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“Because that would be the second dumbest thing you ever did.”
“Second?” I was confused as fuck at what the first was.
“No condom?”
I popped my head up. “I used one. They don’t always work, dipshit.”
“You sure you remember how to use one?” One corner of his mouth turned up.
“I’m not a fucking moron.”
He shrugged and took a sip from his beer. “You’re gonna marry Sarah when you’re in love with someone else, so it seems like you sort of are one, you know?”
I glared at my older brother. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“The hell I don’t. I see how you look at Bella. How youstilllook at Bella.”
“Bella and I are just fucked up.”
“Look, I get what happened three years ago. I agreed with you then, but it’s clear you’re both not over it.” His one eyebrow arched, and he took another sip from his beer. He waited for me to respond, but I kept silent. “We only talked briefly that summer when you were questioning everything…”
He had been deployed for most of that summer and came home two weeks before Bella found out she was pregnant. Bella and I decided we wouldn’t lie to anyone, but we wanted to keep our new relationship quiet and to ourselves, away from the nosiness of my big, involved family. She only lasted a week before telling Ashley, and I ended up telling Kyle shortly after finding out she was pregnant. But that whole summer was a clusterfuck of major proportions, and my head was a mess, kind of how it was feeling at the moment.
“What is with everyone wanting to revisit the past tonight?” I mumbled.
Kyle shrugged. “Hell, I still don’t know if I have all the information correct. But what I do know is thateveryoneknew you guys were seeing each other during the first half of that summer. Then we find out she’s pregnant, and it’s not yours. I told you then you should walk away if you weren’t ready to step up.”
I hated thinking about any of it. But he wasn’t going to shut the fuck up until I said something.
“Yeah, and you agreed when I said I wasn’t sure if I could raise another man’s baby!” I barely got the words out through gritted teeth.
He huffed out a laugh.
“Isn’t that what you ended up doing anyway for the first year or so?” He lifted both legs up and placed them on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles. “Dad told me you fell asleep on the couch holding baby Brendan on your chest more times than any of them could count. Showing up every day, even when Mom and Dad said you were exhausted and needed to sleep yourself and you ended up being the only one who could soothe Brendan when he was fussy.” His gaze burned a hole through me with the intensity behind it.
I was also the one who rushed her to the hospital when she went into labor at the restaurant. Savannah volunteered, but my guilt was eating me alive. Since I was partly responsible for Caden not being there, I had to step up in his place; it was only right. Ashley and my mom kicked me out when they got to the hospital, but I stayed in the waiting room until Brendan was born.
Sensing I wasn’t going to respond further, Kyle went on. “So no, I’m not falling for the ‘I couldn’t raise another man’s baby’ shit. Try again, asshole. At the time, I agreed. Now I think you were just being a pussy.”
I stared at my brother with wide eyes and wondered when he’d gotten so smart. “Fine. IthoughtI couldn’t. IthoughtI would resent him. When Bella gave me that ultimatum, all in or all out, the fact that I hesitated broke us, and she had no interest in hearing what I had to say.” I hung my head and confessed, “But she deserved,deserves,a man who can step up and be there for her. Not walk away when things get tough.”
“So what? You get a do over with Sarah? Be the man you should have been with Bella?” He smirked, like he knew he was riling me up.
My hands balled into fists, and I had to take a breath to calm down. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“If that baby isn’t yours, which there’s a good chance it isn’t, then you going to raise another man’s baby? Are you doing it to make up for not being able to do it for Bella? Is that your fucked-up logic?”
“Why the hell does everyone keep saying that baby isn’t mine?” I huffed, tired of the conversation.
Kyle looked away and refused to meet my eyes. “Go talk to Sarah yourself, and stop being a dickhead about it. Just make sure. That’s all any of us are saying. But even if itisyour baby, you don’t need to marry Sarah to raise your child.”
“You better tell me right fucking now what you know. Because this isn’t some town gossip we’re talking about. It’s my life, Kyle.”
Kyle hesitated, rolling the beer bottle around in his hand. “Apparently her ex, Drew, was at the bar earlier talking about Sarah carrying his child.”
Sarah broke up with her ex last year before Christmas, so unless she cheated on me, the math didn’t add up.
“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” I said with a deep sigh.
