Page 102 of End Game
“Branch doesn’t believe this, right?”
“No.”
“Thank God,” she says, falling back on the bed. “I knew he was smart.”
“So smart he left me.”
The words are hiccupped, tears filling each opening, and my heart starts the process of breaking again.
“I don’t know why I’m so upset. I knew this would happen eventually. But,” I shrug, “it’s what I get for going against my gut.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he won’t put the baby and I through this shit. He was so sweet . . .” Pressing my face against the pillow, I cry until I can’t cry anymore. My chest burns, my face twinges with the strains from crying all evening. “Why? Why couldn’t he be a dick?”
My phone glows, the ringer turned off, and Poppy picks it up. The fire in her eyes when she looks at me has me plucking it from her hand before she can do any damage.
I see the name on the screen. “You have the audacity to call me?” I almost shout into the phone. “How dare you, you sick fuck?”
Callum’s laugh belts through the line. “I’m good, thank you. How are you?”
“I’m much better than you because I’m not a miserable, disgusting human being.”
“So you aren’t that upset? I mean, thank fuck it’s not my kid, but I thought Best deserved it after that little stunt he pulled, answering your fucking phone.”
“How did you even know I was pregnant?” I seethe, my hands shaking with the anger rolling through me.
“Someone snapped your picture coming out of the doctor’s office. It’s online, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “I hate you.”
“I bet you do. I bet your boy does too.” He laughs again, an unaffected, carefree laugh. “I’ll remember that when you come back to me with his bastard child, wanting me to take you back.”
“I wouldn’t take you back if someone gave me the entire world to do it.”
Like it’s in slow motion, Branch’s face spirals through my mind. A need seated deep inside me to hold him, hug him,love himburns as hot as a wildfire.
“As a matter of fact,” I swallow, “someone practically gave me the entire world not to.”
“Ah, isn’t that sweet? I love how you just pretend you don’t love me.”
The smile that touches my lips is genuine. “I didn’t love you,” I say simply. “I didn’t know what love was when I was with you.”
Poppy’s eyes grow wide, her hand resting on my leg. She gives me a thumbs-up.
“Callum, go to hell.”
My phone goes sailing across the bed and I fall back into the pillows again.
“What now?” Poppy asks. “I mean, I have a plan if you want it because I looked those grapes up and?—”
“Stop.” I flash her a look and try not to grin. “There’s no plan to be made.”
“What do you mean? You want him. You just said you loved him without saying it. Of course there’s a plan to be made!”
I shake my head. “This doesn’t change anything, Pop. Now he just knows what I already knew: our lives are not compatible.”
Tears well up again. “I had hoped maybe . . . Um, maybe we could figure a way around it and we . . .”
