Page 88 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends
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Eventually, I put the laptop away and pull myself together. Light makeup. Jeans and a soft sweater. Something cozy enough to pass as comfort, something clean enough to keep my mom from worrying. At least I pass for human again. Kind of.
My mom is upstairs, probably folding something or cleaning something or drinking tea while watching a courtroom show she comments on like she’s on the jury.
I should tell her. I should’ve told her days ago. But how do I explain this?
“Hi, Mom. Remember when you told me not to fall for three men at work who also happen to be Phil’s best friends and billionaires and—oops—I’m pregnant again, but this time I have no idea who the father is?”
Yeah. That’ll go over great.
The nausea hasn’t hit yet today, which is a small win. The queasiness is always worse when I’m anxious, but right now I’m past anxious. I’ve tipped into a numb, slow kind of dread. The kind I felt when I was just a kid—when I found out about Levi and Lyra.
That moment flashes through me like a movie I forgot I agreed to rewatch—kneeling on the bathroom floor of a cheap apartment, pregnancy test shaking in my hands, tears stinging before I even looked at the result.
Then the second line appeared. And just like that, my world split in half.
Now here I am again. Pregnant. Scared. Alone. Only this time, it’s worse. Because this time, it wasn’t an accident in the dark with a man who couldn’t stay. It was three men I knew. Three men I cared about. Three men I trusted. Three men who made me believe, just for a second, that I was allowed to want everything.
And now? Now I’ve ruined it. Not them. Me.
I walk to the mirror in the hallway, half expecting to look different. But I don’t. Still the same brown hair, the same tired eyes, the same lines around my mouth from smiling too much for everyone else’s comfort. But something’s changing beneath the surface. A heartbeat that isn’t mine. A consequence I can’t take back.
I need help. I’m not doing this on my own.
I knock gently on Mom’s door, and she answers it still wearing her reading glasses. “Hey, sweetheart,” she says. “Everything okay? Are the kids okay?”
I open my mouth. Then close it again.
She watches me for a second longer. “Parker.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Of course.” She holds the door open wide, and I shuffle in. There’s another knitting project on the couch next to where she was sitting, so I take the other end of it. Without a word, she reaches over and takes my hand.
And suddenly I feel twelve again. Like I’m about to admit I cheated on a math test. But this is bigger.
This is everything. “I’m pregnant.”
Her hand tightens just a little. And she doesn’t say a word. Not yet. She just waits.
I half expect her to sigh. To take off her glasses and pinch the bridge of her nose like she used to when Phil and I would fight as teenagers. Maybe fold her arms. Maybe say something likeParker, I told you this would happen.
But she just squeezes my hand again and says, “You want to talk about it?”
My throat tightens. “Not really.”
“Okay.”
She waits. That’s what she does. She doesn’t prod or scold or guilt-trip. She just gives me space until I either fill it or start crying inside of it.
I exhale slowly. “It isn’t like last time.”
She nods.
“I mean, I wasn’t…alone. And I wasn’t being careless. I was on the pill. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
She stays quiet.
