Page 128 of Forbidden Hearts
Not five minutes after I ended that call, a knock on the door snaps me out of this wave of confusion, and I drop my phone, praying it’s Asher but knowing it’s Brynn.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Is it Olivia or . . .?” she asks as I pull the door open to let her in. Her strawberry blonde hair is up in a ponytail, and she’s in her pajamas, but at least she put shoes on before rushing over.
“It’s Asher. He left, and . . . I’m going to have to tell you everything, and it’s going to be a lot.”
She nods, and we walk into the kitchen where I put the tea kettle on before joining her at the table.
“What happened?” Brynn finally asks, completely calm.
I start at the beginning, telling her about why I came home from school, how hard things were, and then how it all started with Asher.
“So, you and Asher?”
“Yeah, it was never our intention for it to be more than scratching an itch.”
She laughs. “Oh, my brothers are all ridiculous. I’m not going to lie and say I’m surprised. You guys were always looking at each other and trying not to look at each other at the same time.”
“I’m sorry we lied.”
Brynn shrugs. “We all have secrets. I’m not one to judge. However, I don’t understand what happened to lead us to now.”
I continue on, giving her the backstory, the length of time we’ve been together, before telling her about my appointment the other day. “I’m pregnant with the professor’s kid.”
Brynn’s eyes widen. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
The surprise leaves her face and is replaced with disappointment. “And Asher left you when you told him?”
“No, not at all. He’s actually been incredible about the whole thing.”
Brynn sits back. “That sounds more like him. Asher isn’t the fly-off-the-handle brother. He’s so much more . . . I don’t know, calm? When things happen, I always tell him stuff first because usually he doesn’t react irrationally. It’s what makes him a really good SWAT commander.”
“I know, and that’s why I am so confused. He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t even look at me.” I stumble over the last word as my heart aches. “It was like I was disgusting or...I don’t know. It just was so unlike him, and it contradicts everything he said.”
Brynn takes a sip of her tea. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
I let out a heavy breath. “Right before he left, we were talking about where we go from here. I’m pregnant, it isn’t his child, and we love each other. He asked me to move in, and I explained why I didn’t think it would be a good idea.”
“Jesus, Asher’s foot is on the gas. Okay. Phoebe, he must really love you.” She rests her hand on mine. “Asher is not the kind of man to ever bring a woman around, let alone ask someone to move in with him. If he’s asking you? That tells me he’s really, really serious.”
“I know, but I told him I didn’t think we should. That we should allow Olivia some time to get used to him dating me, and that I needed to handle getting any parental rights away from the father. He lost it.”
“I don’t know why he’d be so upset about that.”
“He said to call you and that you’d know. I don’t think it was about the moving in together thing so much as the baby’s father.”
Brynlee schools her face and breathes in deeply. “And he said to call me?”
“Yes.”
“Is the guy’s name Jonathan Loa?”
My chest is so tight I worry it’ll crack. “Yes.”
“We’re going to need more tea.”
Brynn and I move into the living room, my mind spinning in a million directions as I try to figure out why and how Asher and Brynn know Jonathan.
