“HEY,” I SAY, immediately stepping to the side. My nerves shoot to high alert as I take in the stress lines on Branch’s face.
He marches by me, his forehead marred in an alarming way. His lips form a thin, angry line as he turns to face me.
“Branch, what’s wrong?”
“Have you seen Exposé?”
“No,” I gulp. “Why?”
I need to grab on to something to steady myself, but I’m too scared to even move. Frozen in place, I watch him slide his phone out of his pocket and cue something. He hands it to me.
My lungs fail to operate as I see not Branch, but Callum, on the screen. With a shaky finger, I press the triangle to play the video.
With every laugh, every line spoken, my emotions grow deeper. More confused. More infected with the poison of his actions.
I should deny this, I should be outraged, I should look at Branch and see what he’s thinking. But I can’t. I’m stuck in this state of disbelief that I can’t even look up from the phone.
My mind keeps reeling that Callum is purposefully painting this picture of me. To the world. To everyone. To Branch.
Tearing my eyes away from the phone as the next video begins to play, I look into his handsome face.
“Branch . . .”
Some of the fury in his face is gone, but in its place is nothing better. There’s a distance there, a wall similar to the one I saw the day I met him.
“This isn’t true,” I insist. “You surely don’t believe this.”
His response takes too long. It gives just enough time for all of my fears to break the shock of what just happened and send me into a nearly full-blown panic.
“This is bullshit,” I say, my hands trembling. “This is complete bullshit.”
“That’s what I said.”
That quells a touch of my anxiety, but not nearly enough. “You don’t believe this, do you?”
Images I’d allowed myself to consider—holidays at the cabin, sitting in the stands and watching him play with our child, him holding the baby on his lap while they’re both asleep—trickle through my brain, teasing me with the future.
Even if those things could be my reality, so would this. Headlines. Gossip. Me and my child being fair game.
“No, I don’t believe it,” he says. Blowing out a breath, he sticks his hands in his pockets. “I’m right not to believe it, right?”
“What? Are you seriously asking me that?”
He looks to the ceiling.
“If there’s any part of you at all that believes that asshole, then I wouldn’t want you anyway.”
His head drops slowly, his gaze landing on mine. The Branch I know, the one I might even love, looks back at me.
“You know I don’t believe any of this shit. It’s not a question. I know you and you shouldn’t want me.” He laughs to himself, hanging his head.
“It’s not you I don’t want. It’s this. I don’t want this.”
“I don’t want to give you this, and I’m not just talking this ridiculous gossip,” he says. “I see it in your eyes. It’s the start of the hatred, the ruination of your world. You were right. You deserve so much better than this.”
“Branch . . .” I say, tears rolling off my lips.
“You don’t think things like this are going to keep happening? They’re saying you’re a whore, Sunshine. That you don’t know whose baby this is.”
The vein in the side of his temple pulses like he’s ready to blow a gasket.
“What will it be next?” he asks. “What will they have me doing next? What situation will I be next to in a hotel in some other city and all of a sudden, because of the life I’ve led, I’m lumped in with those things? What will you think then?”
I don’t answer because I don’t know how. He’s right. As much as it feels like a punch in the gut, he’s right.
“Maybe this is a warning shot for you to not fuck up your life with me,” he says quietly. “My life is a weapon half-cocked. It’s a game of Russian Roulette with me.”
“Do you really think that?”
“It was you that thought it. Now I see it. I can’t control anything in my life and you want to control it all. You want a plan, to know what’s happening when, and I have a life that changes by the minute sometimes. And I can’t really keep you separate from that because . . . eighty percent.”
His face is blurred through the tears filling my eyes. My hand goes to the little cross at the end of his necklace that’s tucked under my shirt. Even if I could find the words to argue with him, there’s no point. You can’t argue the truth.
“I can’t do this to you,” he says, brushing his thumb along my jaw. I lean against his hand, feeling the warmth touch my cheek. “Especially when this is the one thing you don’t want and the one thing that should never happen to a girl like you.”
“So, what are you going to do?” I ask meekly through the tears, shocked that I’m holding it together this well. That works just fine until I see the blues of his eyes cloud too. That does it. The dam breaks and my cheeks are soaked.
In one swift move, he pulls me into his chest. Smelling like soap and cedar, he presses my face so hard into him that I couldn’t pull away if I wanted to. I wrap my arms around his waist, feeling him against me.
“I will always be here for you. And,” he gulps, his voice wobbling slightly, “I’m proud to have a baby with you. But I can’t do this to you, force you to live this life I chose. You and our child deserve way better than this fucked up life.”
Despite the tenor of our conversation, even with the splintering of my heart, I’ve never felt more safe in my life. I’ve never felt more considered. More loved.
Callum would’ve never walked away from me for my own good. Everything in his world centers around him, even if it means trying to ruin my life for fun.
“I’m sorry they’re making you out to look like an idiot,” I whisper, feeling the warmth of his skin under my palms.
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“But they’re saying—”
“I don’t care.” He pulls away and looks me in the eye. “I know you. I know this baby is mine. I just can’t do this to you, Sunshine.”
“You aren’t. He is,” I assert.
“This time. Next time, God knows what it will be. But I guarantee you there will be a next time in the tabloids, of nasty things said because I’m Branch Best.”
He says it like it’s a bad thing, almost spitting the words out like they’re poison.
Brushing a strand of hair out of my face, he places a kiss to the center of my lips. “I’m a call away. Always.”
His hand drops to my stomach and it sits there for a long moment. As his eyes blur again, he looks down and walks out.
“WHERE THE HELL are youuu . . .” Poppy’s voice falls as she finds me on my bed. “Layla! What’s wrong?”
Bags drop to the floor, the plastic rustling as it lands just before my mattress sinks as she lands near me. She shoves me over and hovers over my face. “Are you okay?”
The light is too bright. Her voice too loud. The smell of the garlic she had for lunch too strong.
“I’m gonna puke,” I groan, trying to sit up.
Everything hurts, from my heart to my head, as I work my way against the pillows. The sky is almost dark outside the windows and I wonder how long I’ve been lying here.
As I try to do the math, all I can see is Branch’s sweet face and the tears come again. This round, they feel like little knives in the side of my temple, stabbing me over and over again.
“Layla. Talk to me.” Poppy takes my hands and holds them on my lap. “What happened? You wouldn’t answer the phone so I came by to check . . .”
“Have you seen Exposé?” I croak, my throat so damn dry due to all the moisture in my body leaving via tears.
She flashes me a look. Swiping my phone off the nightstand, she types in the passcode and brings up the website. I give her a few seconds to make it all the way through. I know when she’s done because the phone drops to the bed.
“Oh my God,” she says, her mouth wide. “Layla.”
“I know.” Grabbing a pillow, I smudge it around my face in hopes that some of the wetness will stop. “It’s a mess.”
“Branch doesn’t believe this, right?”
“No.”
“Thank God,” she says, falling back on the bed. “I knew he was smart.”
“So smart he left me.”
The words are hiccupped, tears filling each opening, and my heart starts the process of breaking again.
“I don’t know why I’m so upset. I knew this would happen eventually. But,” I shrug, “it’s what I get for going against my gut.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he won’t put the baby and I through this shit. He was so sweet . . .” Pressing my face against the pillow, I cry until I can’t cry anymore. My chest burns, my face twinges with the strains from crying all evening. “Why? Why couldn’t he be a dick?”
My phone glows, the ringer turned off, and Poppy picks it up. The fire in her eyes when she looks at me has me plucking it from her hand before she can do any damage.
I see the name on the screen. “You have the audacity to call me?” I almost shout into the phone. “How dare you, you sick fuck?”
Callum’s laugh belts through the line. “I’m good, thank you. How are you?”
“I’m much better than you because I’m not a miserable, disgusting human being.”
“So you aren’t that upset? I mean, thank fuck it’s not my kid, but I thought Best deserved it after that little stunt he pulled, answering your fucking phone.”
“How did you even know I was pregnant?” I seethe, my hands shaking with the anger rolling through me.
“Someone snapped your picture coming out of the doctor’s office. It’s online, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “I hate you.”
“I bet you do. I bet your boy does too.” He laughs again, an unaffected, carefree laugh. “I’ll remember that when you come back to me with his bastard child, wanting me to take you back.”
“I wouldn’t take you back if someone gave me the entire world to do it.”
Like it’s in slow motion, Branch’s face spirals through my mind. A need seated deep inside me to hold him, hug him, love him burns as hot as a wildfire.
“As a matter of fact,” I swallow, “someone practically gave me the entire world not to.”
“Ah, isn’t that sweet? I love how you just pretend you don’t love me.”
The smile that touches my lips is genuine. “I didn’t love you,” I say simply. “I didn’t know what love was when I was with you.”
Poppy’s eyes grow wide, her hand resting on my leg. She gives me a thumbs-up.
“Callum, go to hell.”
My phone goes sailing across the bed and I fall back into the pillows again.
“What now?” Poppy asks. “I mean, I have a plan if you want it because I looked those grapes up and—”
“Stop.” I flash her a look and try not to grin. “There’s no plan to be made.”
“What do you mean? You want him. You just said you loved him without saying it. Of course there’s a plan to be made!”
I shake my head. “This doesn’t change anything, Pop. Now he just knows what I already knew: our lives are not compatible.”
Tears well up again. “I had hoped maybe . . . Um, maybe we could figure a way around it and we . . .”
She leans forward and hugs me, letting me cry on her shoulder.
“I love him, Poppy. I think I actually fell in love with Branch Best and now it’s too late.”