Page 111 of Untethered Heart
“She’s happy to be with her brother. His baby mama has a scan tomorrow, so Lex is excited that she was invitedto go along for that.” I walk over to the fridge and pull out a beer as Mum walks into the room.
“How wonderful. A baby,” my mother gushes, Mason and my dad trailing behind her.
“Hey, Mum.” I give her a hug and bend down so she can kiss my cheek. Dad walks in behind her, placing a hand on my shoulder and squeezing. I release Mum so I can give a quick hug to Dad just as Mason comes barrelling past. I snag him around the neck, ruffling his hair and pulling him in to join me and Dad.
“I can’t wait till we have babies in this house,” Mum says, just as Dad smacks a kiss against mine and then Mason’s heads. I make my way over to the dining nook to join Beth and Gage.
“Me neither,” says Grams. “You should get your sperm checked, Caleb.”
My balls shrivel as my face contorts in a grimace. “Excuse me?”
She turns around, waving her wooden spoon at my groin area. “Just to make sure it’s all hunky dory down there.”
I cross my hands over my dick as I hear my siblings snickering behind me. “Everything’s fine down there.”
Grams shrugs and turns back to her cooking. “I’m sure it is, but it can’t hurt to check.”
“Yeah, Cale. Think of all the women you’ve slept with,” Beth says, waving her hand in a sweeping arc as if it’s some grandiose number. “Have any of those suckers ever slipped through before?”
Fuck, I hope not. I only want children with Lex. Surely, I would have known if birth control failed in the past. Right? Maybe I should get checked. Jesus, I feel faint.
I fall onto the end of the bench seat next to Gage. Mason’s practically falling over with laughter now where he sits on one of the bar stools. Gage snorts as if he’s so high and mighty.
“Hey, you wouldn’t be laughing if you got someone pregnant without meaning to.”
We slip into easy conversion after that. It follows into the dining room while we eat together and again as we all spread out in the family room to relax after dinner. Mason’s talking about his continual search for a new house. I have no clue what’s wrong with his current one, but apparently, it’s not right.
Lex has been texting me. She’s so worried about her brother. She knows he’ll be fine, but she desperately wants to be closer to him, now more than ever.
Mason’s still going on about his house hunting when an idea pops into my head. I bring up the maps on my phone and start looking around the route from Heart City to Killara Bay. With a few options, I bring up a real estate website and start scrolling, solutions filling my head at a rapid pace. New possibilities and excitement for the future are lighting me up inside.
“Hey, Mase? Can you take a drive with me this week?”
“Yeah, I can make something work. Where to?”
“Trevally Falls.”
“What’s in Trevally Falls?” Gage asks as he looks over my shoulder at my phone.
I pass it to him so he can scroll through the pictures. “Hopefully a solution.”
“There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for her, is there?” he asks, as if the thought is so entirely foreign. That your happiness could be so tied to another.
“No,” I answer. “Now that I have her, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her.”
My brother almost looks mad at me for those words. Or maybe he’s mad at himself. Isabelle is still not acting like her usual self. She puts on a mask, but I can see through it. I’ve checked in with her as much as possible. Lex has invited her out for girls’ nights. I’m pretty sure the only thing that’s going to cheer my friend up is getting my stubborn brother to get his head out of his arse.
“Talked to Izzy?”
Gage drops his head back on the couch, staring at the ceiling with a sigh.
“Why won’t you just talk to her, fucker?” I shift my eyes around the room, making sure Mum and Grams didn’t hear my name calling. They don’t like it, and I don’t feel like being told off like a child. But Gage is the one acting like a child here. Maybe I should tell Mum that he’s ignoring Isabelle. Or at least pretend to.
“Mum would be so disappointed you haven’t checked in on her. She really likes Isabelle.”
“You’re a dick.”
“No, you’re a dick.”
