Falling for Fallon (Oak Hill 2)

Chestnut Springs, OH. 11111

“I guess I’ll personally deliver this in the morning then…”

You can run Fallon, but you can’t hide.

Chapter Seven

Fallon

I hated that my only true friend lived several states away in the warm, sunshiny state of Florida. I mean, I didn’t hate it for her. It would be really fun to live somewhere sunny like Florida, but it sucked for me because I had no one (besides Lupe) in my corner here in this lovely state called Ohio.

Sure, the flowers blooming around the small oasis out back due to the first touch of spring were stunningly beautiful. I’d been keeping my eye on the bundle of hydrangeas, thinking they’d look perfect on my coffee table, but I was pretty certain the gardener would frown upon that idea. So instead, I decided to just sit back on the lawn chair, tuning out Dumbo 1 and Dumbo 2 (my brothers’ wives, in case you forgot their names), and continued to gaze at the flowers.

“Well, maybe you guys should try harder,” Mallory said, dipping her huge, round sunglasses down to stare at Katie. “No pun intended.”

I glanced over at Katie, watching for her expression. She didn’t even crack a smile. She looked tired. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a low, stylish bun, her make-up was painted on to perfection, but I could see it in her olive-colored eyes. She was drained.

“We’ve been trying,” she answered softly.

Mallory scoffed. “Well, go to the doctor. They have all kinds of stuff to use for that kind of thing.”

I squinted. “What kind of thing? What are we talking about again?” I suddenly felt concerned, because Katie looked… sad.

I liked Katie much more than I liked Mallory. Katie had always been sweet and shy – unlike Mallory who was just loud. I didn’t mean that literally. Her voice wasn’t annoyingly piercing or anything; Mallory was just blunt and could often be seen as rude.

Katie wasn’t like that. She was nice. A pushover, but nice.

“You know…” Mallory dragged on, turning her attention to me. “Like… fertility drugs and stuff.”

I snapped my head over to Katie. Shit, I should have been listening!

“So, you can’t get pregnant?” I asked, actually feeling sincere.

She shook her head no, bringing her legs up to her torso and crossing her arms over them. She looked down, and I held my breath because she looked three seconds away from bursting into tears.

Katie’s mouth parted. “We… this is…”

I slowly sat up and placed my hand over hers. She brought her face up to mine and glanced over to Mallory for a second and then back to me. “This is the third miscarriage I’ve had in a year.”

I gasped. “Oh…”

My heart broke for her. Not because I knew how it felt, but because I could see something very similar in her eyes that I’d seen in my own: she was feeling helpless.

All the sweetness I’d seen in her over the years was gone.

I’d always thought Katie was dumber than a box of rocks, but that was only because she picked my brother to marry. Both of my brothers were total assholes. They treated their wives just like my father treated my mother: like they were shiny crystals sitting on top of a mantel, placed there for everyone to see and awe over, but that was it. The shiny crystal was never there for anything important. It was simply there for looks.

But here I was, about to do the same thing.

“What is my brother saying about this?” I angled my head down low, whispering so Mallory couldn’t hear. Mallory was about as sensitive as a damn cactus.

“I’m getting drinks,” Mallory announced just as Katie was about to speak.

Neither one of us said anything to her. Mallory swung her feet over the chair and walked away, her sunhat flopping in the spring breeze.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Katie sat up a little taller.

“Your brother isn’t very…”