AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That made her sound weak and she couldn’t deal with that. Not with Gus looking at her like that. Because there was something about Gus that always made her want to prove herself. Maybe it was staring in the face of his hardness, of his resilience. She didn’t know.
She just knew she couldn’t bear for him to think of her as weak.
Everyone would know anyway. Soon enough.
He might as well be the first.
“I threw up because I’m pregnant, you dumbass,” she said, from her miserable position on the ground.
Oh, there. She’d said it.
It made her want to throw up again.
He crouched down next to her, and she could see his dark eyes glittering, even in the dimness.
Well. Shit. She hadn’t planned to confess it now. But she didn’t want to think she was a wimp. She wasn’t a wimp. She wasn’t throwing up because she was hurt. She was throwing up because her stomach was weird.
And because there was going to be ababy.
Gus grabbed her arm, his hold bruising. She hadn’t been this close to him since she was a tiny child he’d fished out of the pond. The intensity in his eyes was like a black, blank hole. It made her shiver. “You said he didn’t touch you.”
“Hedidn’t,” she said, jerking away from him.
His expression closed off. “Who did?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It just doesn’t matter, Gus. It is what it is. It’s my problem. I’ve gotta deal with it.”
“So, he’s not around?”
“No.”
He paused for a moment, and she could see right when it all clicked into place for him. “It was Travis, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe.” She hated this. She hated being this transparent. To Gus McCloud of all people. He wasn’t sensitive. He wasn’t nice.
He was kind of terrifying, actually.
“This is what I walked into at the tavern, isn’t it? That’s why you were so poorly.”
She craned her neck, trying to look haughty, from her position on the ground where she’d just been sick. “I was notpoorly. I amneverpoorly.”
The bastard chuckled. “You are pretty damn poorly, sweetheart.” She wanted to take a swipe at him, but instead she just sat there, fulminating. “So, he’s not coming back?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t need him to.” The words sat between them, and he didn’t say anything, which pissed her off. It was just silent and she hated the silence. “It’s just humiliating,” she added. “Because everyone’s going to know. Everyone.”
“So, you had sex. Big deal.”
The way he said it made her want to believe that’s how people would think.
“You know it isn’t like that,” she said, feeling miserable. “People even judged Sawyer. Didn’t he and Wolf have to get married?”
“The Kings won’t judge you.”
She laughed. Hollow. “That doesn’t comfort me, Gus.”
“Comforting isn’t really in my wheelhouse, it may shock you to learn.”
And in spite of herself, she laughed. “Yeah, I am...just wholly shocked to hear that.” The air seemed to shrink around them. “My baby’s not going to have a father. Just like me.”
