Page 28 of When You Least Expect It
“She told me to go choke on a bag of dicks, and when I was done doing that, then I could kindly go to hell,” he answered.
I tried not to laugh.
I really did.
“Uhm, that was colorful.”
“Could you not be a dick?”he drawled out.“This is my life that we’re talking about here.”
“Yeah, no...I’m sorry,” I chuckled remorsefully.“Go on.”
“It was when she was about to walk out of the door that I finally got my shit together,” he went on.“I mean, the woman was going to leave her own house just to get away from me, so that crazy move opened my eyes rather quickly.”
“Dude, you’re an awful storyteller,” I told him.“Can you please get to the point?”
“Well, after that, I begged, pleaded, begged some more, then threw myself on her sword, doing and saying everything that I could to convince her of how much I loved her and how I was happy about the baby.”
“Did she finally believe you?”
My heart leapt when my brother nodded.“She did.At least, she believed me enough to get engaged.”
My eyes widened at that.“You guys got engaged?”
Zachary nodded again.“Yep, and the first thing that I did this morning was go out and buy her a ring to make it real.”
“Are...is she happy about it, or did you strongarm the poor woman?”
“This is the part where you’re supposed to tell me congratulations, you dick,” he replied, clearly still in his feelings.
“I gotta be honest with you, Zach, I can only be happy for you if Whitney isn’t being held against her will in your basement,” I told him truthfully.
“I don’t have a basement,” he deadpanned.
“Is the woman happy to be marrying you or not?”I asked.“I need to know before I go congratulating her when she doesn’t want to be congratulated.”
My brother just shrugged.“She says she is, and unless I want to drive myself slowly insane, I have no choice but to believe her.”
“Have you told Mom and Dad yet?”
“No,” he admitted.“I’m still...I fucked this up so badly that I’m letting Whitney do all that stuff.”
“Well, I’m happy for you, Zach,” I said, finally congratulating him.“I really am.Congratulations, man.”
“Thanks,” he replied sincerely.“I swear, I’ve been in the military since I was a teenager, and I’d never felt as scared as I did when I thought that Whitney was going to leave me, and that’s fucking saying something.”
“Well, if it’ll make you feel any better, I think my neighbor across the street is using religion and prayer as a ruse to lure unsuspecting women into a sex cult headed by a man named Jury Patton,” I told him, hoping to make him feel better.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I got ambushed into going to one of her prayer groups, and when Calista and I got there-”
“Whoa, wait,” he said, shaking his head at me, waving his hand around.“What?”
So, to take his mind off his own troubles, I told him everything about the prayer group, meeting Jury Patton, and how Calista wanted to know if he had any CIA connections.When I was done, Zachary was definitely not thinking about his woman troubles anymore.
“All that, and you didn’t even ask her out?”he asked, ignoring everything else.
“I was trying to prioritize,” I drawled out.
