Page 44 of Accidental Baby For My Brother’s Best Friend

Locke

Gemma’s acting weird, and not normally weird. Normally weird would be ignoring me or being sassy toward me, but now she’s outrightmeanto me, and that’s unusual. Because of her illness, I pass it off as her being irritable, but the thing is, she’s not irritable with Axel, and that’s what pisses me off.

It’s like Gemma and Axel are attached at the hip, and Samuel sometimes seems in on it, too. Jackson doesn’t seem to care, but then again, lately he doesn’t seem to care about anything but the shows we do and sneaking around after. I don’t think he’s slept a single night in the hotels we booked in four shows now, and I’m not asking questions because I don’t want him to suspect me of something.

Not that I’m doing anything nefarious right now, anyway—Gemma won’t even look at me except to tell me I’m an idiot, even when I try to give her a Zero bar or a bottle of Powerade. She seems to have one around all the time, along with vanilla Oreos, which I’ve always loved and she says she hates.

If I still felt the way I did when we started things, Gemma ignoring me would be a godsend. It would get her out of my hair and keep me from having to break things off. Unfortunately, I’ve allowed myself to develop feelings for a twenty-one-year-old girl, and I’m chasing her around trying to tell her how I feel.

I know that I haven’t been the most open to relationships in the past, and I know what Gemma thinks of me, but the only way to change the way she thinks is totalkto her, no matter how worried I am about what might happen in the future.

God knows I don’t want to end up in the same place I was after I left Janis.

Gemma’s different, I tell myself.She’s not like Janis.

It’s hard to convince myself of that, though, when she’s glaring daggers at me and smiling at Axel when he brings her a drink after the show in Atlanta, something light colored. She downs about three of them and I’m a little concerned about how much she’s drinking. There it goes again, that concern that I have when I care about someone. It should be terrifying but right now, all I want to do is talk to Gemma.

I mill around the concert hall which has a full bar, but I’m not drinking and barely speaking to anyone. I’m seething because Gemma ignores my very existence but keeps talking to Axel in hushed whispers, their heads close together. Jealousy and worry are a bad combination, and my stomach feels sick.

“Can I talk to you, little bit?” I ask her when Axel finally goes to the bathroom.

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps, and that’s whenIsnap, wrapping my fingers around her wrist and tugging her up.

She’s surprised and bounces against my chest but she doesn’t fight me, just like before. I lead her outside and she’s breathing a bit hard but I don’t have it in me to ask her how she’s feeling at the moment, after she’s been drinking and chatting with our guitarist for hours.

“Ineedto talk to you, Gemma,” I say firmly, and she looks up at me, seeming a little pale. “I want to…Ineedto tell you something.” I’m angry and frustrated, but suddenly, I feel shy and hesitant. What if she reallyisstill sleeping with Axel? What if she’s chosen him instead of me? What if I tell her I like her and she gives me the “let’s just be friends” speech?

“It’s not the right time, Locke,” Gemma says, her words slow, and I wonder if the alcohol is hitting her.

“You shouldn’t have let Axel buy you all those drinks,” I scold, without even meaning to, and Gemma frowns.

“He didn’t-”

“And what’s going on with you and Axel, anyway? I asked if you were seeing someone else and you wouldn’t tell me, and now-”

“Locke-” Gemma puts a hand over her mouth but I keep going.

“I just wanted to tell you that I…I don’t feel the same way that I used to about this, and I think we need to define things because I’m going kind of nuts, little bit. Ilikeyou, in a way that means that it makes me crazy to think about you and Axel…” I trail off because somewhere in the middle of my tirade, Gemma runs off into the back, throwing up in the bushes outside of the venue.

Before I can go and comfort her, I realize that Gemma has dropped her phone on the pavement and I pick it up. I’m examining it for cracks when a text notification pops up from Axel on her locked screen.

Where did you go? I thought we were going to talk about the baby tonight.

I furrow my brow, confused, and look up at Gemma but she’s already gone inside. It dawns on me slowly, so slowly that I feel stupid, afterward. This isn’t exactly like what happened with Janis, since Gemma and I had never defined things, but damnit, it sure feels like it, my throat feeling tight and my chest aching.

Not only has she chosen Axel, but that sonofabitch has gotten herpregnant.

Jackson comes out of the back doors.

“What’s going on? Is she drunk?” Jackson asks me, and I put Gemma’s phone in his hand.

“No,” is all I say, and stalk back into the club to look for the guitarist.

I’m going to kill him.

* * *

Luckily for my arrest record, I don’t find Axel in the venue. The tour bus is gone and Jackson and I are stuck but he tells me to go on ahead, that he’s meeting someone.

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