“What’re you going to do about it?”
I focused on a particularly fluffy cloud and wished I could throw my newfound feelings for Kelly onto it and watch them drift away, just like the cloud was. Would’ve made my life a hell of a lot simpler.
“Nothing. She ended it, Jared. It’s a good thing, too. She obviously wasn’t as into me as I am into her. At least this time, unlike with Elizabeth, it ended before I got seriously hurt. I’ll get over this.” Tearing my eyes from the cloud, I dropped my chin and kept my eyes on my brother.
Sunglasses or no, I could see his brow was furrowed and his fists balled in the crooks of his elbows where his arms were still folded over his chest, the muscles in his arms suddenly rolling as he flexed. His pulse started beating in his temple.
Yup. Brother dearest was about to explode. Sure enough, his hands shot out to his sides, and he ripped his dark glasses off his eyes, revealing turbulence in them that I hadn’t expected.
“Are you kidding me? You’re not going to do anything? Because if that’s true, you don’t deserve her, and you don’t deserve to be happy with her. A man who doesn’t go after what he wants isn’t a man. He’s a coward. A pussy. You think you learned from your meeting with Elizabeth, but I don’t think you learned a thing. You were finally ready to give yourself a shot at everything you ever wanted. Congratulations on blowing it. Sulk away, Caleb. I promise I won’t interrupt your pity parties this time around.”
Glaring at me for another second, his nostrils flaring and his shoulders locked as tight as Fort Knox, he turned on his heel and left. Jared strode across the parking lot to his car, ignored the paps screaming for him from the partition now that he was visible again, yanked open the door, and sped away.
His tires squealed as he ripped out of the lot, nearly clipping the barricade in his haste to get away. Leaving me standing in his dust, almost literally, my throat was dry, and my rage was quickly fizzling out.
Dark thoughts swirled from the corners of my mind as Jared’s words repeated over and over again. Was he right? Did I really not deserve Kelly, or the happiness I might’ve found with her? She’d ended things, but did I let her go just like that? Fuck.
I thought I was respecting her wishes, but Jared made it sound like I was giving up. Was I?
Fuck.
This was why I didn’t do relationships. I sucked at this shit.
Chapter 26
Kelly
There was a funny swirl on the ceiling of my hotel room. It didn’t look like it belonged there as part of the decor, but it also didn’t look like it could’ve been an accident. There was also a slight possibility that I was going out of my mind.
I’d written up all I could about Destitute’s shows in San Diego and everything I could about the band on tour in general. Without work to distract me, I was stuck on thoughts of Caleb and the life we created together growing inside me.
Logically, I knew that I had to call a doctor and make an appointment, but I’d only known for a couple of days, and I’d be out of L.A. for a few months yet, so going to my regular doctor was out of the question. I called a local doctor more to be able to set my mind at ease that I’d tried, but just as I suspected, she wasn’t taking new patients the week before Christmas. Her receptionist advised me to call again in the new year.
So call again in the new year, I would, just not the doctor in San Diego. I’d have to see where the next tour stops were that we’d be stopped at for more than a night and take it from there. In the meantime, I’d ordered a prenatal vitamin, stopped drinking, and was regularly eating healthy, bland snacks—just like the app I downloaded suggested I should do.
With my body, and subsequently my baby, taken care of, it was just my mind that was screwed. In no small measure thanks to said baby’s daddy and his sweeping declaration that he didn’t want kids anytime soon. Nine months or less was probably way too soon for him.
I tore my attention away from the funny swirl when I imagined that I’d heard a soft knock at my door. Silence followed the knock, and just when I was sure that there hadn’t really been one, it sounded again.
My heart jumped to my throat, and my pulse sped up. A big part of me hoped it was Caleb, while the more rational, realistic part of me knew it wasn’t. I hopped off the bed, stood still for a moment to wait for the nausea to pass, and then made my way to the door.
“Kelly, were you sleeping? I didn’t want to wake you.” My sister’s blue eyes were dark with concern as she stepped past me into the room.
“I wasn’t sleeping, just lying down,” I assured her, making my way back to the bed. Lying flat on my back helped make me feel better, though I had no idea why. I would have to remember to ask the doctor about that.
“Are you okay?” Alicia asked, reaching out to brush some of my hair off my face. I hadn’t realized that I probably looked a mess, having lazed around my hotel room listlessly since breaking things off with Caleb the day before.
I forced a tiny smile and propped myself up on my elbow to face her. “Sure. I’m just tired. Why?”
Alicia sat on the corner of the bed, smoothing her pale blue sundress. She smelled like flowers and sunscreen. I would’ve thought the smell would trigger the nausea, but it didn’t. It reminded me too much of our childhood to nauseate me.
Despite her relaxed appearance, I knew she’d been working her ass off. Probably sitting with her two laptops, phone, and tablet out by the pool with Jared while he lounged after practice. I also knew that Jared was frightfully protective about and selfish with the alone time they got, particularly on tour, so she had to be here for a reason.
Her blue eyes met mine, a deep sadness in them combining with a lot of confusion. “Jared and Caleb had a talk after practice today. He told me Caleb said you’d broken it off with him. That you wanted to end things on a high note. I don’t understand what’s going on. Did you tell him about the baby?”
“No.”
“Why not? What happened? The last I heard, you were going over to talk to him.” Her brows drew together from worry. She folded her hands in her lap, looking at me quizzically.
“I did. I went to talk to him, but before I could tell him, he told me that he would make a terrible father and that he didn’t want kids for a long, long time.” I felt the same dread I’d felt when he’d said the words filtering through me.
“Kids? How did you get on to that topic without you telling him about the baby?” Tears jumped to my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was to recount everything that’d happened between Caleb and me that day, but I had to.
I made Alicia some tea, grabbed my glass of water from the nightstand, and went to sit with her at the small seating area. Then I told her everything he’d told me about his visit with Elizabeth, all the way to the end of our conversation when I’d shut the door on my relationship with my baby’s father.
Alicia gaped at me. “Of course he’s going to say that. He’d just seen his ex for god’s sake. She was the one talking to him about hypothetically having kids with her. You don’t know the context of their conversation, or what she said to make him say the things he was saying to you. She left him and cheated on him with his best friend. He hasn’t seen her for years. Do you really think he was in the right frame of mind for you to be taking cues about your baby from him after the visit he’d just had?”