Eric, Jody Kaye [well read books TXT] 📗

I’m pinned against the bathroom door by Colton. He doesn’t particularly like me. He doesn’t seem to like anyone except his brothers and sisters. But that’s the least of my many problems right now. Eric’s mother is delivering the news I’ve been to chicken to give my boyfriend. 

I love Eric and, for both of our sakes, I need to hear what’s being discussed in my boyfriend’s room. I’m not sure what Miss Rose actually knows. I do know it had been stupid going to a local store. Brier would have had a better plan. Brier always finds a way to make it look like she keeps her nose clean.

“I don’t know who y’all think you are fooling. Ginny’s tennis shoes are right there and I’ll bet you the bright pink stain on the heel is from stepping on my azaleas.” Rose notifies her son.

We’ve been found out. Moreover, I’ve been found out. I forgot I stepped on a fallen petal climbing through the window last night in my cheap white tennis shoes.

Planting a different bush under each window is how Miss Rose intended to catch every sneaky child in this house. It doesn’t explain Brier’s absence, but the rest of us went to bed sure that girl weaseled her way out, yet again, without using the front door.

Rose raises her voice, “Colton, for heaven’s sake, let your brother’s pregnant girlfriend be. Ginny, get your butt out here.”

I let out a long-held breath. While Eric is built lean and muscular through construction work, his twin brother is massive from playing football and weight training. Being near Colton clothed is intimidating enough, I don’t want to consider our proximity given the lack thereof. 

My jaw drops. Pregnant. Eric knows I’m having a baby.

Colton’s light eyebrows raise. He laughs menacingly under his breath, mocking, “I have no use for my brother’s leftovers.” Turning to walk toward his own space, he adjusts the towel, flashing me his ass. “You know he’s broke, right? We don’t see a penny until we turn twenty-five. Good luck raising that thing, cuz there ain’t no changing my grandaddy’s will.”

Tears prick behind my eyes. I’ve only cried once so far because there is no sense in denying this situation is all my fault. If Colton’s reaction is the ugliest of any I have to face, I’m glad for it to be over. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the one to tell Eric, which makes me more upset and anxious. I’ve been trying to find a way to break the news to him. What I did was wrong.

The idea of being apart from Eric has been tearing me up for months. There had been times recently I’d fancied the two of us living in an off-campus apartment in Beaumont, with our collective things intertwined in the truest sense; His cowboy boots next to my Doc Martens. It had been fleeting. Eric intends to stay here. I never wanted to force him away from the life he saw himself living, but I am guilty of throwing it off track.

Eric doesn’t need to leave town to find himself, he knows who he is. Come July, he’s moving out of this gigantic house and paying rent to live in one of the stablehand apartments. He plans to work his way up in the family business. There are concepts he’ll never acquire in a classroom, things Mr. Cavanaugh will teach Eric, and he’s a capable learner. Eric isn’t fool enough to believe he won’t need some sort of higher education to round him out. He’s taking a few courses here and there and it’s why he’s pushing me to go away without him.

Good men like Eric are hard to find. I would know. My Daddy had been one of those men. His death when I was eight hit the community hard. My mother’s second husband plays to everyone’s sympathy. His public face is a show, the private one enough to make my fingers curl into fists. Everyone thinks he’s upstanding and that we live a lovely life. One similar to the kind the Cavanaugh’s have, without the luxury. I could do without any extravagance if it allows me to regain some of the security I felt when my mother and real daddy had been married.

I’ve compared our love story to my parents’. Eric played dumb to get me to help him in math class. I was quick to unravel his scheme. A boy can’t know how to read a blueprint with levels and not have an idea of geometry. Eric is the quiet one who keeps to himself and it’s doubtless I’d have fallen for his shy smile without him even placing designs on me. He’s not watching the world pass him by; he’s a keen observer with a soul older than his years.

All the girls in are aware a Kingsbrier son is a catch, but despite Colton’s nasty remark, I’ll love Eric when he’s dirt poor. Maybe someday I’ll forgive Colton for his harsh words too.

Other than the same blonde hair and green eyes, for twins they are no more alike than any of the other Kingsbrier siblings. Perhaps their bond is because they once were identical and it’s why Eric talks more about Colton than their oldest brother, Adam, who is much nicer to everyone.

The truth about the baby hasn’t left the tip of my tongue. I haven’t swallowed it down or spit it out. Day after day keeping the secret from Eric burns regret into my soul. There have been countless times I’ve stumbled trying to tell Eric. I was almost there before his mother interrupted. Then he’d gone and done it again, making the situation all about his brother enlisting in the Navy.

In the end, it doesn’t matter anymore why I lost my nerve. Why I snuggled down one last night into the softness of his sheets, lost in the sensation of our bodies moving together when I knew today I’d have to face the music. Eric deserved better than being lied to. That’s what I’ve been doing since I realized the tests from