Page 2 of Faith Notes
But I need a minute.
Just one more minute.
Setting the test and box on the floor beside me, I take a deep breath, willing it to calm my raging emotions, but when that doesn’t work, I slide my hand across my flat stomach, letting my mind wander to a time when it will be big and round.
Joy.
Guilt.
Fear.
They all flicker through my chest, causing it to tighten and relax as each one passes until my heart lands on the one emotion it can handle.
Love.
No matter what, I already love this baby, and I know Grayson will, too.
I just need to have a handle on everything else I’m feeling when I tell him.
I won’t wait forever—just enough time that excitement will be the only thing left inside me.
Chapter 2
Grayson
8 Weeks
“Ithink something is wrong with Georgia. I’m worried about her.”
“Besides being married to you?”
My little brother, Brooks, sits across from me in my office, his smirk almost identical to the one I usually wear. Two years ago, I didn’t know I had a little brother—not until he showed up in my office looking for a job. The interview was a dumpster fire in which I accused him of using me for my success, and he told me to take my ego and shove it. Maybe not in those exact words, but the sentiment was the same. I thought I would never see him again after that, and I was content with that decision. But he’s persistent—albeit annoying. He kept showing up, inserting himself into my life, and giving me no choice but to accept him.
Now, once a week, like clockwork, we meet up to have lunch. Sometimes it’s at a restaurant. Sometimes it’s at his office, and sometimes it’s at mine. The location may change, but one thing remains the same every week—I can count on him to say something that makes my eye twitch. I’m told that’s normal when you have a brother, though.
I glare at him over the top of my glass, and to anyone else, that glare would be intimidating—but Brooks continues smirking, undeterred by my grumpiness.
“Can you take this seriously?”
Brooks wipes the smirk off his face and straightens up in his seat. “Okay, okay. Tell me what’s going on.”
Sighing, I reach forward, fidgeting with the edge of a paper on my desk. My eyes stray to the orchid tattoo on my wrist, the one I got as a promise to my best friend, my wife’s late husband, thinking about how it eventually became a promise to her, too.
A promise to love her.
A promise to make her happy.
A promise toprotecther.
But I’m not sure how to keep those promises when I can’t explain what’s wrong with her.
“I don’t know. She’s been—off.”
“Off how?” Brooks raises an eyebrow, steepling his fingers beneath his chin and making me feel like I’m sitting in a therapist’s office.
Brooks and his wife, Emryn, attend therapy often—both together and alone. They say that it makes their marriage stronger. And don’t get me wrong, I’m all for therapy for other people. I’m the one who pushed Georgia to go right after Nate died, but it’s not for me.
I’m not a people person—especially when it comes to sharing feelings. The only people I’m willing to do that with are my wife—and sometimes the little jerk sitting in front of me, depending on how much he annoyed me that day.
