Page 11 of The Alibi Club

“Pregnant. We’re pregnant.”

Jamie’s mouth fell all the way open. She tried very hard to process what her younger brother was saying. “Impossible.”

Rip half smiled and then nodded. “Yeah. She’s due in six months. I was going to ask her to marry me at SoCal Gaming Expo where we first met, but it looks like I’ll have to move that up. Why didn’t you tell me you and Chaz broke up?”

“Sorry, this is going to take something a little stronger.” Jamie got up and stalked to the kitchen in search of something potent enough to burn the rust off a bumper, picked up and rattled an empty whiskey bottle from the pantry, angrily tossed it and then found relief in the form of sour gummy worms. Sugar would have to do. She opened a massive Costco-sized jar and ate a handful.

Rip walked in the kitchen and stopped Jamie from grabbing another fistful of candy worms. “Jamie, why didn’t you tell me you and Chaz broke up? I wasn’t really a fan of him to be honest, but still.”

“Chaz wasn’t anything serious. He doesn’t matter.” Jamie continued to chew through her gummy worms, her face growing hot. “Besides, you haven’t exactly been forthcoming, brother o’ mine.” She ripped the jar away from him and stalked back to the living room.

Rip followed her. “Jamie, I’m thirty-nine. You’re forty-one. Maybe M.O.M has a point.”

Jamie whirled on him. “How dare you say that about that controlling old crone!”

“Okay, I’m sorry. But when she called us middle-aged, it hit a nerve. I just think that growing up is probably going to happen whether we adapt to the idea or not.”

“I am grown up. I have a lease, a car, a job. What else does she want from me?”

Rip shrugged and quietly said, “I know it’s jarring, especially coming from our ice queen of a mother, but even I’m noticing that you aren’t…”

“What?”

“That you haven’t really moved on since Nathan.”

There it was. Fucking Nathan again. Exasperated, Jamie threw up her hands and stared at the floor, images of Nathan’s pregnant girlfriend/wife flashing through her mind. She muttered, “I’m fine. I’m over him. I’m over it.”

Rip gently reached for her chin and lifted it up so he could look her in the eyes. “It was brutal what he put you through. I would have beaten him to a pulp if he hadn’t left the country. But if you stay here in this headspace, you might never get out from under it.”

Jamie nodded, knowing he was right, but not knowing the first thing about how to move on from that kind of heartbreak.

Rip added, “Plus you’ll be dead broke if M.O.M. gets her way, and she’s mean enough she might just follow through. We can’t let that that happen, now can we?”

Jamie gave a half smile and nodded. “Leave it to M.O.M to sidle up to some new codger, black-widow style, and march toward wedlock again. I can’t even get a date.”

“I’m just saying, maybe put in some effort?”

Jamie suppressed the urge to clamp her hands around her little brother’s throat. Rip was edging precariously close to never seeing their mom’s money either with that kind of mouth.

“I put in effort!” But Jamie’s retort sounded hollow. She stood there in giraffe pajamas, holding her gummy worms, trying to be defiant. It occurred to her that she was both incensed at the implication that being alone was somehow sad and alarmed that she had gone from “a great catch” to “We’re worried about you” in the time it took to blow out her digital birthday candles. She mentally avoided her chardonnay addiction, her delivery-fueled lifestyle, and being on her second day without washing her hair.

Rip shrugged helplessly then offered, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I’ve got to pick up Poppy in an hour. Ultrasound appointment is today.”

Jamie put down the gummy worms, as if really hearing his words for the first time. Her kid brother was going to have a baby. “Rip. You’re going to be a dad.” Her voice cracked with a half sob as she mustered up genuine love and happiness for him.

Rip turned toward her and beamed, like a natural soon-to-be proud father would. “Yeah, I am.”

Jamie ran over to her brother and wrapped her arms around him. “You’re going to be great,” she said into the nape of his neck, then sniffed. “Just like dad.”

He chuckled. “Thanks, big sis. Hopefully I’ll be around a little longer than he was for us, though.”

She loosened her hug as they both fell silent, remembering their father and all his brightness and fiery love, his tenderness, his dance moves, his uproarious sense of humor, his way of protecting them from the emotional brutality of their mother. Jamie smiled to herself for a moment, but in a flash, those memories began to mix with others; darker memories crept in, of his unpredictability, his lies, his disappearance. The whole cycle lasted around ten seconds. It was all she could take before muting it all and pulling back out of the hug with her brother.

“I swear, I will be the best, most kickass auntie ever. Even though all outward appearances would lead you to believe I am a train wreck.”

“You’re not a train wreck.”

“Yeah, well, M.O.M. changed all that. I have motivation now. I can’t wait to spend my inheritance on my little niece or nephew.”