Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
John leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of my head before slipping out of the apartment, quietly shutting the door behind him. Jonah eased onto the couch with me in his arms, cradling me on his lap.
“Whatever fears you’ve got concerning me, Montana, I need you to get rid of them,” he told me. I slowly looked up at him. “You, me, this baby—I’m all in. Yeah, we both need some time to wrap our heads around this, but I’m not abandoning you.”
I broke down in tears. And Jonah—he just held me, gently rocking me back and forth, running his hand over my hair, whispering soothing words in my ears. Not once did he judge me. Not once did he let me completely lose myself.
And for that small amount of time, I didn’t care that Jonah had abandoned me after that first week. I just needed his comfort.
11
Montana
I groaned when John knocked on my bedroom door before cracking it open to poke his head through. “Hey; you going to come eat breakfast before I’ve got to get to work, or are you planning on lying in bed all day?”
I just released a low moan and pulled the pillow over my head. My stomach was churning, and my eyes still felt swollen from all the crying I’d done yesterday. I felt drained—both physically and mentally.
And I hated that I couldn’t get high anymore. It helped me cope. My emotions had always been all over the place for as long as I could remember. The only time I felt somewhat stable was when I was too high to give much of a damn about anything.
But that had been ripped from me. And I wasn’t so shitty of a human being that I would do drugs of any kind while I was pregnant.
This kid was just going to end up having a fucked-up mom.
I frowned, tears burning in my eyes. I bit my tongue, forcing them back.
I wasn’t ready to think about being a mom. As far as I was concerned, I was going to pretend like this shit wasn’t happening to me for as long as I could.
I felt my bed dip as John took a seat on the edge of it. His hand landed between my shoulder blades unexpectedly, making me flinch. He froze for a moment. I was glad I couldn’t see his face. I knew he would undoubtedly have questions for me, questions I never planned to give him answers to.
Jayden had fucked me up. My ex had done a damn good bit of damage to me. I would live with those mental scars for the rest of my life.
And no one needed to know about them.
“Sis, you need to eat,” John told me. “The doctor is already concerned about your weight as it is.”
I slowly pulled the pillow from over my face, looking up at him. “I didn’t hear him say that,” I muttered.
John sighed. “Probably because you were panicking, Montana.” I looked away from him, closing my eyes again. The churning in my stomach worsened. “You need to eat.”
“Morning sickness,” I muttered before I shoved him out of the way and lurched off the bed, rushing toward my bathroom.
My older brother was by my side in an instant, holding my hair out of my face as I emptied my stomach. Afterward, he helped me up from the floor without a word so I could brush my teeth. He dropped a kiss to the top of my head once I was done.
“Promise me you’ll eat something once the morning sickness passes?”
I wanted to tell him no, but when my eyes met his in the mirror, I couldn’t bring myself to. There was so much concern in the dark depths of his eyes.
I nodded. “I will,” I whispered.
He gently squeezed my shoulder and slipped out of my bathroom, heading for my bedroom door. “Call me if you need me.”
I nodded, though I knew he couldn’t see me. And then, I crawled back into bed, forcing myself to fall back asleep in the hopes that this baby would disappear.
* * *
John laughed when he walked through the door, his eyes on me. I looked away from the TV to look at him, my brows furrowing. “What?” I muttered, a wavy potato chip halfway to my mouth with ice cream on it.
His grin just widened. “Is that any good?”
I shrugged and held it out to him. He looked pensive for a moment before he just finally shrugged and bravely took a bite. His eyes widened. “Holy shit; that actually is good.” He dropped a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m going to shower and change. Headed to the fights afterward. You tagging along?” he asked over his shoulder as he headed to his bedroom off to the right of the living room.