Back to Me (Carolina Rebels 1)

“Dead!” I scream, and the silence immediately envelopes us. The loudest noise is my hard breathing from the yelling. I take a deep breath. My hands are shaking and I’m ready to give up. “I lost the baby,” I say in a quiet, trembling voice, barely able to keep it together. “And it wasn’t any of your fucking business since you thought I was lying in the first place.”

There’s three beats of silence as they both stare at me with wide eyes.

“Mere.”

My eyes close at the sound of Noah’s soft voice. I swallow hard, shake my head, and turn to run down the hall toward the bedroom, leaving the stunned men behind.

VANCE LOOKS SHAKEN by the news, and I feel sick. Clearing my throat, I say, “You can have a seat if you need a minute before you leave.” Because he is leaving. I don’t wait for his reply. I follow after Meredith. How in the fuck do I wrap my mind around this, around something Mere was going to tell me today, and compose myself before I face her?

Meredith is lying face down on our bed, and Leo is looking up at the bed, wondering how he’s going to get up there since he can’t jump that high yet. She’s sobbing uncontrollably, the worst I’ve ever seen. I crawl over her body and let my weight rest on her, though not all of it, as I prop myself on my elbows and press my face into her neck, her hair tickling my face.

“It gets worse,” she whispers. Her voice is cracked and as broken as she is. I wonder if she pretended to be okay with me, when she wasn’t thinking about it, or if I’ve been helping her heal. Then, I realize what she said.

Fuck. How can it get worse?

Her shoulder bumps mine, so I lift myself for her to roll over before lowering my body again. She finds solace in my neck as her arms wrap around me. She doesn’t say anything. She only holds on tight with strength I didn’t know she had. I don’t push her. I don’t ask questions. I roll us onto our sides so I can hold her. That’s all.

Her tears dry up. My neck is soaked. Her breathing is shaky.

“I know it’s not my fault, but...” The sentence trails off into her hiccups.

“Talk to me, Mere,” I whisper.

She pulls back to look me in the eyes. “I’m sorry you found out like that, Noah.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I quickly interject, wishing sh

e’d just get on with it. “I know you were going to tell me.”

Meredith squeezes her eyes closed, two fresh tears falling. “The day before it happened, I broke down into tears because all I could think about was you. Vance had already blown up at me and I was back in Pittsburgh. I was heartbroken because it felt like a permanent end to us, like I’d forever lost my chance, and I had the gall to be upset because it wasn’t your baby. I wished I could start all over, go back to you, and go through it with you. The next day, I lost my baby.” She’s holding on by a thread. I can see the battle in her eyes to hold on instead of falling apart again. Her fingers dig into my skin.

“Mere,” I start quietly. “Just because you wished those things didn’t mean you wanted to lose, and wouldn’t love, what you were given instead. I’m so sorry you went through that alone and have been holding that in, and maybe this isn’t the time to say it, but you’re here. We’re together. You’ll have my baby.”

“But what if I don’t? What if that was my one chance and I lost it?”

“It’ll happen, Mere. We eventually made our way back to one another, we can eventually make that happen, too. You deserve the world, and I’m determined to give it to you, Mere. One way or another, yeah?” She nods and the fact that she’s letting me ease her worries, that she trusts me that much...if my heart could skip a beat, it just did. While I have her like this, I add, “You gotta tell your parents.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I’ll need to go home for that, but I’m not sure I’m ready.”

“You can ask them to come here if you don’t want to do it alone.”

She only nods.

“I’ll be right back.” I hate to leave her, but I want to make sure the prick is gone. How do you accuse your fiancée of lying about a pregnancy because you think she wants to keep you from ending the engagement? I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for Meredith.

Vance is sitting on my couch when I walk into the living room.

“Is there a reason you’re still here?” A sense of satisfaction overwhelms me when he jumps at the sound of my voice.

He stands and faces me. “Where’s Meredith?”

“You found out what you wanted to know. What else do you need to say to her?” You know, what’s stopping me from punching him one or three times? Why shouldn’t I? I let those thoughts fade and continue talking. “She doesn’t need your apology or anything else you might have to say to her. There’s no reason for you to stay any longer.”

“I just want to talk to her, pal. Who the hell are you anyway?”

For some reason, I’m not surprised that he doesn’t know who I am. And who the hell says pal? “I’m Noah Ramsey, Meredith’s boyfriend and a professional hockey player, which means I occasionally get into fights to spice things up.”

What’s even funnier than what I said is that Vance actually pales. Holding in my laugh is difficult, but I manage.