Page 50 of Accidental Baby For My Brother’s Best Friend

Gemma

Locke fucks me up against the back of the tour bus, tells me I’m all his, and then promptly goes to the bar and picks up a thirty-something brunette. Axel and Samuel are both on my ass to tell Jackson what’s going on, but at this point I might be arrested for murder before I get a chance to talk to my brother on my own. The talk at breakfast never happened, so he is still in the dark about everything.

I wish I was in the dark about Locke too. I can’t even deny to myself that I’m jealous. I’m not just jealous, I’mfurious. I want to throw a bar stool when I see Locke and the brunette leaving together. He’s clearly drunk, leaning into her, and all I can think about is how he seduced that blond bartender the night that everything changed for me.

“What if you were both mine?”

Why would he ask me that and then go do a stupid rockstar thing that makes me question everything I think I know about him? I cannot understand men no matter how I try.

I barely sleep, tossing and turning and having dreams of Locke fucking both the blond bartender and the brunette from the bar, and when I wake up I’m livid all over again.

I know that I have to tell my brother at some point, but after the tour seems like a better idea. I’m hormonal and traveling and I’ve already called to make an appointment in three weeks when we’ll be back at home. There’s only three more shows, the last being Nashville in ten days. We’ll be turning in the tour bus to the rental company and flying back home, so I’ll have plenty of time to think about it. After all, I have to tell my very protective older brother that I’ve been impregnated by his best friend, who is eleven years my senior.

Yeah. That’s gonna go over well.

I consider ordering breakfast instead of going downstairs for the continental breakfast. I’ve been hormonal and snippy with everyone, not just Locke, and I feel like kind of an asshole about it. Axel and Samuel have been nothing but helpful ever since I started hooking up with Locke, so I feel particularly bad snapping at one of them.

The problem is, this baby is extremely picky when it comes to food, and something that I love (like onions and peppers with eggs, for example) can suddenly make me want to upchuck all over the place. I’m still feeling nauseous and dizzy off and on, so I want to make decisions that are less likely to make me throw up. I know that everything bagels with the salmon spread they usually have at the Marriott doesn’t make me sick, even though I’ve always hated salmon, so I throw on a pair of sweats and a camisole and get on the elevator.

The good news is that surely Locke will still be at brunette’s place; it's early, barely seven in the morning.

I cannot believe my bad luck when he’s the only member of the Spades down at the breakfast bar, making his own waffles with bacon on top.

The waffle maker is, of course, right next to the salmon spread, so I have no choice but to walk up next to him. The smell of cooking pork threatens to make me sick, so I get it as quickly as I can and sit down at a free table.

Locke’s been avoiding me like the plague since he found out I’m pregnant, so I’m more than surprised when he sits across from me.

“We need to talk about the baby,” he says firmly, and I raise an eyebrow.

“Thought you’d be busy most of the morning,” I say nonchalantly, as if it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.

“That’s not…” Locke sighs. “Not what we need to talk about.”

“You don’t have to do anything, you know.”

I take a bite of my everything bagel and for once, I don’t feel like instantly spitting it out, so I continue. I’ve been getting decaf coffee, which is a real drag, but I read online that caffeine is bad for the baby. I’ve been reading a lot online actually, and there’s a lot of terrifying things on the internet that I’ve been babbling to Axel about. He goes really pale any time I mention infant mortality, though, so eventually I started babbling to Samuel instead. These are all things I should be talking to the father of the baby about, but for a couple of weeks I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know. And when he learned about it, he ignored me until just now. I look up and Locke is staring at me, his face blank.

“What do you mean, I don’t have to do anything?” His voice is low, like he’s almost whispering. I want to roll my eyes. I know that we’ve both been each other’s dirty little secret for a while now, but now it irritates me.

“If you don’t want to be a part of this, you don’t have to be.”

“How exactly does that work?” His tone is still low and serious, and I guess he must really be considering this possibility.

That doesn’t break my heart at all, nope. Not even a little.

I shrug. “After the tour is over, I’ll tell my brother I’m pregnant. I won’t tell Jackson that the baby is yours, say it’s some guy I picked up while we were on tour. You get to walk away with your hands clean.”

“Is this…is this about Axel?”

I look him straight in the eyes because this part, at least, is the entire truth.

“This has nothing to do with Axel. This is about you and me and this baby.”

Locke nods slowly and for a moment he doesn’t speak and I think the conversation is over.

“Is this what you want?” Locke’s searching my face and I know what he wants. I know he just wants to be done with this. He never planned for things to go this far. Hell, neither did I.

I swallow hard, the words sticking in my throat and feeling like acid.

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