Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Avery”
I spring from the icy cold floor in the nick of time to vomit into the sink. Spasm after spasm shakes my body, then I breathe hard, wait, and cup my hand to bring some water to my mouth and rinse.
“Give me another one,” I mumble through heavy panting spurts of air.
Khloe stares up at me from her spot sitting against the bathroom vanity. “You’ve done six. They’re all the same. Another one isn’t going to change a thing.”
“But they’ve gotta be wrong. Defective. This isn’t possible. I’ve only had sex once in a year.”
One black brow inches upward, making me cringe. Khloe and I are good friends now, but part of that is knowing to expect anything from her mouth. “Once is enough. So are six pregnancy sticks. Six blue lines. They can’t all be defective. Face it, Avery, you’re pregnant.”
My lower lip quivers as tears burn my eyes. “But I don’t want to be pregnant.”
Pouting, Khloe grabs my arm, pulling me down beside her on the floor. “Famous last words of every girl ever knocked up when the guy who did it is behaving like a jerkwad.” She slips an arm around me. “But after the panic stops, hopefully she lets herself think things through before she decides what she’s going to do. Your body, Avery. Your choice. Ethan’s choice ended when he climbed into bed with you. That’s sacred family dogma we live by here. Whatever you decide, the family will support you.”
My head wobbles on her shoulder. “What am I going to do?”
“Hell if I know. What we’re not going to do is have you pee on another stick. I forbid it. There’s probably not anything left in your bladder anyway. You don’t want to be preggers and dehydrated, too. I doubt it’d be your best look.”
Groggy laughter pushes from my lips. This isn’t funny, but Khloe’s quirky, spunky attitude takes the edge off everything. And she’s right. Another stick test isn’t changing a thing.
“How’d you get to be so smart at twenty?”
She smiles. “Who says I am? Maybe I just have more experience with men who are assholes and making mistakes than you do.”
My brows hitch up. “Is that so? What don’t I know?”
Her eyes sparkle. “Nothing I’m going to tell you or anyone. Khloe’s dogma is: my secrets stay secrets. Do you ever hear me running my mouth about me?”
With my fingertips, I brush the tears from beneath my eyes. “What should I do now? Should I tell him or wait until I’ve figured out what I want to do?”
Khloe gathers up the neat line of stick tests beside her leg. “I don’t know.” Her nose crinkles. “But it might be wise to calm down a bit before you hit this head on.”
My brows furrow as I search her face. “So you’re saying wait?”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m saying take it how it goes.”
She opens the cabinet, tosses the tests into the trash, then springs to her feet. “Come on. Let’s go gorge on ice cream or something. We can watch a movie together and just chill tonight. Would you like that?”
I nod, feeling calmer, but before we’re down the hallway I groan. “Oh God, my dads are going to kill me. They’re always lecturing me about how I’m too footloose and fancy free. That it’s more important for girls than guys to have a life plan. They think I live a more exciting life on the road than I do. They are going to kill me when I tell them this.”
Her hands swipe at my fresh tears. “Shush. No, they won’t. Gay men don’t kill.”
I rebuke her with my eyes, but I know she’s trying to make me laugh. “My sister Emmy will.”
Khloe’s dainty eyebrows pucker. “Yeah, sisters are different.”
Two hours later, we’re curled up beneath fluffy blankets on the incredible leather recliner chairs they have in the in-house theater, down a half gallon of ice cream, halfway through Gone with the Wind since Khloe’s a classic film buff, and I’m feeling more steady.
If one had to have an unforeseen catastrophe—and being pregnant by Ethan qualifies for that, I think—this was the house to have it in. Nothing seems to rock any of them, and for all her outward flightiness, Khloe is about as level-headed a girl as I’ve ever known. Not exactly a feminist, but she does have her shit together.
She didn’t say it—we’ll get through this together, Avery—but she didn’t have to. There’s no mistaking friendship isn’t a fickle thing with her. Even when fifty percent of my issue involves her brother, Khloe’s come through better for me than I expect Emmy would.
It makes it baffling Eric turned out the way he did, and all the more baffling that Ethan’s behaving the way he is. And while I’m sure there are things outsiders can’t see, what anyone should be able to see is there’s a great deal of love within this family.
The rear theater door opens, causing me to look over my shoulder, and my heart stops. Ethan. Running into him in the house was the last thing I expected tonight, and for a second my eyes narrow on Khloe, wondering if she’s gone behind my back to text her brother and order him here.
Yep, that sounds like Khloe.
Damn it, why did I trust she wouldn’t meddle?
Listening to his footsteps, I nudge her with an arm. The spoon in her hand stops midway to her mouth and her eyes, which were locked on the screen, shift to me.
Subtly, I nod in the direction where I think Ethan’s taken a recliner a few feet away, one row behind us. Covertly, she looks, then her eyes widen and her lips curl downward as she shrugs.
“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” I whisper into her ear.
“No. I wouldn’t. I don’t know what he’s doing here. None of the family come in here when I pick the movies.”
I tuck my lower lip in and press my mouth closed hard as I try to rein in my emotion to prevent from acting like a fool. Really, it’s humiliating and pitiful that it’s hard to stay in my recliner because after the weeks of his indifference, no girl should jump on the tiniest tidbit of nothing from a guy and make the first move.
It might not mean anything that he’s here. He might just be bored. I peek over my shoulder, and my eyes flare wide.
My senses hone in on him, my insides turn to mush, and I can’t drag my gaze away even though I know I should. Everything about him feels different. Jeez, he even looks different.
His gorgeous golden blond hair’s gone. Well, most of it. Cut razor short with a touch left long on top. His expression is intense in a way I’ve never seen before, like something’s ripping at his insides and his thoughts are a thousand miles away. His eyes are locked straight forward watching the movie.
Seeing him this way makes me ache, because there was a time I never didn’t know what was going on with him or wasn’t his friend when he needed one. Strange, but that’s how he looks: like he needs a friend.
It makes the temptation to go to him almost impossible to hold in check. Then I roll my eyes at myself inside my head. It’s dumb to think he’s come into the theater because of me. He’s made it abundantly clear for weeks I’m the last person he wants near him. Christ, I could count on the digits of a single hand how many times we’ve even been in a room together. He’s kept himself expertly distant from me.
“What do I do?”
Khloe chides me with her eyes, lifting her button nose. “Ignore him. Watch the movie. You try to get out of that chair, I’ll sit on you. If he wants to talk to you, he’s going to have to man up and initiate it himself.”
Even though years younger than me, Khloe has more experience in everything than I do and I’m sure she’s right in this.
I cuddle closer to her and try to focus on the movie, but that’s not happening. And it’s my favorite part. The card game in the horse barn jail. That brings sharply to mind that Scarlett went to Rhett and that didn’t work out well for Miss O’Hara.
Khloe’s right.
I need to wait and see if Ethan makes a move.
Khloe’s head tips into mine. “I love this part. Harsh words out of his mouth, but everyone knows he loves her by how he looks at her, except Scarlett. And maybe Rhett. I’ve always wondered if, at this point in the movie, he knew he loved her.”
“I think he did. It didn’t matter how he acted. He loved her.”
Khloe’s eyes sharpen on my face in a heavy look that screams get it now, girlfriend? My breath catches and I’ve got that Khloe-being-devious-again feeling. I suspect watching this movie isn’t a random selection but part of her continuing series in everything I don’t know about guys.
She smirks, gloating. “They’re only awful to the ones they really want and love. You don’t have to run. You don’t have to chase him. You don’t have to do anything, Avery. Ethan’s already bagged and tagged. That’s what my sisters and I have been trying to get through that head of yours after the tear fest at The Cove when he ditched you. God, you were drowning in every kind of nonsense I’ve heard out of a girl. But all you needed to do was just figure out what you want to do and do it.”
My cheeks flame but my eyes hold her stare. “I want to go talk to him and end whatever this is we’ve been doing for the past two months. I want my best friend back. And I want more.”
She tugs the blanket off our bodies and tosses it in the chair beside her. “Then do it. Stop listening to me and my sisters. I can’t believe you let us order you around, doing crazy girl nonsense, the entire time you’ve been here. But it had to be done because a girl needs her head on straight to be with a guy in this family. And yours wasn’t. I think it might be now. Stop questioning yourself. Stop blaming yourself for what everyone can see is something going on exclusively with Ethan. You’re a strong, wonderful, independent woman. Be strong, wonderful, and independent. Go after what you want and fix shit. And remember whatever he says, however he acts, it’s just him being male, and being an idiot because he loves you. Even my mom figured that one out weeks ago, and she’s not exactly quick when it comes to men. Not even her own sons.”
She springs from her recliner, smiling as though she’s cured world hunger or something, and hurries out of the theater.