I’d always just assumed that the supposed natural instinct to want to sow my seed and procreate had skipped me because I’d never felt that need.
And yet… No, that couldn’t be one of the feelings fighting each other inside me.
Shit, I couldn’t believe that this was happening. Maybe it was all just some cruel joke. It had to be. Kids weren’t a part of the plan. Certainly not now. I would be a terrible father. That much I was sure of. Hell, if I looked at the stock that I came from, there wasn’t a chance that I would be anything but an awful father. Mom was great, fantastic, but my dad hadn’t exactly stuck around. As far as I was concerned, that was the worst possible type of father. The one who was so much of a coward that he just abandoned his kid. That was the gene pool I came from.
My tires squealed when I pulled up outside their apartment building. It took a couple of deep breaths before I was calm enough to get out of the car and take the stairs two at a time to work off some of the excess nervous energy that was pouring into me.
Before I was nearly ready to face the situation, I was banging down their door, and I stormed past a red-faced Mark, right to Sophia’s room. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring at the middle distance like she was in a trance.
It was almost like she wasn’t even aware of the fact that I’d come crashing through her door. My gaze dropped to where a cracked plastic thing lay on the floor near her bed. I scooped it up and stared at the evidence that what Mark had said was true.
Sophia was fucking pregnant.
“Brett—” she started, finally having broken out of whatever had taken hold her before I got there.
“Is this real?” I asked, holding the test out to her.
Her jaw dropped a little, and a deep line appeared between her manicured eyebrows. “What?”
“Is this a real pregnancy test?” Of all the questions I had shooting into my head like bullets from an automatic rifle, somehow, that was the one that made it out of my mouth first.
Sophia couldn’t have looked more surprised if I’d slapped her. “Of course, it’s real. Don’t be an idiot. Why would I fake a pregnancy test?”
“I don’t know, for fun?” What the hell was going on with my mouth?
Sophia’s eyes widened into incredulous orbs. “Are you having fun yet? Because I’m not. Stop being an ass. It’s not fake.”
Maybe it was the tears that were welling behind those eyes or maybe it was the fact that I suddenly became aware of Mark standing in the doorway, watching us with narrowed eyes, but out of nowhere, I was back in control.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from, I know it’s not fake.”
Sophia exhaled on a deep sigh and nodded slowly. “It’s okay, You’re shocked, too. I—”
Mark stepped into my line of vision, pointing his finger first at me and then jabbed it at Sophia. “Woah, back up. Brett’s shocked, too? Why would he be?”
When Sophia’s eyes met mine, they were filled with resignation and apology, and I instantly knew what was coming. I gave her a small nod of encouragement. It was inevitable that Mark would find out now, and I could see that she wanted to be the one to tell him.
She sucked in a rattled breath, folded her arms, and looked her brother right in eye. “Brett’s the baby’s father.”
For what could’ve been a second, a minute, or an hour, Mark just stood there. Frozen. Blinking rapidly. He turned on me slowly, a look in his eyes that I’d never seen before. It took the guilt in my stomach and twisted a big, sharp knife into it.
I saw his fist coming from a mile away, but I let him get his shot in. It was the least that I deserved. Dull pain flowed from my jaw to my nose when it landed, but it didn’t hurt that bad. Mark didn’t share my dedication to working out, and since he worked an office job, I hated to even think it, but he was pretty weak.
When he went to land another punch, I grabbed his wrist and held it away from me. “Mark, just listen to—”
“It was all my fault,” Sophia blurted out, her voice shaky.
I shook my head, meeting Mark’s gaze. “It wasn’t. None of this was your fault, Soph. This is all on me.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about whose fault it was. How could you? Both of you?” There was such hurt in his voice that it ripped into my heart, and I winced.
“We didn’t mean to hurt you, brother,” I said. “Honest—”
“You didn’t mean to hurt me?” Mark yelled, a vein starting to throb in his temple. “You thought I was just going to be okay with this? Christ, I thought I could trust you, of all people, with her.”
“And you can, Mark. Really, I—”
“Can I? Because from where I’m standing, you’ve not only hurt and betrayed me, but you’ve ruined her fucking life.”