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My conversation with Silas made me realize that if I let her leave without knowing if I ever had a shot, I'll always wonder, and he's right, there's only one of those options he listed that I can't live with. I can't live with her ending up with Daniel… not if I had a chance to change the outcome. But I need to know if I'm her first choice. I've already been the second choice and I can't be that again… not with her.
"I'm home," I say, taking long strides toward my bedroom, where she promised she would stay until I got back.
I push the door open to find that not only is the bed made and there isn't a beautiful brunette waiting for me in it, but Brynn's clothes aren't on the bedroom floor anymore.
"Brynn?" I call out. "Where are you?"
"She's not here." I hear a familiar voice call out from the kitchen.
My blood pressure rises at the sound of her voice.
Josslin
She knows she's not supposed to be in my house, and with Brynn no longer here, I can only guess she's responsible for that too.
"Where's Brynn?" I ask, walking through the hall and heading straight for the kitchen.
"She left so that we could talk."
I step into the kitchen and find Josslin sitting at the breakfast table.
Note to self: burn that kitchen table in Rita firepit tonight, it's tainted now.
"Talk about what? Whatever it is, it could have been handled over text. You didn't need to come all the way out here."
"You never respond back to my text messages, so here I am," she says.
"Fine, if it gets you the hell out of my house, say what you need to say, and make it quick so that I can go find Brynn and fix whatever shit you did."
I plant my hands on my hips and stare back at Josslin. It's the first time I've ever seen her look slightly nervous.
"Your brother finally agreed to go to a rehab center in Arizona for vets with PTSD. They have a great program for addiction too. It seems the two can often go hand in hand. The center seems perfect and offers family counseling too."
"That's great, I'm glad he's finally going to get the help he needs, but you didn't need to fly all the way out here for that. A simple text could have saved you a flight."
"That's not all. I need to tell you something else and I need you to promise to let me speak before you fly off the handle and bolt out the door."
"What an opening," I say, but leaving me for my brother who she moved into the house I bought her pretty much takes the cake. I doubt anything could be worse than that. "Ok, say it as quickly as you can. Preferable as you head for the front door, closing it on your way out."
"Seven…" she says, standing out of the chair she was sitting in. "I should have told you sooner but I with Eli going to rehab, she needs you more than ever to step into that role for her."
"What are you talking about?"
"Cammy… she's yours."
My vision almost turns red and my hearing short circuits as if I'm hearing every word underwater.
"No… no, you told me that she's Eli's. You swore to me that you were only a couple weeks pregnant."
"I was six weeks pregnant. I got pregnant when I flew out to watch you play the San Diego Blue Devils in San Diego and you didn't have any condoms with you."
I can see her eyebrow turn up and worry coats her expression, but if I know her, she's only worried about herself… not the fact that she just dropped the bomb of a lifetime on me.
"You were on birth control. I saw you take them."
"Yes, I did but I had a stomach flu a few days before I came out to see you. I couldn't keep anything down for a couple of days. I hadn't thought about the fact that missing those days would affect it so dramatically."
I thought leaving me for my brother was bad enough, but never telling me that I fathered a child? That's unforgivable. It's worse than unforgivable and if it were my brother standing here instead of Josslin, I'd hit him so hard it would knock his teeth out and send him to the hospital… if I didn't kill him first.
