“I was looking forward to it.”
“Until you got your easy lay pregnant.” It flies from my lips before I can stop myself. His face falls and a guard goes up.
“That was uncalled for, I’m sorry. I just have lived with her face as she held you close and told me you were having a baby for a long time. The image is burned in my brain.”
“Let’s not mention it again,” he answers without emotion.
“I have to know something… It’s always been in the back of my mind. If the situation was reversed, and I introduced you to the man responsible for knocking me up. He shook your hand and said he was my fiancé. What would you do?”
The shades of fury cloud his face and he drinks his beer in one sip.
“I’d wait for Nate to castrate him, then I’d kill him slowly. No doubt, he would pay for taking what’s mine.”
“I’m hardly yours!” I scoff.
“You’ve always been mine. Now it’s time to prove it.”
“Bryce, it’s no secret, you hurt me. I was stupid and young. I fell in love with the fifteen-year-old boy who was nice to me. If you want my forgiveness, you have it. But we can only be friends. My heart is slowly healing from a one-sided schoolgirl crush.”
“Who said it was one-sided?”
“The fact that I came face to face with Holli seems to prove my point.”
“After tonight, we don’t talk about anyone else but you and me. Holli was part of my life I’ll never forget, but she’s gone.”
Before I can help myself, I blurt out, “Are there others?”
“You mean women I’ve had sex with?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, baby, there are. But I’m done.”
“No more sex?” I ask confused.
“We’ll see. For now, we need to rest. I have a feeling your parents and brother will have a welcome party when we arrive.”
“I don’t want to rest now…I want to talk more!”
He ignores me and stands, pulling me with him then sits in my seat, stretching his long legs across the two spaces and laying me against him.
I want to fight him so badly, but my body betrays me and I fall asleep on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart.
Chapter 3
“Nate, if you shove me, it will be one more reason I kill you in your sleep!” I scream at my brother behind me, eyeing the hill below.
“One more, huh?”
“Yeah, you jackass! Why didn’t you tell me Bryce broke up with Holli? Or the fact they were never engaged? Why did you all let me think he was going to marry her? Surely Mom and Dad knew they weren’t engaged, but you all let me believe they were together. ”
“Would it have mattered? For a while I wasn’t sure how their relationship would go. She used the baby to manipulate him. Then once everything happened, you finally moved on. Cheering, dating, everything was good with you.”
“You could have shared.”
“I didn’t want you caught up in their drama. It went on for a long time. Even though we all knew they weren’t engaged and her feelings were one-sided, he kept helping her. I personally wanted to keep you as far away from that as possible.”
His words sink in and I realize he was looking out for me. “I’ll forgive you, but only because you were looking out for me. Now let’s see who can get to cocktail hour fastest!” I push off and get a great wind, speeding down as Nate fumbles with his snowboard.