Page 104 of Branded
I parked, got out of my car, and grabbed my bag from the trunk, headed for the bus that would take me and the guys to the airport.
But I stopped before I got on, seeing Raph getting out of his car.
My mouth opened, quickly slammed shut when I saw what my friend looked like.
Hell.
He looked like hell.
Long strides brought me to Raph’s side by the time my teammate was retrieving his bag from the back seat. As he straightened, the bag tossed over his shoulder, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
Dark circles under Raph’s eyes. Stubble dotting his cheeks when he always shaved, only growing his beard for No Shave November, a stupid team tradition all the guys participated in. Skin pale. Hair a mess. Suit wrinkled and smelling like he’d been bathing in whiskey.
Raph’s shoulders lifted and fell on a sigh. “Figured I’d at least have five fucking minutes before you got in my face, asshole.”
I’d take asshole in this.
I’d own it if that meant Raph unloaded whatever in the fuck was putting this look on his face.
“You looking like that”—a wave of my hand—“you don’t even have five fucking seconds.”
Another sigh then Raph shoved a hand in his pocket, yanked out…a crumpled piece of paper.
No.
It was glossy.
Like…photo paper.
Like…one of the ultrasound pictures that Raph had been showing off in the locker room since he’d found out he was going to be a dad, just a few days ago.
“I was supposed to go with her to the doctor. She’d kept scheduling appointments when I couldn’t make it, saying there just weren’t a lot of open times.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I said I’d call the doctor, explain the situation, see if I could get to a couple of them. I wanted to hear the heartbeat and I had questions, wanted to make sure I was supporting Monica and?—”
My stomach began churning.
Shit.
Had he lost the baby?
“She called when I was visiting my dad at the home”—he’d grown up with a single father who’d had a stroke a couple of months back and was currently residing in an assisted living facility—“said that they moved her appointment up, and I left right away, tried to get there in time.” Another rise and fall of those big shoulders. “But I was too far away. Got there just as she was walking out. Supposedly had just finished.”
Supposed—
“I’d never looked at these closely before, not the writing anyway.” He shoved the picture at me, jabbed a finger at the small white letters at the top of the print-out. “I looked at the head, the legs, the heart. But not the writing…and it’s not even the same hospital. Not the same date. The same fucking year, even. The— She—” He shoved a hand through his hair, paced away.
I was trying to make sense of that, of the fact that, yeah, the ultrasound’s date that was printed on the picture was from four years before, when Raph spun back around, jabbed out his fist.
Not at me.
But at the car.
It thunked against the metal hard enough that I knew it had to fucking hurt.
Raph wasn’t feeling anything, though. He didn’t even shake out his fist when he twisted back to me and said, eyes full of fury and agony. “She was never pregnant.”
I blinked, mouth dropping open.
“She made the whole damned thing up.”
