Table Of Contents
Copyright © 2018 by Meagan Brandy
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Six Months Later
Note From The Author
Acknowledgment
About The Author
Copyright © 2018 by Meagan Brandy
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.meaganbrandy.com
Photo Credit: Golden Czermak, FuriousFotog - www.onefuriousfotog.com
Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No copyright infringement intended. No claims have been made over songs and/or lyrics written. All credit goes to original owner.
Dedication
To the one who holds the weight of others in silence,
your strength amazes me.
Synopsis
After months of silence, here she stands on my front porch, waiting to be let in again. But it's the same play every time, and I know how this ends - I give her all I have and she carries it with her on the way back to him.
I should turn her away, but I won't. Couldn't do it if I tried.
Because no matter how many times she pops back up, pulls me in and drags me under, it will never be enough. I'll always want more.
More of her.
More for us.
And she'll always choose him.
“I’m pregnant.”
My mouth opens, but words fail me as I stare at the girl in front of me. I had to have heard her wrong. No way in hell did she say what—
“Parker!” she snaps, and I blink back into focus. “You heard what I said. Stop talking to yourself.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Save it. I know you, remember?”
“I’m sorry, but I, uh … need a minute to process. I wasn’t expecting … that. Or you.”
Lips pursed, she shoulders past me into the house. Her nose turns up, judgment tightening her features as she takes in the simple style living my best friend, Lolli, and I have settled into. Sure, it’s beachfront, but it doesn’t scream money. Guessing that’s what she expected.
“Wow. I would have left my hometown for all this, too.” Sarcasm streams from her mouth as she leans against the back of the couch, her arms folded over her chest.
I wanna argue with her, defend my home, but she has a right to be upset with me.
I left her behind when I moved here, all without considering how it would affect her.
But I had to. I had to get out—for me.
When Lolli asked me to move to California, to live here with her and go to college, work for her company with the promise of taking it over once I graduated, it was almost a no-brainer.
Only a fool would walk away from that. So, I packed my shit and took off the day I graduated.
Doleful eyes search mine before cutting right to look out the window, and immediately, I feel like shit.
She must be scared, anxious, and unsure of everything in this moment.
Fucking pregnant.
With a sigh, I approach her, gently latching on to her biceps.
She tries hard to avoid it, but her faux strength fails, her emotions winning over. Tears fill her eyes as her bottom lip starts to quiver.
When I pull her close, she fights our nearness but only for a few seconds before she breaks down and gives in, turning to sob into my chest.
“Hey,” I whisper. “It’ll be all right,” I tell her, knowing it might be a lie.
“I’m s-scared.”
“I know you are.” I kiss her hair, and she cries harder. “But we’ll figure it out.”
“Mom’s gonna kill me, Parker,” she wails. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t let her find out.”
I swallow my words.
Payton doesn’t get what our mom is. She trusts in her, loves her. Just because Ava Baylor is dead to me, that doesn’t mean her daughter isn’t still wrapped around her little finger. There are so many things Payton doesn’t know.
But, right now, this is bigger than any of that.
My sixteen-year-old sister is pregnant. This is a problem.
I rub her back as she pulls from my embrace.
Wiping her nose with her sleeve, she sniffles. “What do I do, Parker?”
“I don’t know, Peep, but we’ll … it’ll be fine. Come on.” I take her hand, pulling her into the kitchen to make some hot chocolate. Sure, it’s July, but this is Southern California. The beach is my backyard, and the air is chill.
Once it’s ready, she hops up to sit on the countertop and I hand it to her, earning a small, one-sided smile.
While she blows into her cup, watching the marshmallows melt, I look her over. Her blonde hair is pulled up high, a long, straight ponytail hanging behind her. Her clothes are designer. I know because it’s the same shit my mom wears.
The tan heeled sandals with way too tight, too damn short dark jean shorts and a three-hundred-dollar sweater, which now has snot on the sleeves, screams, Look, but don’t dare come close enough to touch. Superior. I hate it.
“Talk to me, Peep.”
She sighs and peeks up at me, finally looking like a little girl who’s talking to her older brother. “What do you wanna know?”
“Everything. First, how the hell did you get here?”
“I …” She cuts her eyes right and then back. “Bus.”
I scrub my hands down my face. “And if I hadn’t been here? I haven’t been home consistently since I got here.”
“Well, your little roommate would have been here, right?” she sasses. “What? Would she not have let your baby sister in? Only accepts you if a dick hangs between your legs?”
“Payton.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. I’m not your kid, Parker. You don’t get to scold me.”
“Look, I get it. You’re pissed at me. Fine. We’ll deal. But rag on Lolli when you know jack shit about her, and I’ll drive your ass right back to Alrick. And not because I’m choosing sides, so
reel your little neck roll in. Don’t go making your mind up about her without giving her a fair chance. Don’t be like Mom.”
“Whatever,” she whispers, only half giving in.
“Back on track. Pregnant?”
“Yep.”
“And Mom doesn’t know?”
“Nope.”
I nod, shifting to look out the window a moment. “Who’s the father?”
She gives me a side-glance, and her lips pull to the left.
“Payton.”
“He doesn’t know either.”
“Payton.”
“It’s not important right now!”
“Payton.”
“Fine!” She hops off the counter and takes a step toward me. “Wanna know?” Her eyes widen as her eyebrows lift. “Deaton Vermont.”
My mouth opens, and for the second time in a fifteen-minute span, I’m speechless.
Deaton Vermont. Brother of Kellan Vermont.
Kellan Vermont, fiancé to—
“She knows.”
My eyes jump to hers, and she reads the question right.
“I … needed help. I didn’t know who else to—”
“Yeah. Got it.” I clear my throat and nod, excusing myself to my room where I lock myself inside and pull out my phone. Dialing a number I never thought I’d have a need to call, I bring the phone to my ear.
It takes three and a half rings, and then she answers.
The few deep breaths on her end have me holding mine.
I’m just about to hang up when she speaks, soft and low, “Hey.”
One word. One insignificant, tiny, meaningless word from her lips, and my head swims. Hundreds of thoughts I’ve pushed away and just recently have been able to keep gone come crashing back into the forefront of my mind.
One gentle, airy whisper, and I’m drowning again. Suffocating.
“You two talked.”
I lay my forehead against the wall, letting out a strangled, “Yeah.”
“Good.”
I swallow, forcing myself to speak, “What if I had been gone? She’d have been stuck here, having never met Lolli before, not knowing what to do.”
“I only wanted to help.”
I spin slowly, leaning against the door, my chin dropping to my chest. “Don’t.”
“Parker …” she breathes. I picture she’s backed herself against a wall, her head tipped against it, those eyes squeezed shut. “I’m … sorry.”
“I know you are.” I inhale deeply. “You always are.”
“Don’t be like that.”
A saddened chuckle leaves me before I can stop it. “How would you like me to be?”
She’s quiet for a moment before clearing her throat. “Should I head home?”
My body shoots up straight. “What?”
“I can. I—”
I drop my phone from my ear and storm from my room, my eyes narrowing in on Payton as I make my way around the corner.
Her face scrunches as she chews her nail, both an apology and confirmation.
Damn it.
I shake my hands, hang up on the call, and stuff my phone in my pocket before stepping up to the door, and in what feels like slow motion, I look out the peephole.
All the air leaves my lungs.
There she is.
All perfect hair and ironed clothes, leaning just the way I pictured. But against my porch? Never would have expected that.
She looks to the screen of her phone before tucking it into her chest. Her head dips, and a sheet of caramel hair falls over her shoulder, hiding her. Blocking her from the world. It only lasts a minute before she steels herself, stands tall with fake bravado, and smooths out her blazer.
With a quick glance at Payton, I turn the handle, taking a deep breath in an attempt to settle myself.
But it does nothing to calm me, and the second I open the door, the moment her eyes hit mine, it’s as if they never left. Like always.
She tries not to show it, to pretend like she doesn’t feel the same. And she’s gotten better at hiding it throughout the years, but I don’t need to see it in her stance or measure it in the way she breathes—even though I can. It doesn’t matter how her eyes widen only slightly, just for her lids to drop even lower in the end. Or the way the pulse at the base of her neck speeds up, just from being near me. She could try to hide all these things, and it wouldn’t matter.
All those little telltales are there, but I need none of them because, somehow, her feelings radiate off her body and seep into mine. It’s always been that way for me and my secret friend. My secret everything.
“Parker.” My name barely passes her lips, but the attempt at nonchalance almost kills me as much as her need to use it. She gives a small smile. “You planning on inviting me in?”
I wanna turn her away, tell her it’s best she go home. Back to her life.
Back to him.
But I can’t, and that’s the problem.
I couldn’t turn her away if I tried. And, as much as I wanna hate her, be cold toward her, I can’t. Won’t. Because, at the end of the day, no matter where life takes us, something pushes us right back here, with her standing right in front of me.
My smile starts slow, but once it cracks, it only grows. Instantly, her shoulders relax, and she sears my soul with a smile of her own.
“You’ve never needed an invite before. Why you waiting for one now?”
She smiles wider but tips her head to the side, again hiding behind shiny, straight hair.
I place my hand out for her to take, and her eyes slowly shift from it to me before she finally places her tiny one in mine.
“Welcome to California, Kens.”
My head pops up when Kenra steps around the corner. She freezes for a second before taking the last few steps toward the couch, choosing to sit on the ottoman in front of it.
“Payton’s asleep,” she tells me quietly, and I nod. “Where’s Lolli?”
I glance at the clock behind her. “Should be on her way home.”
She watches me for a moment, her head tilting slightly, before a small smile finds the corner of her mouth.
“What?”
She shrugs, glancing off only to bring her eyes right back. “It’s just … it’s good to see you; that’s all. I haven’t seen you since—”
“Since I came back from Mexico, and you stopped by to find out if I slept with my best friend?”
She opens her mouth to speak but rethinks her original thought and tries again. “My brother was real messed up after that, Parker. I just needed to know if we should still hold out hope for those two.”
I scrub my hands down my face and glance away.
Over spring break this year, a bunch of us went to Mexico. Nate, Kenra’s brother, had been dating my best friend, Lolli, for the better part of five months, and shit hit the fan while we were there.
His jealous ex-hookup, who also happens to be Kenra’s ex-best friend, went crazy and set it up to make Lolli think he had slept with her and made Nate think Lolli’d played him. They split because of it.
Lolli, having no idea how to process such emotions—she had been closed off from the start—didn’t react all that well, and when the night closed in and I helped her drunken self to her room, she asked me to stay. I wasn’t sure I should at that point. She was vulnerable, beautiful, and broken, and I was lost in my own mind, unsure of how to deal with my own issue—her role in my life at that point being one of them.
But I loved her and knew I needed to be there for her, like she would do for me, so I stayed.
She asked me to kiss her that night, and I thought about it. Almost did, but in the end, I couldn’t. She didn’t belong to me, and I knew that as much as she did. She didn’t want me. She wanted the pain to go away, and didn’t know how to make it happen.
That next morning, Nate found me in her bed and flipped his shit. And, apparently, word got back to Kenra because, not two days later, there she was, on my doorstep.
It wasn’t fair for her to show up, and she had no right to the truth. Hell, she was engaged to another man and we hadn’t talked in months. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to give it to her. She has a power over me no one ever has. One I’m betting no one ever will.
Every time I think she’s gone for good, that maybe I can start to push forward, she shows up and pulls me right back in, right back under.
With a sigh, I look to her.
“How long will you stay?” I change the subject.
“I don’t know,” she whispers, her gaze flitting back and forth between mine.
I watch moisture start to build, clouding her auburn eyes. In my peripheral, I see her hand lifting, but I don’t break eye contact. I’ve missed those eyes too much to look away, and who the hell knows how quick they’ll be gone this time around.
I force myself to sit still as the tips of her fingers skim along my jaw when all I wanna do is pull her in.
“You have stubble,” she whispers, eyes still locked on mine.
With a deep inhale, I stare at her.
“I miss you, Parker.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she admits quietly.
“Just not enough?”
She blinks, her eyes dropping to the floor, and a tear breaks free, sliding down her cheek.
“Kens,” I whisper, my ribs constricting as I reach to wipe it away, “don’t cry.”
She shakes her head, laughing lightly. “Sorry, I just … nothing is how I thought it would be.”
When my brows pull in, she waves me off and shifts to stand, as if that were enough of an explanation.
“Is there somewhere I can rest for a while? I’m exhausted. Long ride.”
When I don’t move, my eyes still trained on hers, she sighs and gives me something.
“I … miss my mom and dad.” She waves a hand around the room. “I miss Nate. I didn’t know, or I didn’t realize I wouldn’t see much of them when I … when Kellan …”
“Right.” I clear my throat and stand before she can say anything else. I don’t want to hear about all that quite yet. I need a minute to wrap my head around all this—her here. My sister here, pregnant. “You can lie down in Lolli’s room for a bit—she won’t mind—and I’ll get the other guest rooms ready for you guys.”
Defenseless Hearts (A Tender Hearts Novel Book 2) Page 1