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Callie emerges from the kitchen, looking pretty as ever but also the exhausted mom of a sick baby. “It’s true. I’m letting him get away with it.”
Before I can respond, there comes a knock at the door and both Callie and Reed frown.
Reed longer and harder than Callie.
Because they can see who it is through the glass door.
My brother’s hated enemy and my best friend’s beloved older brother.
With curt movements, Reed opens the door. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I flinch at my brother’s rude tone.
And then I flinch at the clench in Ledger’s jaw.
Not because I think he’s going to break his promise to me. But because I know he won’t.
I know he’s trying to control his temper right now and I know he’s doing it for me.
“I was in the area,” he says finally, proving me right.
“In the area,” Reed repeats.
“That’s what I said.”
“I live in the middle of nowhere, asshole. There’s no such thing as being in the same area.”
Ledger shifts on his feet. “Well what can I say, I like taking walks in the middle of nowhere.”
Reed fumes. “You have five seconds to tell me exactly what the fuck you’re doing here or I’m shutting this door in your face.”
And I’ve had it.
“Reed,” I snap. “Enough. Let him in. His sister lives here. And his niece.”
Reed glares at me for a few seconds before turning to Callie, who’s shaking her head at him. Her disapproval is what makes my brother budge and he steps away from the door, letting Ledger in. I close my eyes in relief but then snap them open when I feel his gaze on me.
He looks me up and down, takes me in, as if checking to make sure that I’m okay.
Even though I left him only like ten minutes ago.
As ill-advised as it is, to stare at each other in front of our siblings, I can’t fault him for it.
Because I can’t take my eyes off him either.
I can’t help but want to go to him and put my arms around him. Wanting to soothe. Wanting to make his strain go away. God, I fucking hate reality. I hate the world. I hate all the people in it.
I just want us to go back to our little paradise in the middle of a forest and never leave.
“This is the third time.”
Reed’s voice makes me flinch and I break my gaze away from Ledger to look at my brother.
His words are clearly addressed to Ledger so he focuses back on Reed. “Third time what?”
“Third time I’ve found you here, sniffing around my sister.” My heart skips a beat as Reed keeps going, “If I find out that there’s a reason for that, no one, not even your sister, can stop me from feeding you your own teeth, you got that?”
Ledger’s jaw tics for a few suspended moments.
Then, “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Not completely satisfied because Ledger is going to stay, Reed reluctantly still jerks up his chin at him and turns away, heading for the couch where I think he was sitting, keeping Halo company and looking after her, before we came. And Callie heads for her brother, wrapping her arms around his torso and face-planting on his chest in exhaustion.
Great.
Just great, isn’t it?
Everything is going super well.
Not.
Actually, I take it back.
Everything is going well, if not super well.
After the initial tension between Reed and Ledger, things seemed to mellow out. Quite possibly because of Halo. Because both of them are trying to cheer her up and make her smile.
So many times over the past couple of hours, I wanted to touch my own belly and imagine how Ledger will play with our two little girls; how he’ll take care of them; carry them in his thick and sculpted arms; put them to sleep in his burly chest. How they’ll call him dada; how, like Halo, they’ll get excited to see him too; they’ll babble and coo and play with his crazy hair; they’ll crawl or wobble or run on their chubby feet to get to the man who’ll be their best champion for the rest of their lives.
God, I can’t wait.
I absolutely cannot wait to see my baby girls play with their daddy.
And their daddy being a total pushover for them.
But I refrain. From touching my belly, I mean. Because if that’s not a dead giveaway of the secret that I’m carrying, then I don’t know what is. And this is not the way that I want my best friend to find out the truth.
But anyway, as I said, things have been going well.
So it never occurs to me that I’ll be the one to blow it all to hell.
I am though.
And the stupid culprit is the carrot cake that Callie has baked for dessert. The spices in it and their normally very appealing scent.
