Page 36 of Pastel Kisses

The tension in the room drops a fraction as my brothers visibly relax, which only pisses me off more.

"Do you all really think that low of me?" I bite out, my hands clenching into fists. "That I’d try hooking up with our ex while the love of my life is fucking missing?"

Kamden steps forward, gripping my shoulder hard enough to keep me planted against the headboard. "Stay the fuck down." His voice is firm, but there’s no real heat to it. "No, we don’t think you’d do that, which is why I’m confused as to why the hell you went over there in the first place."

My jaw locks as frustration coils tighter in my chest. "I fucked up," I admit. The weight of exhaustion is evident in my voice, making it crack.

Kamden doesn’t let up, keeping his grip steady. "Hey. Hey, bro. What is it? Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together."

His words dig under my skin, breaking through the walls I’ve been holding up for weeks. The emotions I’ve been barely keeping in check finally snap, my restraint crumbling under the pressure.

"Not this time." My throat tightens like barbed wire. "Sarah says she’s pregnant—with my kid."

Silence slams into the room like a freight train.

"Fuck," Liam grunts, rubbing a hand over his face. "Are you sure?"

No. I wasn’t.

"No," I admit, shaking my head. "She only told me last night."

Lennox scoffs. "And she’s just now telling you? How long has she known?"

I grind my teeth. "She swears it’s because of Avery—not wanting to add more to my plate."

"Bullshit," Lennox mutters under his breath. "What's the timeline? Does it even match up? Last time we saw her she definitely didn’tlookpregnant."

I nod stiffly. "I fucked her not long before I met Avery." Saying the words makes me want to fucking puke. Even though I didn’t know Avery yet, it feels like cheating. "We used protection, so I don’t know what to believe."

Lennox doesn’t respond immediately, but his heavy sigh says it all. He thinks I’m screwed. "Sounds like you need to tag along to her next doctor’s appointment—get the truth straight from the source. If her timeline’s right, she’d be pretty far along by now… and honestly, she didn’t look pregnant at all."

The thought makes my stomach churn. A life—a family—with Sarah? The idea is suffocating.

"Yeah," I force out, my voice rough.

Kamden’s grip tightens, and before I know it, he’s pulling me against his side. "We’ll get through this, brother."

His words crack something deep inside me. I fold, collapsing under the weight of it all, my head dropping to my big brother’s shoulder.

"She has to come back, Kam." My voice is raw, barely above a whisper. "She has to."

I close my eyes and send a silent, desperate plea into the universe.

If there’s a god, a higher power, fate—whatever the hell is out there—I’d sell my fucking soul to bring Avery back.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Liam

Idon’t know how much more of this I can take.

Every day feels heavier than the last, the weight of Avery’s absence pressing down on me like a boulder, slowly crushing what little sanity I have left. I’m trying—fuck, I’m trying—to hold everything together, to be strong for my brothers, for Dan, for Avery’s friends, for myself.

But it’s not working as well as I think.

They see through me. Every single one of them. I see it in Kam’s wary glances, in Jax’s frustration, in Lennox’s damn near constant hovering. Even Dan, in the midst of his own grief, called me out on my bullshit.

"You need to take care of yourself, son," he had told me a few weeks ago, his voice rough with exhaustion and something dangerously close to fatherly concern. "Avery wouldn’t want you running yourself into the ground like this."

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