Page 60 of Sex. Love. Marriage.

Every time I heard it, I wanted to rip the person’s throat out. The only thing worse than hearing that was the fact that she was gone and I couldn’t change that. So I moved my entire family to this shit show.

When I arrive in the morning, Xianna is at the dealership standing next to the large glass doors with a bag in her hand. She notices me walking toward the shop, and her eyes light up. I’ve known Xianna since I was probably ten years old. She’s like a sister to me, and the fact that I know something is going on between my brother and another woman, the sight of his wife sends a chill through me.

“Noah,” she gasps, seeming thankful someone is here. “Can you give this to Nick? He left it at home. He was supposed to drop it off at the clinic this morning.”

“Yeah, sure.” I reach for the bag after hugging her.

Her dark brown eyes widen as I take the bag from her, and she gasps. “Be careful with it. Those are my future babies in there.”

“Your babies?”

“I know, crazy, but we’re in the middle of doing IUI.”

I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to be holding is my brother’s spunk. It crosses boundaries I didn’t even know I never wanted crossed. I want to throw it back at her and scream, “Not it!” “I’m sure Nick’s in there. Are you sure you don’t want to give them to him? I really shouldn’t be in charge of babies.” And I don’t want to be.

“Oh, please.” Xianna laughs, her dark hair blowing in the wind. “You’re an amazing father.”

I don’t say anything.

“Just give it to him for me. He’ll know what it is. Poor guy has been so focused on training the new sales manager. He’s barely been home this last week. I’d hate to bother him. He said he came in early to get some work done.”

A wave of nausea hits me because I want to let her in the building so she can see for herself what’s going on, or better yet, for Ava to see that he’s married and whatever it is they’re doing, it needs to stop now. But I don’t. I stand there like an idiot.

“Well, I need to get going.” She points to her car where I can see their dog is in the front seat with her head hanging out the window. “I’m running late for an appointment with our decorator, but tell Kelly I said hello and we should get together soon.”

Again, I nod. I hug her once again, tell her it’s good to see her again, and then I’m on the hunt for the keys to the shop while holding what I hope is not my brother’s sperm in a bag.

Xianna leaves, and I venture toward the shop regretting the nauseating feeling swarming through my veins.

Because Ryker is a useless little shit and since the fire extinguisher event, he’s been even worse. He’s my lead mechanic, so that pretty much leaves me with the vapers who spend most of their time on their cell phones.

Oh, right. You weren’t there for the fire extinguisher incident. I’ll bring you up to date. It started about a week ago when Ryker was taking a forty-five-minute dump during the day. That translates to him sitting on the toilet staring at his phone while we were swamped with waiters. If you’re not familiar with waiters, it’s a term we use for people who drop their car off for service, and they wait in the waiting room until it’s finished.

Anyway, as it approached an hour of him being in there, I’d had enough of him being in there, opened the stall door and sprayed him with a fire extinguisher. When he emerged, he looked white-washed, laughed, and then proceeded to throw up for three hours. Apparently, he was allergic to it.

That incident basically started a war between the two of us and ended with him punching me yesterday. Naturally, I defended myself. And in turn, now we’re under review by HR.

You know who should be under review?

My fucking brother. Because the first thing I walk in on when I get to work is him and Ava fucking in his office when I’m looking for the key to the shop because it’s locked for some reason. Which also tells me that Ryker didn’t show up to work today because he’s the one that opens the shop up in the morning. But back to the more important, and rather awkward moment, I’m stuck in. Me seeing my brother fucking someone who is not his wife. You’re not surprised, are you?

Didn’t think so. I wonder how surprised he’d be if he knows I’m holding his kids in my hand while he’s being a shady son of a bitch?

What I think is a surprise is their reaction as if her dress found its way up around her waist and his pants to the floor just happened by accident.

“It’s not what it looks like” is what Ava says.

That’s definitely what she said.

And my brother, he doesn’t say anything but the look on his face screams, you didn’t see anything. As he tucks himself into his pants, he glares at me. “Can’t you knock?”

Anger rushes through me, and I’m not even sure why because this isn’t my situation. It’s one of those moments when you start shaking because you can’t form a thought, let alone calm your body down. This isn’t my life and I shouldn’t care who my brother fucks. But I do because I’ve always liked Xianna. It also pisses me off that my brother turned out to be such a shitty person who cheats on their wife.

I look at Ava, whose face is a bright shade of red as she’s righting her dress and looking for what I assume might be her panties. They’re on Nick’s desk beside the condom wrapper, but I’m not about to tell her that. “You know he’s married, right?” I seethe. It’s as if I spit the words in her face. I hold the bag up. “I just talked to his wife. I guess you forgot you two were trying to make a baby.”

Ava flinches, then snaps her eyes to Nick. “I uh….”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know. You’d think the ring on his finger would give it away.”

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