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God, I hated self-doubt and lack of confidence. I helped people all day long destroy those very things about themselves. Why was I so suddenly letting myself suffer from the very same thing?
Because of fear, I realized.
I knew I needed to stand my ground so she’d at least know where I stood on the situation, but I was so fucking scared that my revelation would somehow make her feel pressured and drive her away, and I absolutely could not lose her.
Bella had never done anything to suggest that she didn’t love me, though. So maybe she just needed time. And I just needed to calm down, and—
“Shit,” she hissed through the receiver. “I—I’m really sorry, but Gracen’s here.” Her voice lowered suddenly. “I’ll talk to you later. Okay? I swear. Just…”
“Bells,” I started, my voice raspy with regret. I wanted to apologize for pressuring her like I knew I had.
But she was already whispering, “Happy birthday. I’ll see you later. I promise.”
Just as I heard a male voice in the background, she hung up on me.
Clutching my hat to my head, I cursed up a storm inside the cab of my truck and continued to sit there, asking myself what was wrong with me? I shouldn’t have pushed. I shouldn’t have put strife between us. It was my goddamn birthday, and now I was going to be miserable all evening, worried that she was going to start avoiding me.
Dammit.
Why couldn’t I have just kept my fucking mouth shut?
I sat in my truck, stewing and stressed, wondering how to fix this long after I saw Gracen’s car drive past with Bella in the passenger seat. Neither of them noticed me on the side street; they were too busy talking to each other. Not about me, I’m sure. But about something else entirely.
I kept sitting there until I got a text from my sister, demanding to know where I was, that everyone was waiting for me at our parents’ house, and the food was getting cold.
So I drove to my mom and dad’s, not paying much attention to anything along the way. A car honked at me once when I almost ran through a stop sign, and I almost missed the turn to Mom and Dad’s street. But I made it alive, if not totally distracted.
When I pulled open the front door, I wasn’t expecting to hear a volley of people yelling, “Surprise!” But that’s what I got anyway.
Jarring to a halt, I looked up to find way more than the five people I was expecting for a quiet birthday supper at my parents’.
Along with Mom and Dad and my sister’s family was Beau’s entire clan of Gambles: his sister, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Then there were the Ryans with Pick and Eva and their tribe, next to Mason and Reese and—
I froze on Mason and Reese, realizing that if Bella’s parents were here, then she probably was too.
Gaze darting rapidly now, I finally found her way in the back, leaning against her brother with his arm draped casually over her shoulder. He was saying something to her, and she was listening to him, not paying any attention to me. But I studied her face a second longer, anyway, wondering what she was thinking.
Then someone was moving in front of me, blocking my view, and I remembered that everyone else was watching me. I blinked Bentley into focus as she grinned into my face and ripped off my hat in order to put a cheesy paper cone on my head.
“Smile,” she told me. “It’s your birthday. You look like you’re headed to an execution or something.”
“Sorry, I…” Sending her a chagrined smile, I focused on her features, glad to see that she looked a hell of a lot better tonight than she had the last time I’d seen her after her miscarriage. “I just wasn’t expecting all this.”
“Here.” Appearing at her side, Beau thrust an open beer bottle at me. “This’ll help.”
Yes, it would. Sending him a grateful glance, I took the bottle and looked down as Braiden tugged on my pant leg.
“Uncle Fox?” he said and held up a sheet of paper with a drawing on it. “I made you a picture.”
“You did?” Leaning down, I hefted the kid up onto my hip. “Let’s see this thing, then.”
“This is you,” the six-year-old was already explaining. “And this is me. And this is your truck we’re riding in.”
I nodded, murmuring, “Very cool. Thanks, bud. I have a spot on my refrigerator where this will look great hanging.”
“Really?” Braiden beamed as if he’d just been told his artwork was going to showcase in the Louvre.
“Of course. People don’t usually go around just drawing pictures of me. This is special.”
