Chapter One
Present
I felt ill—physically sick and emotionally dead.
I sat and stared at the pregnancy test in utter disbelief for what felt like hours. The sun outside the tiny bathroom window faded as I stayed motionless on the cold tile floor. Everything felt numb. A beeping noise from my cell alerted me in short intervals that the battery was dying, but I still couldn’t move. The gravity of it all sank in the minute I verbalized the words.
“Pregnant? How could I be pregnant?”
Well, I knew exactly how I had gotten pregnant.
Jonna had been frantic after our phone call and insisted on coming over. I managed to convince her that I would talk to her tomorrow. I couldn’t face all the questions, especially: “What are you going to do?”
I had no clue.
I was pregnant with Blake’s baby, and I had no idea what I was going to do.
The slamming of the front door snapped me out of my thoughts. Blake was home.
“Tay?” he hollered up the staircase. I tried to summon a voice loud enough to answer but nothing would come out. When the thumping of his footsteps grew closer, I knew he was coming for me, so I got to my feet, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water on my face.
“Tay?” Blake called out again from the other side of the door. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“You sure?”
“Uh huh.” I looked at my reflection in the mirror; my eyes were red and my face pale. There was no way he could see me like this. He would know something was wrong for sure. Nobody knew me as well as he did.
“Uh . . . okay. Are you . . . um . . .” His voice trailed off. “You goin’ out tonight?” He was talking about me dating Brando. Blake hated it, but I’d made it clear it wasn’t his business. He had his chance to make me his, and he blew it.
“Not sure,” I mumbled around the toothbrush I’d shoved into my mouth to get rid of my vomit breath. “Maybe.” I aimed for indifference and hoped it sounded convincing.
Jonna and King were having a party at the big house they had finally fixed up in Key City. When Jonna moved in, the place was empty besides the giant gear-head garage that was fully equipped with everything a performance mechanic could ever possibly need. With things finally going right for them, they were ready to show off the place to a few friends. Brando was King’s brother and living there, too, so I had plans to be his date.
Over the past few months, Brando and I had developed a friendship. He was a great listener, though to look at him you wouldn’t think it. With messy, ink-black hair and tattooed arms, the last thing you would suspect was that he was a nice guy, but he was. I could confide a lot of things to him I couldn’t to anyone else, not even Jonna.
Brando knew Blake and I were stepsiblings and that I was in love with him. He didn’t grow up around here so the news wasn’t shocking to him at all. It also made it easier to confess my feelings once I knew he didn’t have a thing for me.
No, I suspected that Brando was very into Carina, the new redheaded waitress at Annette’s Catch, except she wouldn’t give him the time of day. However, for the time being, I liked that Blake thought we were together and was jealous as hell about it.
It served him right.
After taking a shower, I put on a loose-fitting, floral-print sundress I’d chosen for self-conscious reasons. Physically, I wasn’t showing. Mentally, I felt the news was written on my forehead in bright red ink. I needed to be able to hide a bit longer until I figured out how I felt about it all.
When I got downstairs, the house was dark, except for the faint light shining from the kitchen door, which led to the garage. The distant sounds of clinking metal meant Blake was out there working. I couldn’t resist going in and peeking through the closed blinds. He was under the hood of a car, his white T-shirt riding up and exposing his lower abdomen. My gaze immediately went to the happy trail of light brown hair that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. I’d spent hours standing there quietly observing him and was convinced he knew it, though he never said anything to me. Maybe his lack of acknowledgment fed my obsession a little. Admiring him from afar had become a habit I couldn’t shake.
I’d sent Brando a text to meet me at the ferry dock later that night. I wasn’t in the mood for the party, and Jonna had been calling me relentlessly. My best friend meant well, but I needed someone to talk to, not to be talked at. By nine that night, Brando pulled King’s sleek Cabin Cruiser into the harbor and waved me over. After helping me climb aboard, he pulled away. We both stayed silent for a while as I enjoyed the night breeze on my face and inhaled the salty air.
“So, what’s up?” Brando asked as he steered the boat away from the lights of the island. I shrugged and sighed. The melancholy was settling in. He glanced my way before slowing down the boat and dropping the anchor. We were far enough away from everything, but the coastline was still visible. When he sat down beside me, I looked up and greeted him with a small smile. The cleft in his chin made him look adorable, which was a contradiction to the bad boy persona he had going on.
“Hey, B.” I sighed, the weight of all my worries resting heavy on my chest.
“Hey, T.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him. I shivered at the slight chill of the wind, so his warmth was welcomed as I cozied up next to him. “What’s wrong?”
“So many things, Brando.” I sighed again and let my gaze follow the dark ripples of the water. “Where do I even start?”
“How about the beginning?” He grinned. “Best place, don’t you think?”