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She nods gently. “Of course.”
I grab my phone off the coffee table and get straight to FaceTime. Jolie and I have talked about this only once before, but it was a dead serious conversation. Fletcher is the first person we decided we would tell if we ever got pregnant.
The real end of the Chloe drama in my mind wasn’t when Jolie and I confronted her in Malibu. It was when my brother braved making a PR statement. His agent and agency are among the most reputable in the country, and ended up making the statement public in a way only his truest fans noticed. Somehow, the talented people he works with made it a private public affair positioned as a niche special interest story that wasn’t big news. But by not keeping it secret, Fletcher took away Chloe’s leverage for all of us. My brother making that decision set us all free.
The video call rings, and eventually, my brother answers from what appears to be a poolside but he’s wearing a polo. We’re both post-season now.
“Yo…” He pops on a baseball cap to cover his eyes.
“Hey. Where are you?”
“Cabo.”
I want to blurt out everything but don’t want to be interrupted. “Do you have a minute?”
“Always for you. What’s up?”
Jolie pokes her head into the frame. “Hey, Fletch.”
“Hey, trouble.”
Jolie glances at me briefly then back at Fletch. “So, we’re calling you first about something really important.”
Fletcher goes from sitting back casually in his chair to upright. “Yeah…”
She continues, “Because you are the whole reason Ashton and I are even together…” She fumbles on her words.
“That’s not true. You two would have always ended up together, but I never mind taking credit for a good thing.” He flashes her his dimple.
She smiles back. “It’s true. But we wouldn’t be where we are right now if you didn’t, you know, have balls.”
He throws his head back with a laugh. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“So we wanted you to know first that”—she gazes at me intensely and the impact of her words strikes me as if I’m hearing it for the first time—“we’re having a baby.”
Fletcher erupts in laughter and sounds of surprise and joy and exclamation points. “Damn! That’s… Shit, I’m… I couldn’t be happier for you two. You… I’m…” He stumbles over what to say but finally swipes a hand down his face and beams at the screen. “I’m going to be an uncle.” He shakes his head, and our gazes meet on screen. “You’re going to be a dad, bro.”
I nod. “About damn time.”
“It is about damn time.” He’s smiling ear to ear.
Jolie wraps her arm around me and leans in even closer. “And we already know it’s a boy.”
“A boy!” Fletcher shouts then glances around him, clearly in some public place maybe his volume isn’t appropriate. “Hell yeah. I need to move back to the Canyon and make a quarterback out of him.”
“Hockey,” I correct.
“Football.”
I scratch my head. “I’m not sure there’s room in the NFL for two Fletchers.”
He shakes his head. “What do you mean?”
Jolie hugs me and gazes at the screen. “We want to name him after you.”
“What?” His jaw goes slack. “Seriously? Are you?”
The smile on his face is everything I hoped it would be.
