Page 88 of Doctor Daddy

Then I found out that he was leaving me.

The thought of it was unbearable.

Holden was my brother’s best friend.

Being with him was forbidden, and oh-so-wrong.

My brother would havenotbeen happy to say the least.

But that didn’t stop me from falling into bed with him.

Or from giving him my heart.

I spent sleepless nights thinking about him.

Finding out that I was pregnant shocked me.

But it was nothing compared to what I had to do after.

I couldn’t tell Holden about it.

I had to let him follow his dream.

More than anything, I had to protect him from my brother.

But all hell would break loose once he found out what I’d kept hidden from him: A little girl that has her father’s eyes.

Would he ever come home to meet her?

Makenzie

Present…

I stood in the back with my parents and brother. We arrived a few minutes late, not surprising as we never seemed to be on time for anything as a family, even now that we were all adults. I twisted my fingers and continuously rubbed my hands together.

My feet were killing me. I couldn’t remember why I had picked the shoes I was wearing. Maybe it had something to do with wanting to dress appropriately, maybe I wanted to look cute?

What was wrong with me?

Why was I dressing cute for a funeral?

It was the first time in several years that I would see Holden, and I put on heels slightly higher than was socially acceptable for the occasion. Thinking had not been involved. Holden would be distracted with his mother, and his own emotions. He certainly wouldn’t be looking at my outfit, or thinking I was cute. But I hadn’t thought of any of that when I got dressed. All I could focus on was Holden coming home, and that I was going to see him again.

And now that we were at the funeral, I saw him. He looked grim. Of course, he would, we were all there to bury his father, Powell Wells.

I had basically grown up knowing Mr. Wells. He was a friend of my parents, and as a kid every summer I was running in and out of the Well’s beach house nearly as much as Holden was running in and out of my family’s house. I wasn’t one of those kids who adopted my friend's parents, and honestly, I really wasn’t much of Holden’s friend. But I still remembered the man as being a constant adult in my life, especially during the summers.

Holden was my brother’s best friend, and I was the little sister running after them for someone to play with and grab a little bit of attention.

I don’t know if Travis and Holden met because our parents knew each other, or they met because we summered on Nantucket at the same time, or had they met at boarding school. They met, and they were inseparable. Not only did they go to the same boarding schools, insisting on attending the same high school, they even went to NYU together and roomed together.

I was in the way, always in the way.

Travis leaned into me. “Will you stop fidgeting,” he growled.

Mom patted him on the back of his hand. I wasn’t sure if that was to soothe him or quiet him.

“My feet hurt,” I whispered.

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