Chapter Forty-Three

Harper

 

My big brother's face was crashing down in slow motion. His shoulders slumped. He sagged at his center and staggered backward like my words had punched him harder than he'd punched Cal. And the part of me that would always be his little baby sister, forever wanting to tag along, reached out to catch him before he slumped all the way to the ground. "Rett?"

"Don't touch me!" he roared and smacked my hand away.

And then everything happened so fast I could only catch it in glimpses. A sound, like an enraged bull and the crunch of feet on gravel. And then motion as I was suddenly airborne, whirled around and away and suddenly deposited behind the broad wall of Gray's back as I peered out, terrified, to see that Cal had my brother by the shirt collar. "You don't touch her!" Cal raged. "Do you fucking hear me?"

As fast as everything happened before, now it suddenly slowed back down again, so that I could see the anger in Rett's face dissolve into shock, and then hurt as he turned to look at me cowering behind Gray's back. "Shit," he whispered. "I didn't...mean...Harper are you okay?"

I cleared my throat and stepped out from behind Gray. Gray reached out, but I gently set his hand back down at his side and went to my brother. "I’m okay," I told him, and then somehow, I'm not sure how, I managed a grin. "How about you?" I reached up and pressed my hand to Cal's shoulder. "You can let go of him, honey," I told him.

The corner of Cal's eye twitched, but he nodded and loosened his grip on Rett's collar. My brother staggered back up to his feet. "I'm sorry," he sighed, running his fingers through his hair so that it stood up at all angles. "I shouldn't have...I didn't mean."

"I'm okay, Rett. You barely touched me. It's Cal and Gray you should be apologizing to."

He looked up. Cal was running his hand over his sore stomach. Gray grinned like a ghoul and then spat more blood on the ground. "Yeah, well..." Rett said, his voice hardening.

"We'll get to that," Cal said. He stepped forward and extended his hand. "I really fucking regret that summer I taught you how to box," he said, grinning ruefully.

Rett snorted and looked away, then looked down at Cal's hand. Then he looked at me. "You mean what you said there? You love these idiots?"

"And these idiots love her," Gray piped up, grinning and then spitting again. He pressed his finger to his split lip. "Goddamn, dude, you could have aimed somewhere other than my pretty face."

"Fuck you," Rett laughed, looking away again. But his eyes kept coming back to rest on my stomach. "A baby?" he whispered.

I swallowed and nodded and looked down at my belly. "You're like the second to know." I looked back up at him. "Which is actually exactly how it should be."

"Harp," he said, his voice choking up. "Are you seriously...?"

I lifted my chin. "You don't have to be totally okay with it just yet, big brother," I said, reaching out to pat his arm. "But, you should know that I..." I looked back at Cal and Gray and corrected myself. "That we, are okay with it."

"We love her," Cal said, moving to my side.

"And we'll take care of her," Gray added, coming around to my other. "Always have, haven't we?"

"Yeah," Rett choked, squeezing his fist and then pressing it to his mouth. "Okay, yeah. I need to go."

"Rett?"

"No, I'm gonna go...Actually," he cleared his throat. "I'm gonna go take back that bottle of Patron I brought over. I'm gonna drink the whole thing — by myself." He shot a significant look at Gray who in turn looked more chastened than he had this whole time.  "And then I'll be ready to hear more in detail about how my best friends and my baby sister plan on raising my niece or nephew, together...I..." He shook his head and sort of staggered to the side. "But first I'm getting shitfaced. Cool?"

"Cool," I nodded. Then grinned a little. "Drink my share too, kay?"

Rett looked at me startled and then narrowed his eyes. "Not cool yet, Harp. Not cool." But the corner of his mouth was twitching as he walked back in the house.

"You think he's gonna be okay?" Cal asked me.

I moved to him, brushing my hand up his stomach. "Are you gonna be okay?" I wondered.

Cal winced but shrugged it off. "I'm fine." Then he raised a significant eyebrow at me. "But don't think I've forgotten what we were about to do."

I tried to wrack my brain but had no idea what he was talking about. "Okay, I'm lost."

"You're not leaving."

"Oh!" I blurted just as my brother reemerged from Cal's house, his hand clenching the bag in a death grip. He ducked away from our gaze as he slid back into the cab of his truck and turned on the engine. As I watched my big brother pull away, he watched us in return, the three of us, and I knew something all at once that I didn't know until just then. "You're right," I laughed. "I'm not going anywhere without you."