Change of Heart (Fostering Love 2)

I nodded. Henry had been living in San Diego for over a year, and I knew that Kate and Shane’s family saw him often. It wasn’t the same with us in Oregon, only getting visits when Hen was able to take some leave. The Anderson kids were going to have to get used to not seeing their uncle at the dinner table and during birthday parties. He wasn’t a distant relative for them—he’d been a significant part of their lives, and on top of losing him, they had to deal with a dad who still had five months left on a deployment halfway across the world.

“Do you want me to come down?” I asked tentatively. “I still have some maternity leave.”

“Nah.” Kate shook her head. “I think that would push Bram over the edge.”

“What do you mean?” I asked stupidly, opening myself up to a host of shit I didn’t want to deal with.

“He loves you, idiot,” she said in exasperation. “It’s bad enough that Shane and I have to be separated. You and Bram don’t need to do that shit too.”

“We’re not together,” I replied woodenly, leaning my head on my arm. “It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t he staying at your house?” she asked incredulously. “How much more ‘together’ do you need to be?”

“It’s not like that.”

“It’s exactly like that.”

“He broke up with me, Kate,” I huffed, closing my eyes. “How much clearer do I need to be? We’re not together. He doesn’t want to be with me.”

“He loves you.”

“So do Alex and Trevor. I’m not with either of them.”

“You also haven’t slept with Alex or Trevor,” Kate retorted, then went completely still. “You haven’t, right?”

“Shut up,” I snorted, making her laugh. “Look, I get it, okay? Bram and I have this thing between us. But that doesn’t mean that it’s going to go anywhere. I have to think about Arielle.”

“He loves Arielle.”

“He does,” I nodded. “Absolutely. But he doesn’t want to be her dad.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do know that. He’s been really clear, Katie. And that’s okay. He doesn’t owe us anything. But I can’t start shit up with him again when I know there’s no future in it. That’s not fair to me or to her.”

“Mom said to call you guys into the dining room,” Bram said flatly from behind me, making my entire body tense. I wasn’t sure how much he’d heard, but he had to have heard something by the tone of his voice.

I twisted slowly to look at him, but I only met his eyes for a second before he was turning away.

“Shit,” Kate groaned, pushing off the couch.

“It’s fine,” I said distractedly, trying to shake it off. I hadn’t said anything that Bram and I both didn’t already know.

We weren’t together, and we weren’t going to be together. I loved him, I may always love him, but that didn’t mean that we were going to prance away in a field of daisies and live happily ever after. The real world didn’t work that way. People died in training accidents. Husbands left their wives for months at a time to fight in wars that had nothing to do with them personally. Fifteen-year-olds got pregnant and had to give up their babies.

Couples split up because one of them wanted children and the other one didn’t.

I followed Kate into the dining room and stopped short as I saw everyone sitting around the table. Apparently, Trevor had come in through the back because even he was there, his arm around Ellie as she spoke quietly into his ear. The kids were back in one of the bedrooms watching a movie, but every single adult was present and seated in a chair.

“Come in and sit down,” Dan said from his place at the head of the table.

I moved slowly, watching distractedly as Bram reached for Arielle as Kate passed him.

There were two spots left when Kate sat down, and I glanced to the side to see the kids’ folding chairs leaned up against the far wall.

“Here,” Bram said quietly, pulling out the chair to his left with one hand. “Sit down.”

I dropped woodenly into the seat he’d directed me to, and we all sat for a few moments, staring at each other as we waited for one of the parents to speak.

Finally, Ellie cleared her throat.

“First, I want to thank all you kids for how you stepped up this week,” she said with a small sniffle. She raised her chin and clenched her hands together on the table. “I don’t know where I’d be if my boys hadn’t stepped in and taken care of things the way they have. And that goes for you guys too.” She glanced around the table, her eyes stopping on Bram and me before moving to Alex and then Katie.

“Henry was my baby,” she said achingly, pausing to swallow hard.