Page 100 of Christmas with Brother's Best Friends
“So did I. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love you,” I tell him. “They were just as scared as me to tell you guys the truth because we know how you are. I appreciate how protective you are of me, but I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re a grown adult, which makes us old,” Andrew sighs with a dash of amusement in his eyes.
The corner of my mouth turns up. “It means I will make my own decisions, and I can look out for myself. Please, try to forgive them. Try to see how happy we are together. How they’ll be wonderful fathers.”
Andrew glances at Ethan, who gives him a subtle nod.
“We’ll think about it,” Ethan replies before walking over to me and kissing the top of my head. “You should get some rest.”
“You haven’t scared them off, right?” I ask them.
“Physically, we might have like an hour ago,” Andrew admits, making my face pale. “I’ll reach out to them after I have some time to think, okay?”
Panic pounds throughout my chest, but I force myself to breathe and nod, not wanting him to change his mind. The guys need to talk to my brothers and have aproductiveconversation.
I want all of them in my life, which means some forgiving needs to be done before it’s too late. Before bridges are burned and friendships are lost.
“Mom is cooking you something to eat,” Andrew tells me as he leans down to give me a brief hug. “Rest.”
I watch them both leave the room, my stomach twisting and turning. My eyes dart around, searching for my phone and coming up with nothing. It’s probably still at my apartment.
With a weak groan, I flop back down onto the pillows, my hands covering my face. I’ve pleaded my case. I’ve expressed what’s in my heart.
Things feel like they’re out of my hands right now, and all I can hope is that the guys and my brothers can work things out and come together again like the family that they’ve always been.
But the damage from this situation runs deep, and it won’t be easy to fix.
Not without a miracle.
Chapter forty-five
Chapter Forty-Five: Ryan
Ididn’t think that the group chat between me, the brothers, Josh, and Max would ever be used again, but three days after I rushed Emma to the hospital, a text from Andrew comes through.
You can visit Emma around 4 pm today.
As I lay in bed, rotting away in my own damn misery, I read the message over and over again. Like the other guys, I should be ecstatic and grateful. Their messages pop up under Andrew’s, thanking him and promising to be there.
My thumbs hover over the screen, but I can’t bring myself to type out a message. A sharp ache hits me in the chest when I think about going over there, only to be rejected or forced to let her go. Andrew’s text might seem promising, but we don’t know the full situation.
We might get there just to be broken up with because she chose her family over us. Or she decided that being with us isn’t worth the trouble or the risk. Maybe we’ll still get to be in the baby’s life, but she doesn’t want anything to do with us romantically.
I swallow hard and shut off my phone, my red eyes shifting up to the ceiling. I have been stabbed in the back and tossed aside by the people who I thought cared about me so many times, and I don’t think that I can handle going through that again.
Especially if Emma is the one turning me away.
I love her so damn much that it’s hard to breathe sometimes, and I already love the baby she’s carrying, even if I haven’t met them yet. Just the thought of them makes my heart beat out of control.
My eyes slowly close as I hear my phone buzz and ring from incoming calls and texts. I don’t know if I can get out of this bed. I don’t know if I can go to that house and face a possibly heartbreaking situation.
The potential pain of that scares the hell out of me. How am I supposed to recover from that? How do I bounce back from losing the love of my life and the family we could’ve had together?
I don’t know if I could.
Time crawls by slowly as I sink into the depths of my conflicted thoughts, listening to my phone go off over and over again. I ignore every message and every call, not wanting to have toexplain myself and why I’m not rushing out of my apartment to see Emma.
It’s too hard to find the words right now. I can barely understand my own thoughts and fears. I just know that they’re there, and they’re paralyzing.
