Kelly Jamieson - Breakaway

He rubbed his eyes. “I should have just come and told you right away. I acted like an idiot and I’m sorry. My coach is pissed off at me, the team’s pissed off at me, my parents are pissed off at me, you’re pissed off at me. Shit.”

She nodded, but was softening inside, her heart thawing just a little.

But fear still held her in an icy grip.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him, voice shaky.

“I don’t know.” He swallowed. “I knew I had to tell you about it. That’s why I came to see you the other day. But I still don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Do you still care about Brianne?”

“No. Well…” His hesitation was like a slap in the face and she flinched. “I care about her as a friend. We were together a long time. But I don’t love her, Remi. I love you. Please, please believe that.”

She drew in a long shaky breath, and nodded.

“But I do care about my child,” he continued, his voice so low and deep she had to listen carefully. “I know I have to do the right thing for my child. I just don’t know what that is. Is it being with Brianne?”

She jerked and blinked. He shrugged his big shoulders.

“I just don’t know.” His voice caught, and wonderingly, she watched the big brute hockey player’s eyes grow glossy. “I want to be with you, Remi, more than anything in the world, but I have an obligation now to someone else that I have to live up to. I have to be a man. I have to be responsible.”

She understood that. She truly did, because she’d had to be responsible her whole life and she knew what that felt like. She nodded as her heart splintered and cracked inside her rib cage.

“I don’t want to keep you hanging while I figure it out,” he continued. “That’s not fair to you.”

She would wait. She wanted to say it, but held the words in. Tears blurred her vision yet again.

“I love you, Remi,” he said hoarsely. He shifted along the couch cushions and she put out a hand to push him away because if he touched her, she’d be done, but he just moved her hand aside and pulled her onto his lap. She held onto him, wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his neck and inhaled the warm, male scent of his skin. For the last time. She dug her fingers into the softness of his hair. Tears wet her cheeks and his neck and his arms wrapped around her too, squeezing her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe. She felt his big body shudder and knew…he was crying too. “I love you, Remi. But I can’t be with you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to do this to you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut at the pain, like a knife dragged from her sternum down through her intestines. She knew. She couldn’t speak to say the words, but she knew.

He’d done it. He’d told Remi. He’d broken her heart and his along with it. Now he had to go see Brianne.

He’d made a decision. Now he had to tell her.

His insides churned.

Last night’s game had been another disaster, but at least it hadn’t been entirely his fault. Or maybe everyone just sensed that he was still messed up and that’s why Arnette had let in three goals that should never have happened, why Dom and Matthieu had taken stupid penalties. They’d been fighting their way from behind the entire game and although Jason had played with everything he had, it hadn’t been enough to pull out a win. They’d now lost three in a row and were up against the wire again. Sunday’s game was either the end of the road or bought them time. At least it was a home game.

Jason hadn’t been to Brianne’s apartment since that night he’d broken up with her. She’d dropped off the few things he’d left at her place shortly after that and he’d never been back. And his hands were sweaty now as he waited for her to let him in.

“Hi.” She stood there, looking more like her usual self. Since she earned her living with how she looked, it wasn’t surprising that she’d managed to get herself back on track fairly quickly. She didn’t even look pregnant, dressed in low-rise jeans and a snug T-shirt. “Come on in.”

He walked in, legs rubbery as if he’d just skated a few hours of drills, and he rubbed his palms on his jeans.

“How are you feeling?” he asked politely.

“Tired.” She made a face.

“You haven’t been sick or anything?”

She shook her head. “No. Thank god. Just really, really tired. All the time. And hungry. It’s hard to keep myself from eating.”

He frowned. “You have to eat, Brianne. For the baby.”

“I still have to watch what I eat. I can’t put on weight too fast.”

“But…that’s what happens when you get pregnant. You put on weight.”

“I know that.” She pressed her lips together. “I just don’t want to use the pregnancy as an excuse to eat everything in sight. I can’t put on weight right now, I have jobs— contracts I have to fulfill. Don’t worry, Jase, I know I’m going to gain weight. I just want to make sure it’s not too much, too fast.”

He knew nothing about pregnancy. “How much is too much? How much are you supposed to put on? Like, the baby’s going to weigh seven or eight pounds, right?”

She shrugged and motioned for him to have a seat. “They say twenty to thirty pounds is healthy, but I would die if I put on thirty pounds. If I can keep it under twenty pounds, I should be okay.”

His brows drew together. Twenty or thirty pounds? No wonder she was freaked out. “But thirty pounds is healthy. What if you…” Jesus, he was going to have to do some studying up on this. He needed to know these things. “What if you starve the baby and he doesn’t grow properly?”

She just waved a hand. “I said, don’t worry, Jase.”

“Well, I am worried. It’s my baby too, remember?”

“I know, I know. That’s why you’re here. You wanted to talk.”

Brianne walked across her living room to a book shelf and picked up something. When she turned to him, she was shaking a cigarette out of a package.

Jason jolted to his feet. “What the hell are you doing!”

She blinked at him, then looked at the cigarette. “Uh…having a cigarette.”

He strode across the room and yanked the slender cylinder out of her fingers, then grabbed the entire package. He crushed the package in one fist, the cigarette in the other. “You can’t smoke when you’re pregnant!”

She took a step back, her perfectly groomed brows rising. “When did you become such an expert on pregnancy?”

“Jesus, Brianne! Everyone knows that!”

“I can’t quit, Jase. I’ve tried before.”

He rolled his eyes. He’d never liked her smoking. She’d tried not to do it around him, so it bothered him less, but he knew she did. He could smell it on her clothes and sometimes her breath. He knew how terrified she was of putting on weight, and every time she’d tried to quit, a couple of pounds on the scale had her breaking open the tobacco again. He’d put up with it, didn’t bug her about it, because—it was her life

But now it wasn’t just her life. It was their baby’s life.

“Yes you can. We’ll talk to your doctor. Maybe there’s something they can do to help you.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you aren’t putting the baby first.”

“I am!” she cried. “I do care! It’s just not that easy.”

“That’s what being a parent is,” he said shortly. “It’s not easy, but you give up things for the sake of your children. Because you love them and they’re the most important thing in the world.” Remi…

She nodded slowly. Jason went into her bathroom and crumpled the cigarettes into the toilet and flushed them. There.

When he returned, Brianne was sitting on her couch, leaning back, arms folded across her chest, her full lips even fuller in a small pout.

“So what did you come to talk about?” she asked. “Other than my smoking and eating habits.”

“I will not let you endanger our child by putting nicotine in your body when you’re pregnant,” he said through clenched teeth. “You’re going to quit, Brianne, and I don’t care if you put on fifty pounds in the next week. I don’t care about your goddamn contracts. I’m here to help financially, I’ll make sure you’re okay, but you are not going to smoke.”

She stared at him, hands on hips. Her bottom lip trembled. “Financially?” she asked. “That’s what this is about?”

He closed his eyes. What did she expect from him?

“Well, I guess that’s one more good thing about sleeping with a jock. Not much intellectual stimulation, but you’ve got a great body and at least you’ve got lots of money.”

His stomach bottomed out at her careless words and he stared at her. What the fuck did she just say? She did not just call him a stupid jock. His head whirled.

Stupid. He was not stupid. Remi’d told him that.

But he wasn’t irresponsible, either. Not anymore.

“I wanted to talk about how we’re going to do this,” he said heavily, sitting down in a chair across from her. “I’m the father of this baby and I have a responsibility to the baby and I want to do the right thing.”

* * *

Jasmine woke Remi up Sunday morning, later than she should have slept, but once again her night had been restless and agitated, with bad dreams and waking up sweaty and shaky. Her head throbbed, her eyes felt gritty from crying and her stomach ached.

“I can’t believe you’re still in bed,” Jasmine said. “But I saw the for sale sign outside! So you’re going to sell the house, that’s fantastic!”

“Yeah.” Fanbloodytastic. Remi yawned and walked to the kitchen to make some coffee, shuffling in her flannel pants and bare feet. “The realtor seems pretty optimistic that it will sell quickly.”