awful wringing sensation inside me. “Benny, I mean. I thought he would give anything for me, and the moment it was difficult to keep me, he threw me away.” She looks at me, her face tired and sad. “He told me he loved me, and then he didn’t even look me in the eye to say good-bye. If I said anything to Mom and Dad, it’s because I don’t want that to happen to you.”
“Remy is different, Nora,” I say softly.
“Exactly. He has a thousand more women after him, Brooke. No. Not a thousand. A million more than Scorpion. He’s the SEX GOD of the Underground. Those guys don’t do wives and babies, they just don’t. I was there too, you know. He just can’t love you that much to go rescue me, me, somebody he hadn’t even met! And lose a prize that was practically already his, all for you? Nobody in their right mind can love anyone like that!” she cries and runs out, slamming the door shut.
The door shudders afterward, and I blink at it, completely floored.
What. The hell. Is my sister smoking now?
I sit there, reeling about it all. Then I get up, turn the lock, strip my clothes, and brush my hair, setting it loose because I need to feel pretty and I need my Real. Holy god, how I need him. I just want something good to happen today and I want him to think I’m all right and safe, just like he wanted me to be.
I text him telling him I’d downloaded Skype to his iPad before the flight and left his user name and password on a Post-it. I then open my laptop and log in and wait. I seem to doze off with the phone next to me, and when I wake up later, I see Remington Tate: 11 missed calls.
“Oh, no!” I dial, and it rings, but he doesn’t pick up. I dial and dial, then I groan and shove it aside, pulling the covers up to my neck, suddenly cold.
I’m falling asleep again when I hear a little buzz. I see his name blinking, and my heart jumps and I click to answer, the sheets falling to my waist. “Are you there?” I ask.
I adjust my laptop screen while butterflies roar inside me. “Hey. I can’t see you! Move your—”
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” he says.
“You won’t think that when you see me,” I dare.
I see him then. Propped back against the headboard . . . bare-chested and, I suspect, recently bathed . . . and my breath is history at the sight of his achingly boyish face. The hotel room is completely illuminated behind him, and my eyes narrow in suspicion.
“You’re not sleeping, are you?” I ask him.
He surveys me, and I survey back, trailing my gaze over his tan chest, all along his muscled arm, to the half-full blue Gatorade in his hand. The sight of all those muscles, the Celtic tattoos, his pectorals, his throat—god, those thick tendons of his throat, where I tuck my nose in at night—makes all my body tingle with remembrance of what it feels and smells and looks like.
A ribbon of need unfurls painfully inside me, and it spreads throughout my being until I can think only of this need: to kiss and hold him, touch and nuzzle him, smell his neck; his hair, feel his breath on me and every little callus of his.
Then I realize he’s still looking at me, the top of my body fully naked, and I’m instantly wet when I see the territorial, f**k-my-mate look in his eyes.
