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Meanwhile, she began to browse.
And as she did, she hummed under her breath. “Hmm. I wonder what this is.” I watched her squint at the first page as she cleared her throat and commenced to read silently, only for her eyebrows to spike sky high. “Oh!” She turned the page, her eyes scanning with wide-eyed interest, only for a frown to mar her brow soon thereafter. “Oh, wow.”
“What?” I couldn’t help but ask.
She held up a finger to interrupt me. “Wait. I thought your dad’s given name was Charles.” She glanced at me. “Isn’t that what you said earlier?”
Things inside me went very still and alert. “Yes,” I said slowly. “Why? Did you find something about my father?”
“No.” She shook her head, looking confused. And for some reason, I knew exactly whose name she was going to say, even as she announced, “I found something from an Isaac Carmichael.”
“Isaac? Are you sure?”
“Positive. Do you know who that is?”
I held out my hand, silently asking for the letter.
Instead of handing it over, though, she blinked prettily and sent me a fake smile that told me she wasn’t going to give me anything until I answered her.
So I released a small breath and said, “He’s my brother.”
“Wait. What?!”
Horror filled her features so I immediately amended, “Half brother. Much older half-brother on my father’s side.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders relaxed, only for her to make another face. “Still. That’s kind of—”
“Will you just let me see the damn letter?”
“Um, well…” She glanced down uneasily, only to look back at me and cringe, holding the page against her chest away from me. “Are you sure you really want to read it? It might be a bit—I don’t know—life-altering.”
Life-altering?
I just looked at her and kept my hand held out, waiting.
She sighed out a reluctant mutter. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The letter landed in my palm. As soon as I looked down and began to read, Gabby scurried around behind me so she could reread it over my shoulder.
Shaking her head in awe, she whistled low. “This is seriously some crazy shit. The dude was boinking his stepmom. I mean, wow. Just wow.”
My eyebrows furrowed as I read the handwritten words on the sheet of copy paper. “This doesn’t make any sense,” I finally exploded. Isaac and Lana had slept together? “How is it even possible?”
“Well,” Gabby started in a patronizing voice. “When a man and a woman find each other attractive—”
I tossed her a glare. “No. You don’t understand. The reason Lana even married Charles was because his son, Isaac, turned her down first. Isaac was the one she really wanted, but he rejected her, so her revenge against him was to take his dad.”
Gabby’s mouth dropped open, and she blinked at me a moment before blurting, “You have got to be freaking kidding me. I mean, that is some for-real soap opera bullshit, right there. But—” Gabby motioned blindly toward the letter. “Isaac must’ve changed his mind after she married his dad—I mean, your dad. Whatever—because they obviously did something together. He clearly says it’s over between them and he orders her not to leave her husband to be with him. The husband who’s his own dad. Whoa.” She shook her head, only to point again. “So, this—I mean, the baby Isaac’s referring to here—the one she’s pregnant with and he tells her to abort—” Gabby met my eyes and winced. “Is that you?”
After re-checking the date of the letter, I shook my head. “No. I was already born by this point.”
Gabby nodded. “Okay, so she probably did get an abortion then.”
“No,” I repeated. “She didn’t. Ah, fuck.” My breathing accelerated as I stared at the words on the page, then glanced blindly around the room. “Brick,” I murmured vaguely. “He’s not my full brother after all.” Shock coursed through me as I met her gaze. “He’s only my half brother.”
Gabby made a face before nodding yes and shaking her head no at the same time. “Or maybe three-quarters brother,” she amended, “since his dad is your other half brother, which wow, makes you his brother uncle. Maybe uncle brother? Or should we call it bruncle?”
When I just stared at her as if she’d lost her mind, she winced. “Sorry. Too soon?”
