Page 55 of Accidental Baby For My Brother’s Best Friend

Gemma

Iknock softly on the hotel door, taking in a deep breath, not exactly excited about what’s about to come.

My brother answers the door right away and grabs my hand, pulling me inside and forcing me to sit down on the bed.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his brow furrowed, and I smile.

“I’m fine. The baby’s fine, too.”

“Good,” Jackson says and then his face turns sour. “Now, you wanna tell me what in thefuckyou were thinking, hooking up with my best friend?”

I sigh heavily. “ I wasn’t thinking, honestly. And if it helps, at first I was trying to hook up with yourotherfriend.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Jackson groans. “I’ve heard, and that’s no less gross.”

I tilt my head, looking at him for a long moment and he sighs.

“You look so much like Mom when you do that.”

It’s bittersweet, knowing how much I look like our mother and that she’s gone, but I’m glad to have her no-nonsense attitude and grounded personality. Jackson is more like our father. Dreamy, with his head in the clouds, and reactive. I think things through, analyze things, or at least, I used to do that. Now, it seems like I’m flying by the seat of my pants, but it’s good to know that I can still analyze my big brother.

“Does it matter who it is?” I ask. “Or would you be angry no matter what?”

“I’m not…I’m notangrywith you, Gem.”

"You're not?" I feel my bottom lip trembling and I hate it. Jackson doesn't exactly try to fill the shoes of our parents but hehastaken care of me for years.

“I’m angry atLocke,” he elaborates, and I frown. Jackson sighs. “I’m not even exactly angry at him anymore, I’m just upset that neither of you came to me about this situation.”

“Jack, don’t pretend like you wouldn’t have hit him if he’d come to you and said that he wanted to hook up with your little sister.”

“OfcourseI would have, but it would have been a lot less hard than I hit him after he lied to me for weeks and then got my little sister pregnant.”

“It’s not like he meant to get me pregnant, Jackson, he-”

“He fell in love with you,” Jackson comments flatly, and I blink, looking up at him in shock. “Yeah, he told me.”

“Guess I know what it’s like to be the last to know,” I comment dryly, and Jackson laughs.

“The thing is, Gemma, Locke is a good guy. He really is. Sometimes, he loses his way, but we all do, now and again. It’s not like I hate the idea of you with Locke, it’s just…it’s hard for me to look at you and not remember what you were like at fifteen when…”

Jackson trails off. We don’t talk about it, how our parents died, what we went through. We haven’t really talked about it since it happened.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “I know. I know, Jack. But I’m not fifteen anymore.”

Jackson shakes his head, laughing softly. “You’re not. I know that. You’re a lot older at twenty-one than I was at twenty-five, but Gem, there’s so much life you haven’t lived. So many things you haven’t done, and that’s…that’s partially my fault.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Partially?”

“Okay, okay,mostly,” Jackson sighs. “I know I’ve been too protective, and I know that you had to grow up fast. I took care of you when we were kids but you’ve taken care of me as an adult a lot of times, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it, Gem.”

I’m tearing up again. Damn hormones. I’ve never been much of a crier, but now it’s like the waterworks turn on at the slightest thing.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I start, and Jackson sits up straight, holds up his hand to stop me.

“I’m not finished. You didn’t tell me because I’ve tried to be Dad instead of being your big brother, and I understand that. But I need to know one thing.”

He gives me a hard look, that one that tells me that I better tell the truth or I’ll be grounded, and I smile a little, thinking that he’s more like Dad than he thinks.

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