Change of Heart (Fostering Love 2)

“Yes, I miss him,” I finally said. “But it is what it is.”

“Wrong.”

“You’re a nosy pain in the ass, but I love you anyway,” I said with a snort. “But I’m so fucking tired I’m going to fall asleep on the phone.”

“You’re in bed already?”

“I told you I was going to sleep at seven. It’s seven,” I replied, pushing my face against the cool pillow under my head.

“Fine, but I have one more question for you,” Alex said seriously, making me tense. “What are you wearing?”

“Fuck off,” I laughed, hanging up on him.

I set the alarm on my phone and set it on my nightstand before rolling to my back in the middle of the bed.

What had Alex been talking about when he’d mentioned Bram’s hang-up? From comments made over the years, I’d been under the impression that Bram and Alex’s mom was one of the good ones. They hadn’t had a shitty home life like I’d had. Their mom had actually died, leaving the boys wards of the state. I didn’t think that they’d ever known who their dad was—we were alike in that respect—but beyond that, our stories couldn’t have been more different.

So what the hell was Alex trying to imply?

I curled onto my side and pulled a pillow to my chest. My eyes were heavy as I looked out the window, but I knew it would be a while before I actually fell asleep. Nighttime was when I missed Bram the most. Throughout the day, I could keep myself busy enough that I didn’t think about him as much, but after Arielle was asleep in her bed and the house was quiet and still, his absence in my life seemed to magnify.

He’d been so adamant that he wanted to be with me the day he’d caught us in the bath, but I couldn’t trust him. How was I supposed to believe that he’d changed his mind? Our disagreement hadn’t been as trivial as where we wanted to live or how we spent our money. Having a child was a huge undertaking. It meant that you were dedicated to that child for the rest of your life. It was an even more binding and important commitment than marriage.

That’s the part that I couldn’t get past. Abraham wasn’t asking me to date him, or if he was, he was completely out of touch with reality. He was asking for a lifetime commitment, if not to me than to Arielle. But he couldn’t just decide a few years down the road that we weren’t working out. Even if he stopped loving me, he’d still be Arielle’s parent. It wasn’t something he could change his mind about, and the fact that his decision came out of nowhere made it even harder to believe.

My eyes filled with tears as I thought about the way he’d been dragging his body through the door of the office every morning, smiling at me tiredly as he made his way back to his office. He wasn’t sleeping, at least not as much as he needed to be.

I wiped my face and pressed it harder into the pillow, trying in vain to fall asleep.

I was pretty sure I didn’t look any better than Bram.

Chapter 17

Abraham

You told her what?” I yelled into my phone, hearing the case crack in my hand.

“I mentioned that you had a hang-up about our mom,” Alex answered sheepishly. “It just slipped out! I was irritated as fuck that you two were being such idiots, and I—”

“It’s none of your fucking business, Alex,” I yelled again, pressing my fingers into my eye sockets. “You really think that telling Ani that I’m still dealing with shit from when we were six years old is going to help the situation?”

“Well it couldn’t fucking hurt!” Alex yelled back.

“She’s got Arielle to think about, and you made me sound like I can’t get my shit together. How do you think that looks?”

“It wasn’t like that, Abraham,” Alex replied, his voice back to normal. “We were just talking about why you two weren’t together and—”

“Why the fuck are you even discussing my relationship with Ani?” I cut him off. I was livid. I’d known the moment I answered the phone that Alex felt like shit about something, and as soon as he began speaking, I’d wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him.

I was so tired that it was giving me a sour stomach, and my eyes felt like they were covered in sand. The only thing keeping me awake in the warm confines of my truck was the fact that Alex was trying to talk his way out of the fact that he’d completely screwed up.

“Because life is too fucking short,” Alex barked. “You two need to get your shit together.”

“That’s my problem,” I growled. “Mine. If I want to tell Ani shit about our mother, I will tell her. It’s not your fucking place!”