I slapped my hand over my mouth, but the damage was already done. I couldn’t gather up the words and shove them back into my mouth no matter how much I wished I could. They were out there in the world now.
“Bryn?”
Oh, no. My head dropped and hung down, shaking slowly back and forth at the sound of the voice. Of course. Of course Minnie wasn’t the only one to hear that. It couldn’t be that easy.
I turned around and there was Nick. And all three of his brothers. Sinking down into the nearest chair, I dropped my head in my hands and let out a breath.26Nick“Could everybody give Bryn and me a minute of privacy, please?” I asked.
My brothers hesitated, lingering as they shifted slowly toward the door like I wouldn’t notice they were still there. Their eyes were locked on Bryn. I turned sharply to look at them.
“Get out,” I snapped.
“Alright, boys,” Mom said. “Why don’t you go ahead and get back to work? Let these two have a talk. I’ll get some of these tarts to you in just a bit.”
She gestured at them, trying to brush them out of the room from a distance. I glared at her, and she dropped the spatula she was holding, putting her hands up in the air in surrender. Moving quickly, she tugged a platter closer to her on the counter and piled several of the onion tarts she had just baked from the pan onto it. They had to still be hot as fire, but after years of self-therapy through baking, she had fingertips of steel.
Grabbing the platter of tarts and a handful of napkins, she scurried toward the door that led out into the hallway. She paused in front of Bryn and held the platter out to her. “Onion tart?”
“Mom,” I said.
She jumped. “Sorry. I’ll just—” She draped a napkin on the chair beside Bryn and set three of the little tarts onto it. “There you go.” She looked at the napkin in contemplation, then added one more tart.
“Mom.”
“I’m going.”
She rushed out of the kitchen and eased the door closed behind her. When I was sure none of them were going to wander back in, I let out a long breath and walked over to Bryn. She was still sitting with her head in her hands, rocking back and forth slowly. I sat down in the chair in front of her and reached out to touch her but pulled my hand back before I did.
I didn’t know how to even start, so I just asked outright. “You’re pregnant?”
That was enough to make Bryn lift her head. She nodded, looking slightly off to the side rather than directly at me.
“Yep,” she said. “I am.”
“When did you find out?” I asked.
“Just a few days ago,” she said.
She sounded so defeated, like everything had been drained out of her. I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. Or even if there was something that could make her feel better.
“I’ll talk to my mom,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to her before. About the whole bridal magazine thing. I figured that was just a one-time saying that she did, that she would get the message when you didn’t respond. I had no idea she was being so pushy and insensitive.”
Bryn nodded, her head dropping again. I reached over and tucked my finger under her chin, gently lifting her face.
“We need to talk about all this,” she said softly.
“Yeah, we do,” I said. “But not here.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t mean to come here and just blurt it out to your mother. I just came to ask her to stop sending wedding stuff to my house. That’s all. But it just kind of fell out when I was talking to her.”
I shook my head. “You don’t need to apologize. I just think we would both be more comfortable if we weren’t talking about this here. If we knew we could really be alone.”
“That sounds good,” she said.
“Okay, good. Let me take you to my house. We can sit down, get something to eat, and just talk,” I said. “You should be relaxing.”
She let out a dry, mirthless laugh. “I’m pregnant, not dying.”
“It would make me feel better,” I said.
Bryn managed a weak smile but nodded. “Alright.”
“Good. Come on.”
I stood and reached for her hands. She looked at them for a beat, then lifted her eyes to me before resting her fingertips on mine. I helped her to her feet and resisted the urge to gather her up against me. She was so close, so beautiful, and all I wanted to do was hold her.
Part of me was expecting to walk out of the kitchen and find my family hovering there pretending to be totally casual. But we managed to get down the hall into the lobby without running into any of them.