Page 27 of His Bittersweet Regret

“Okay? He found out, and his response was to go fuck the bitch across the street from my apartment.”

Ryker shook with his anger. “Pretty sure he did that because he thought you were carrying someone else’s baby.”

“Whose baby could it be? Did I make it myself?”

We both plopped down on the couch. Well, he plopped, and I did a half backbend-awkward-waddle sit. “That looked wildly uncomfortable,” he commented.

“It was. Thanks for noticing.” I tossed back at him. “I’m so tired, Ry.” The admission was beyond my lips before I could pull it back. He scooted closer and wrapped his arm around me until my head rested on his sturdy shoulder.

“I know you are, Opal, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with all this while growing my nephew.”

“I just don’t understand what I did to deserve any of this,” I said as I rubbed my hands over my burgeoning belly. “There was never a moment, not once since I met your brother that I wished for something different. We were supposed to be happy. We were supposed to be getting married. There was no concern on my part when I saw that positive pregnancy test, because I just knew that we had a stable relationship to bring him into.”

Ryker didn’t seem to know what to say, so he just continued to hold me as I whined. Only, I stopped whining because what more was there to say?

“I was wrong about everything. Your brother didn’t love me.”

“I don’t think that’s true at all,” he attempted to argue.

“If you loved someone, would you treat them the way Marsh treated me?” I asked and looked up into Ry’s too serious face to see the answer there, even though he didn’t give a verbal answer. He would not. This was not what you did to someone you loved. You didn’t leave them in the hopes of finding someone better, or with the promise to come back if you didn’t find it.

“The thing with our dad really messed him up.”

“So, that gave him the right to take it out on me?”

“No. I’m not saying that or arguing in his favor. Honestly, I’m just trying to understand the same way you are. This might sound shitty in one respect, but I honestly don’t think he thought about ‘you’ in this equation at all.”

“Well, that certainly makes me feel better.”

“I don’t mean it the way you took it. I just meant that he was thinking of himself, that he had to know for sure before settling down. I’m sure he thought you would want that answer too.”

“I wanted that answer in an entirely different way, Ry.”

“What do you mean?”

“For me, I had zero doubts that we were meant to be together. The only thing I was waiting on was for your brother to decide whether he felt the same. If so, he would have chosen me, no matter what his friend and brothers tried to put into his head. Then, I would have known he felt the same way I did, and never doubted our being together.”

“You’ve never been attracted to anyone else besides my brother?” He asked with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

“Of course, I’ve been attracted to other people, but no way in hell would I have ever acted on that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I loved your brother. In my mind, there was no way I could ever find better than what I already had. Even during the times when we fought, or just seemed to bore one another, I still knew that no one could ever compare to him.”

“Damn. You are girlfriend goals, Opal.”

“Too bad your brother didn’t think so,” I lamented.

“He’s a fucking idiot.”

“Well, that’s something we can both agree on.”

“You’re sure you won’t move away?”

“I have to move, but Oregon is no longer on the table.”

“Sorry your parents are weird.”

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