let down Arella had been that I hadn’t shown up for her eighteenth birthday party.
While I’d been running to protect myself, she’d been waiting for me to make all her dreams come true. My selfishness had ruined everything, and she’d been more or less running from me ever since. The few times I’d been home since the funeral, she’d gone to dinner and the occasional movie with me, but it was obvious to me she’d put up walls that a wrecking ball would have trouble knocking down.
“What should I do?” I demanded of my best friend, pissed at her for barging in on us to begin with. I’d thought it was one of her parents interrupting, and after how cold Lana and Drake had been with me, I didn’t want either of them walking in on me trying to kiss their daughter until I had that girl marked as mine. Otherwise, they might try to keep her away from me, and I was barely functioning without her as it was.
“Going after her would be my first suggestion,” Mia snipped.
“Shit. Right. Okay, I’ll find her.” I started to head for the door, but Mia began to sway. Grasping her by the hips, I steadied her and realized she was sweating. “Holy shit, Mia. Are you sick?”
She was already fair-skinned, but she looked almost deathly pale. “Fuck, this isn’t like the last time. I think I would take the nonstop morning sickness over this crap.”
My eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?”
She groaned. “Yes. I’ve been holding off on telling anyone because I want to tell Barrick as a kind of Christmas present in the morning. But I’ve been so dizzy that my brother has already guessed, and now you.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “I wanted Barrick to be the first to know, and now I’ve ruined everything.”
Movement at the door pulled my gaze, and I saw Barrick step silently into the room. He lifted his finger to his lips, and I shifted my attention back to Mia before she realized we weren’t alone. “Why is everything ruined?” I asked her softly.
“Because he was supposed to know before anyone else. Not Jagger or you or even my parents. Just Barrick.” Her chin trembled, and I tightened my hold on her. I never could stand the sight of her tears. They gutted me and made me want to eviscerate whatever had dared to cause her to cry.
I cared about Mia like no one else in my life, and even though we’d taken things too far once and only once, I’d never loved her as more than a friend. She was like family to me, and I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
But what I felt for Arella? That was on a level I’d never experienced before, and I’d been screwing up left and right with her.
Other than at her grandfather’s funeral and when her dad had his liver transplant surgery, I’d never really seen Arella cry, but both times had been enough to bring me to my knees.
“I’ve been saving this news just for Christmas because we’ve been trying for so long for another baby with no results, and…and…I only wanted to make it special.” Her sobs hurt my heart, but it was nothing to the agonized groan Barrick released behind her.
Startled by the sound, she turned around. “Barrick,” she whispered. “It…It was supposed to be…”
He enfolded her in his arms, tears already spilling down his face and into his beard. “It’s the best surprise ever, firecracker,” he choked out. “Adding another baby to our family is the best present you could ever give me, second only to you loving me.”
Giving them a moment to themselves, I silently left them in the kitchen and went in search of Arella. It took me twenty minutes to check the entire house before I asked one of her many cousins if they had seen her.
“I think I saw her leave,” Remington Sawyer informed me as he and Violet stood in a group with Violet’s parents and a few others. “That was a while ago, though.”
I muttered a thanks and quickly made my way out of the house. Her leaving could be a good thing, I told myself. We would be alone, and I could finally tell her everything I should have already said.
But when I got outside, I saw her car was still there. “Fuck,” I groaned. “Where did you go?”
“Something wrong?”
I turned at the deep voice I didn’t recognize and found some hulking goon in a suit.