6 Mountain Brothers for Christmas

“No,” I said, when I regained my composure. “I’m not sick.” I opened the drawer and pointed to the stick that lay in the bottom. I watched Rain’s eyebrows knit together as she leaned down to look, and then shoot up almost to her hairline when she realized what she was seeing.

“Oh my God, Kam!” she shouted.

“What am I going to do, Rain?” I asked her, tears falling down my cheeks.

She grabbed my hand and led me to the living room, pushing me gently down onto the couch and sitting next to me. “It’s going to be ok,” she said reassuringly.

“How?” I asked her. “I’m so stupid. I went and got myself knocked up by a liar and a womanizer. I’d wanted to get pregnant so badly and it happened in the worst way. How is it going to be ok?”

“Yeah, about that,” Rain said. “Look, don’t be mad, ok, but I went over to Tate’s house earlier.”

“What? Why” I asked her.

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bsp; “Because I wanted to give him a piece of my mind,” she said.

I couldn’t help but smile. I loved how much Rain loved and protected me.

“Listen, Kam, there’s a whole story that you don’t know—”

“Oh God, not you too,” I groaned. “Please tell me that you didn’t fall for his bullshit, Rain?”

She shook her head. “No way, you know me better than that. I listened to what he had to say, and then I went and got my own proof.”

“Proof of what exactly?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“It seems that though Tate was working on the Matched site, he wasn’t on there to meet anyone. The site is owned by his best friend who hired him to help increase traffic by engaging women who were either new to the site, or weren’t getting a whole lot of attention.”

“Ew, that’s gross,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. And actually, Tate felt the same way, but he saw it as a way to kill two birds with one stone.”

“Two birds? What does that mean?”

Rain took a deep breath before diving into the story. “He told me how he came to have his money. Apparently, his grandmother left him a trust when she died, but it came with a stipulation. In order to get the full amount, he has to be settled down and have a kid by his thirty-fifth birthday. His friend convinced him that he could both help him out, and find someone to have a kid with.”

“Oh my God, that’s disgusting,” I said. “But at least it explains the comment his dad made. I can’t believe he was just using me to get his money.”

“Maybe that was his first intention, but he really does love you Kami. And he’s really sorry that he hurt you. Like he’s pathetic right now. Super pathetic. You should see him, he looks like shit.”

“Good,” I said, trying not to smile at his discomfort.

Rain laughed. “Seriously though, Kam. He knows he should have been honest from the beginning but he didn’t want you to think he was using you.”

“So the messages to the other chicks were just to help out his friend?” I asked.

“Yeah. He wasn’t even getting paid to do it. His role was to reach out to these women, send a message or two and move on. He never met up with any of them.”

“Never?”

“Apparently, no. I talked to Samantha after I left his place and she confirmed that other than a few harmless messages, nothing else happened. She had also found out that another friend of hers had talked to him too, and said the same thing. His responses were pretty generic actually.”

“And you believe him?” I asked her.

“I do,” she said. “Plus his sister was there, and she vouched for him. I mean, I get that she’d probably have his back either way, but she doesn’t strike me as the type who would lie for him.”

“No, she’s pretty straight with him,” I said.