Linx hoped like hell it wasn’t that guy. What was his name? Gary. Jerry. Maybe he should’ve paid more attention. He hadn’t liked the dude, though, so he hadn’t taken notes.
But a guy who knocked up his sister and then didn’t want to step up stuck sideways in his craw. It took everything Linx had not to say something that he’d regret. His baby sister was going to be a mother, and that gobsmacked him. Sure, she was a woman, and he didn’t have any doubt she had, well, as their mom would say, gentleman friends. But she was Courtney. She was his sister.
“Doesn’t seem like he has much of a choice,” Linx said, finally. Of all the things he could’ve said, it seemed like the most fitting and the least likely to piss everyone off.
“It’d bebetterif he’s not involved.” Courtney glanced longingly at his mug but sipped from her seltzer. “He’s not the fatherly type.”
“Does he know?” Dad asked in a tone that said,do I need to go Law & Order on him?The ripped shirt sleeve wrecked the badass vibe he was going for.
“I’ll tell him once I’m further along. When I know it’s going to stick. They say the first trimester is the riskiest. I figure I’ll tell him after I’m through it. I’d like to keep it just with family for now. And Becca. Obviously.” Courtney traced a thin stream of condensation down the edge of her glass with a thumbnail.
“This is going to be wonderful.” Dad clapped his hands as though to make it so. “I’m going to be a grandpa. This calls for celebration.”
“Dad…” Courtney said. Apparently, the carbonation in her beverage held a load of appeal by the way she stared at it. “Let’s not do that.”
“How can we support you?” Mom asked, likely earning A-plus points from Becca.
“Just… you know, don’t make a big thing about it.” Courtney nodded. “And don’t fry bacon around me in the morning.”
No bacon. He could handle that. She didn’t need to be around bacon if it bothered her. Linx strode to the pan of bacon, grabbed it with a potholder, strode to the back door, and tossed the whole shebang outside. There. “Done.”
Courtney’s eyes were enormous. Becca’s, too. Mom just put her face in her hands.
“I was going to eat that.” Dad crossed his arms.
“Not if it’s making Courtney sick.” Linx checked the timer on the oats. “Oatmeal okay, sis?”
“Oatmeal is great.” Courtney glanced up at him, her eyes watery. “Can we change the subject?”
“Becca,” Dad moved right into the next subject with no segue at all. “What do you do for work?”
Becca nibbled at her bottom lip. “I’m a therapist.”
“I think that skill set might just come in handy today,” Mom muttered, filling herself a cup of coffee.
Becca took in a deep breath. Then she let it out. “Yeah.”
Chapter 17
Becca
Well, they could chalk that breakfast up to one of the most awkward experiences of her existence.
Courtney dropped her bombshell, and then everyone went about breakfast as though nothing happened. Aside from the half-cooked bacon strewn across the back patio, Courtney only picking at her oatmeal, and the unnatural silence that had them all contemplating how to split atoms—given the intensity of her thought processes—the breakfast could be called a success. Ha. Not really. Becca had sat through couple’s counseling that ended in divorce with less tension in the air.
Linx turned to music, which, she guessed, was expected. He’d pulled out his guitar and tumbled into his own thoughts. Which was her cue to head out.
He’d set up shop on the floor with sheet music spread out around him. Some pages were blank, some had penciled in notes.
“I’m going to head home.” She sat near his feet, away from the amassed pages of music.
He set the guitar aside. “I’ll drive you.”
She held up her phone. “Already called for a car. The shop has mine ready to go. They’ll drop me there.”
“Are you at Brek’s today?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I have plans to take my mom to lunch and then have a very long nap.”
