Page 55 of End Game
The roll of the door just starts to rumble when she finally speaks again. “Wait.”
“Layla, we don’t have to do this,” I sigh, snapping the door shut. “I didn’t mean to bother you or put you in some weird position. I just wanted to say hi.”
Turning, I take her in. Her posture is defiant, her chin lifted towards the inky black sky.
“Trust me when I say I don’t want to do this.” Her confidence wobbles. “I need to sit down.” She moves quickly across the balcony and slides into a chair next to a small glass table. “You probably should sit down too.”
My stomach bottoms out, dropping to my feet, as I drag myself to the chair opposite her. My skin is coated with a cold sweat, every nightmare I’ve ever contemplated rolling through me like it’s three in the morning and I’m lonely.
“What the hell is going on?” I drop into the seat, wiping the sweat off my palms.
“I’m pregnant, Branch.”
Falling back into the chair, I blow out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t some STD talk. I hate those. The last time that happened a girl tried to extort me for ten thousand dollars until I volunteered to show her my regular screening and that I’ve never had any sort of venereal disease. Ever.
“What did he say?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Callum.”
She slow-blinks. “Callum?”
“You haven’t told him yet?” I ask, watching her work through a battery of emotions. My own are a little whirled as I realize my lusting over this woman has probably just had to come to a screeching halt. She has bigger fish to fry than my cock . . . and that’s pretty fucking big.
“It’ll be all right,” I say, as encouraging as I can while setting aside the fact that this is not how I’d hoped this conversation was going to go. “He’ll come around. But do you want some advice?”
She slow-blinks again, this time with her mouth hanging open. I take that as a yes.
“Take charge right away. Don’t let him start calling the shots or thinking he gets to say shit about your life.”
“Branch . . .”
We sit across the table, the moon shining just enough to illuminate her pretty features and I resent the fact that Callum is the one that spent that kind of intimate time with her. Fucker didn’t even appreciate it.
A wash of fear trickles across her face. My heart clenches, the do-gooder that’s buried so far below the surface I don’t see it much chooses this moment to come forward.
“You need help telling Finn? He’s gonna be pissed, Layla.”
“I know,” she squeaks.
“No, I don’t think you do,” I laugh, just imagining my best friend’s response to this little piece of news. “He might drive to Columbus tonight and kick the shit out of him.”
“Branch . . .”
“I’ll make sure he gets bailed out.”
“Branch.” This time it’s a command, a warning to stop talking and listen. “I need to talk to you.”
“We’re talking, Sunshine.”
Her throat moves with a hard swallow. She leans back in her chair, combing a hand through the side of her hair. “Um, so . . .” She releases a breath. “The baby. Um . . . Branch, the baby isn’t Callum’s.”
“Then whose is it?” I watch her face and realize . . . I’m better off not knowing. With a need to get off of the balcony and into the comfort of a mass of drunk bodies, I start to stand. “You know what, I don’t want to know.”
“The baby is yours.” She blurts the words like it’s a burden under the weight of which she’s being crushed. That if she just chucks it into the world, gets the offending words out of her mouth, she can breathe.
I stop dead in my tracks.
