Oh, no, he didn’t get to be pissy about this. Her mouth like sandpaper, she said, “I thought we agreed this was something only family needed to know?”
“I thought he was family. He’s not. Family doesn’t do this to my sister.”
Well, technically…
“Uh…” What was up with her family and their inability to keep a fucking secret locked up for longer than half a day? “To be clear, the next time I say family, I don’t mean everyone that anyone knows.” Not that there would be a next time that she trusted any of them with anything. Except maybe babysitting? Because she didn’t really have any other options there. And while she couldn’t trust them with a secret, she could probably trust them with the kid.
“I’m gonna kill Bax. I just haven’t decided how,” Linx continued, like he’d been wronged in this scenario.
“Uh… No. You’re not.” Killing Bax was a bad idea for many reasons. One, even rock stars got pinned with felonies. Two, Bax couldn’t really pay child support if he was dead. Three, the band couldn’t tour without their lead singer. Could they? Hmm. Maybe one of the new Denver guys could take that place? That one might not be a point after all. She’d have to wait and see.
And four—this was the big one—she held out a sliver of hope that maybe Bax would want to know his baby too. He couldn’t do that if he was skipping over the rainbow bridge.
“Don’t kill Bax,” she said, and she meant it. “I’d very much like my little chickpea to meet the most awesome uncle in the history of uncles.” Also, maybe the daddy.
“He touched you,” Linx said, soft and ominous.
“Well, if you’re going to take out every man who’s ever touched me, I should start a list.” Not that it’d be a long list. But it would, in fact, be a list. Over two people on it, and all that. “It could be worse. It could be Alan’s baby.”
Alan and Courtney had dated for a while, and Linx hated that guy. Courtney thought he was nice enough, just not the kind of guy with sticking power.
“This isn’t funny,” Linx said, but his anger had diffused a touch.
“Of course it’s not funny. And we touchedeach other. It wasn’t thewhatever, man, don’t touch my sister, she’s a little ladybullshit you think it was.” Stupid, yes. Consensual? Also, yes. There had been a lot of touching going on, but it wasn’t only Bax.
Linx probably didn’t want to hear too many details, so she shut her mouth.
“You were off-limits,” Linx continued, but the fight was out of his words.
Because she was right.
“Cedric Lincoln, you don’t get to choose who I am off-limits to.” Wasn’t she the one who got to be angry in this situation? Also, “Any idea where Bax is now?”
Because now would be the time that she should connect with him. Lucky for her, because her family liked to jibber jabber, the initial baby-daddy shock would likely have worn off.
“He knows you’re at the house. My guess is he’ll be there soon,” Linx said. “Do you want me there for this? Want me to call the police to haul his ass away for trespassing?”
“Absolutely not.” The last thing this conversation needed was her big brother going banana pants on the guy who just found out that he got a girl pregnant, or a police officer showing up at the door that was definitely not a stripper. The only police officer she ever liked at her front door was the Strip-O-Gram that Irina sent her two birthdays ago.
No strippers tonight though. Tonight, she had to deal with a reality that didn’t come with a playlist and a thong.
Gah. She needed a minute. Thus, she hung up on her brother. Laid down on his sofa, alone in his living room, giving herself a few moments of peace before—
The pounding on the front door started.
“Who on earth is that?” Mom asked, trotting down the stairs of Linx’s house like it was her house.
Mom checked the peephole as the pounding on the door came harder. “Courtney!”
Bax.
Not that she didn’t know it was him. She’d put two and two together on that front. Still, the blood seemed to drain from her head, making it excessively hard to think and plan and come up with a communication strategy.
Dad, thank goodness, had lived with rock stars and their shenanigans most of his adult life, so Bax and his pounding didn’t faze him.
He moseyed over to the door, past Mom.
Unfortunately for Courtney, Mom’s attention was settled on her. And in that moment, Courtney knew that Mom knew who knocked her up. Linx, with his inability to hold anything close to the chest, had probably told her too.
