“I rode him blindfolded.”
She gasps, and then Clancy says, “That sounds dangerous.”
“Stupid, more like it,” Sib grumps. Pregnancy hormones and an idiotic younger brother are not a good combination.
“It’s fine. I didn’t go too hard, I just wanted to see if I could do it. I thought everyone had gone home for the day, but Maverick hadn’t. He saw me. Wanted to know what I was doing. And I broke down in front of him.”
I hear a chair scrape against the linoleum floor, and then a soft, warm hand covers mine. “Jaxi.”
“I was just about to tell him everything when his brother pulled up, Sib. I swear. But I chickened out. I lost my nerve completely.”
“It’s okay,” she says, even though we all know it isn’t. “We get scared when we think we’re going to lose something that we love.”
“Love? What? I’m not in…”
The rest of that sentence gets stuck in my throat.
Love might be going a bit too far, but my feelings for Maverick run deep. And maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s why I got scared and didn’t go through with revealing something that is going to completely destroy everything we have.
She pulls me in for a side hug since her belly sticks out so much. Tears start falling, and I’m too tired to fight them. I’ve been angry for so long, raging against the world for everything that’s fucked-up, in my feelings about my condition, fighting with Maverick and trying to make his life harder in a futile attempt to deny my attraction to him. It’s all catching up to me. I’mexhausted.
Sibella lets me cry until the top of her dress is soaked through. I pull myself off her and pat around the wet patch I created with my fingers. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m about to be a mom. I need to get used to wearing bodily fluids.”
“That’s so gross,” I say, feeling around for a napkin on the table and blowing my nose loudly.
“Things will work out, Jaxi. You just need to tell Maverick the truth. Remember how scared you were to tell us? But you did, and it’s brought us even closer.”
“I know. But it’s different. We’re family. You have no choice but to put up with me.”
Clancy clears his throat, his frame shooting up at the other side of the table. He starts clearing plates. I don’t need to see his face to know I’ve put my foot in my mouth.
Mom.
Of course. What was I thinking, saying that?
She made another choice, one where she abandoned her family. I tend to focus so much on her deserting her kids, I sometimes forget that she turned her back on her father, too. Yet despite everything she’s done, he’s never once said a bad word about her.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Clancy. It’s just something you say.”
“I know, son. It’s all good. Don’t worry about it.”
“Let me give you a hand,” Tim offers.
They collect everything from the table. I drop my head.That used to be my job.
Once they’re in the kitchen, Sib slides her hand up and down my forearm. “You need a plan, Jaxi.”
“I already have one.”
Well, an updated one.
The original plan was to tell Maverick the day I moved out of my cabin. But he worked from home that day, so I wasn’t able to catch him at the sanctuary.
“What is it?”
“I have next Monday morning off. Requested it ages ago. Told Maverick I had a dentist appointment, but I’m really seeing my ophthalmologist.”
