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And I climb out.
Slowly.
Again something he gets really mad about. When I do things at my pre-pregnancy speed.
I don’t know whether to be mad at his craziness or simply laugh at it because it’s cute, yes, but totally unnecessary.
Especially at this stage.
When I’m only seven weeks pregnant.
Which is still surreal to me, that it’s been seven weeks already, when it feels like it was only yesterday when I found out about my pregnancy. We even got the confirmation from the doctor yesterday. We wanted to go sooner — as soon as we’d found out a few weeks ago — but the people at the clinic advised to wait some. Because sometimes it’s hard to detect a heartbeat that early.
So yeah, seven weeks.
Which means the time has come to tell my brother and my best friend that we’re having a baby.
And that’s the second reason why he’s so quiet and stressed.
At the fact that I’m telling them anything at all.
He doesn’t think they need to know. He doesn’t think it’s any of their business, what we do, what happens between us, what happens to this little secret in my belly. Something that is very ironic because once upon a time he was all about bragging and exacting revenge. Which only goes to show that we’ve come so far, he and I. And I do agree with him to some extent.
That this isn’t any of their business.
We’re both adults and we both made a decision.
But they’re still a part of our lives, so they should know. So when it looks like after closing the door he’s about to walk away from me, I grab his arm to stop him. “It’s going to be fine.”
He looks down at me, his eyes hard, the lines of his beautiful face firm.
Still silent. Still displeased.
So I put my hand to his face, rubbing the muscle that’s jumping on his cheek. “He’s my brother, okay? He doesn’t run my life, but he has a right to know.”
That muscle beats under my touch for a couple of seconds. Then, “I want you to know that if he says something to you, if he makes you even little upset, I’m going to —”
“No, you won’t,” I tell him with a firm but a calm tone. “You won’t do anything. You’ll let me handle it.”
“I —”
“Like I asked you to, remember?”
I did ask him to do that.
Before we drove over, I asked him to let me take the lead on this. To let me handle whatever happens tonight. He didn’t like it but he also couldn’t say no to me. Another thing that has happened over the past weeks; he can’t say no to me. For anything.
It’s amusing actually.
The way he pampers me and takes care of me like I’m the most precious thing to him in the world.
But right now, he grinds his jaw because as I said, he hates this.
“Look,” I throw him a small smile and caress his harsh jaw, “I know you hate this. I know you hated it when I asked you to promise me that you’d let me handle it. But trust me when I say that I know him, okay? I know how to handle him. He’s my brother and —”
“And you’re my wi —”
His words come to a screeching halt.
Which is strange.
What’s stranger is that he looks like he’s been stunned. All color leaches out from his face and he goes stark white.
And I don’t understand.
What just happened? What was he going to say?
Worried, I step closer to him. “Ledger? What happened? What’s —”
His trance breaks then and he looks just as angry as he did before.
Like nothing ever happened.
“I don’t care if you know him or if he’s your brother. I won’t allow anyone, and by that I mean any-fucking-one, to upset you right now.”
I sigh at his unforgiving expression. “He may get mad in the beginning, sure. But he’ll come around when he sees how happy I am.”
At least that’s what I’m hoping.
That he’ll see the smile on my face that I can’t seem to contain these days. The hope in my eyes, the way I walk on clouds, the way I can’t stop touching my still-flat belly waiting, just waiting, for it to grow and swell.
“And are you?” he asks like he’s taken to asking ever since we found out about the pregnancy.
And he always does it with a strangely intense look in his eyes.
Like everything depends on my answer.
His entire life depends on it. His world. His very existence.
Like he won’t be able to bear it if I’m not happy.
It’s crazy and so very sweet.
And gosh, it makes me want things that I shouldn’t want.
Like the fact that I never want to leave. Our cabin. Our little dreamland. Our paradise.
The fact that I want to stay here with him forever.
