worked that way—not with Trey. It wouldn’t be about me letting him do anything. I couldn’t force him to face something he didn’t want to face. PT proved that one. Perhaps Hadley hadn’t been paying enough attention to the type of man Trey was. My sisters all had an advantage I didn’t have; Carter, Brice, and Brady had been in love with them before they’d started their game.
A whisper of a promise.
You’re the type of woman who sees past all the superficial bullshit.
Made me fall for you.
I was staring at my twin, contemplating my options. I could pack a bag and flee. I had a multitude of places that didn’t include Hadley where I could hunker down and hide. I could rummage through my kitchen and look for a roll of duct tape—which I was ninety-nine-point-nine percent positive I didn’t actually own, but hope springs…and all of that—to tape Hadley’s mouth closed to prevent her from freaking me out more than she already had. Or I could simply tell her I was done with the conversation, though I knew she wouldn’t listen even if I demanded her to stop.
But to my absolute shock, it was Hadley who changed the subject.
“I see you’re freaked out,” she wisely noted. “Enough about that. Let’s talk about Delaney and Mercy.”
Freaked out? Understatement.
Enough about that? Was she crazy?
“I hope Laney has a boy this time,” Hadley continued as if she hadn’t given me whiplash.
Delaney was pregnant again, this news was met with excitement. My sister had waited a long time to claim her man. And it seemed they were wasting no time building a family. But it was my sister-in-law Mercy’s pregnancy that had rocked our family—rocked in the best kind of way. Jason and Mercy had been married a donkey’s years and everyone had been impatiently waiting for them to get around to making babies. Laney being Laney didn’t take offense to Jason and Mercy’s news overshadowing her and Carter’s second pregnancy. Actually, it was Laney who was celebrating Mercy and Jason’s unborn baby the loudest. She was making this special time in our family all about our brother and his wife.
I, however, didn’t want Laney to have a boy this time. I thought that Carter needed girls—pretty little girls he could spoil.
Instead of sharing my opinion, I asked, “Is Mercy feeling better?”
“Not even a little bit. Morning sickness is kicking her ass.”
Darn. I didn’t know much about pregnancy other than what a never-been-pregnant-woman knew, which was to say, not very much beyond the basics seeing as I’d never grown a human before. But my mom had said that her morning sickness ended at twelve weeks. It would seem Mercy hadn’t gotten that lucky.
I made a mental note to text her tomorrow and ask if there was something I could do for her. Jason had said the only thing Mercy was holding down was cereal of all things, but that was last week. As I’d learned with Laney’s first pregnancy, cravings could change daily.
“Has anyone started planning her baby shower?” I asked as the front door opened and Trey came through.
I suppose Brady followed. Though I didn’t notice.
I suppose my sister answered my question. Though I didn’t hear a single word she said.
No, all of my attention was on Trey. Whatever mood he’d been in when he left had worsened.
Sure, he’d tried to hide it like Trey tried to hide a lot of things. But something had changed. He looked crushed, and when his gaze met mine, the oxygen in my lungs crystalized and I stopped breathing. He was crushed…no, he was something different. If I could conjure up an image in my mind of what a man whose dog he’d had since birth, gone everywhere with, hunted with, went on runs with, watched football with, and had trained to fetch beers from the fridge—in other words, his very best friend in the whole world—had just dropped dead right before his very eyes—that would be Trey.
A moment later, Trey blanked his expression and gave me a careful grin.
Grin, not smile.
The desire to do bodily harm, after I shook some sense into him, bubbled to the surface. But before I could tell Trey to wipe the stupid, fake, ugly grin off his face, my sister nudged my shoulder.
“What?” My head whipped to the side. Hadley was close and she gave me wide eyes and a sharp jerk of her chin.
“How was traffic?” she asked the guys and pushed me forward, completely ignoring my ‘what.’