“I’m pregnant,” I heard at my left, shocking me. My gaze whipped back to her face. My heart pounded in my chest. My hands fell open.
For a brief moment we sat there, quiet, unmoving, the ass**le forgotten. My breath rushed in and out of me, hurried and burdensome.
My hand shot out and my water glass shook, the water sloshing violently as I brought it to my lips.
Suddenly, I’d never been thirstier.
The entire contents poured down my throat in one fluid spill. I set the glass down slowly, using both hands to steady the shivering glass, and I sat up a little. I’d unwittingly slumped in my chair. I wiped at my mouth with the linen napkin laying to my right. The pressed, starched, perfect napkin that I absently noted my father would have complained about simply because he could.
“How?” I asked, swallowing hard.
She raised a single brow. “Well, you see, when a man and a woman get together—”
“Bridge,” I nearly shouted, slamming my hand on the table. The utensils clinked and rang, sliding into the china setting. “This isn’t a time for jokes.” I gritted my teeth, reminding me of my father. Her eyes clenched tightly and her bottom lip began to quake. Right away, I pulled my lips apart. I relaxed my fist and let my hand slip off the table. I asked as kindly as I could, “How, Bridge?”
She took a deep, wobbly breath and turned her stare away from mine. “I don’t know, to be honest.” Little bits of moisture began to gather at the corners of her eyes. She examined her water glass, running her finger along the base of the goblet.
“Who?” I asked, ignoring the tears.
I didn’t have time for tears. I didn’t have time for sympathy. We were in deep shit. She knew it. I knew it.
“I don’t want to say,” she said.
Her eyes moved to her lap as she absently meddled with the napkin laying across her knees.
“I’m your brother, Bridge.” I leaned toward her over the table and narrowed my eyes. “I need to know who I plan to kill.”
Her eyes trained themselves on mine. “Don’t be an overdramatic idiot. And I won’t say a single word anyway. I told the father and he wants nothing to do with it.” My blood boiled to a dangerous temperature. Asshole. “I asked you to dinner for one reason and one reason only.”
I closed my eyes and took a good, solid breath. “What do you need?”
“Help telling dad.”
I nodded, still absorbing it all and attempting to bring my heart rate down. Then it dawned on me.
“The nausea,” I said, recalling the day I’d arrived.
She nodded once, tears threatening to spill again.
Bridge didn’t eat much. Nor did I, for that matter. I’m not exactly sure if it was the fact that she complained of feeling sick again, which set my heart beating an abnormal pattern, or the fact that we were about to drop the biggest bomb on my parents’ shoulders. We left it unsaid. Memories of Vegas kept invading my thoughts, and I felt nauseous myself.
“Wait, I forgot my purse,” she said when we reached my car.
“I’ll get it,” I told her and opened her door for her.
I watched her seventeen-year-old body hop in. She strapped herself to her seat then tucked her leg beneath her, the way so many young teenage girls do, and twisted a strand of her long blonde hair around her finger while texting someone with the other hand.
All I could think as I looked on her was that she was so young. She was way too young to be pregnant. She was my baby sister. My little Bridge. Granted, she was only four years younger, but that never mattered to me. When she was ten, I was fourteen, and I recalled scaring off the bullies who pulled her pigtails. When she was fifteen, I was nineteen and I would yell at her to stop wearing those freaking shorts around my friends. And then she got pregnant, and I still felt very much like the older brother I was. I just wished I could have protected her better, but instead I led by the worst example ever. Piper’s Cheshire grin popped in my head, and I flinched.
I grabbed Bridge’s ridiculously oversized leather bag from her forgotten chair and headed for the door. I jumped into my car.
“The Holes?” I asked, so pissed at myself, I could’ve kicked my own ass.
“Of course,” she answered, her gaze staring out toward the busy street.
“The Holes” were where fifty or so of our most elite group would gather together at the home of one our parents’ because it was inevitable that someone’s folks would be out of town. We would “hole” up for the weekend, binge on drugs, sex and booze.
I slammed the palm of my hand into the steering wheel. I leaned forward and started the car. I fell back into my seat and ran a hand down my face.
“Jesus. I just-Bridge, we need a plan.”
She turned my way. She looked so lost. “Thanks for helping me, Spence.”
“Please, Bridge. Your problems are my problems,” I said, hitting the gas.
We sat in the car at the end of our street, staring at our parents’ monstrous house. I listened quietly to Bridge’s crying. I tried comforting her, but it did no good.
“We’ll get it over with,” I said.
“I want to wait until after Christmas. It’ll kill Mama.”
“No, we tell them tonight. The sooner, the better. I’ll be able to defuse it better the more time I have.”
“So you’re going back to Brown after all this?”
I looked at her like she’d gone crazy. “Why wouldn’t I?”