GREED(67)

Bridge, sporting a little bit bigger bump than the week before, sat next to me.

She sighed. “I look pregnant now.”

I laughed a little. “Yeah, I mean, kinda, I guess. It’s just this tiny little bulge. I thought you’d be a bit bigger than this, actually.”

“Dr. Harmon said he’s not that surprised and that first pregnancies take a while to show, especially in someone as slim as I.”

“Ah, I see.”

“So, uh, what’s going on with you today?” she whispered.

“Dude, I f’ed up royally.”

“What happened?” she asked, taking a sip of water.

“I don’t even know, to be honest. I said something to Cricket, you know, to push her, really, and she reacted completely differently than I thought she would.”

“What the hell did you say?”

“I told her that I thought she was Ethan because she was afraid to leave him.”

“What did she do when you said that?”

I turned toward my sister. “Bridge, she broke my heart, reacted like I’d slapped her. She was trying really hard not to sob and ran as fast as she could.”

“Damn, Spence, you really know how to push a girl.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you for that.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. As soon as I can, I need to get her alone and try to convince her to let me apologize.”

Just then, yelling erupted from the living, and Bridge and I looked at one another before leaping up to see what was going on. We raced down the corridor where a small crowd had gathered. At the end of the hall, Jonah heard us coming and turned toward us. He immediately tucked Bridge behind him as if to protect her, which made me nervous.

I pushed through the other hands and stood up front. It was Ethan and Cricket at the bottom of the large log stairwell in the center of the room, and Ethan was yelling at her at the top of his lungs. I made a move toward them to stop him, but Emmett stayed me with a hand so I obeyed. Ellie and Emmett stood very near Cricket.

“This can’t be happening!” Ethan yelled at the ceiling. His long black hair had fallen from its leather strap and shook with each word.

“Ethan, listen, I—” Cricket began to say but he stopped her.

“No! You don’t understand! I need to do this for you, Cricket!” he practically screamed in her face, making my blood boil.

I clenched my jaw as well as my fists.

“I’m not going to ask you to do this for me, Ethan. It’s too much of a sacrifice.”

“Cricket,” he said, his voice shaking. He fell to his knees and hugged her waist, then looked into her face. “I don’t understand this at all. How could you consider this a sacrifice, if I don’t? I love you.”

“I love you too,” she told him sweetly. Although the words matched, their meanings were completely different.

“We were on schedule,” he said, not realizing it. “Everything was so perfect. What’s changed?”

Cricket fell to her knees and held his face in her hands. “Ethan,” she said, then broke down crying. “It’s too much to ask. It’s just too much.”

“It’s not. I’ve offered because I’m in love you. I want to marry you, Cricket. What better reason to do this than that?”

“I can’t,” she said, explaining nothing else and stood.

She pried Ethan’s hands from around her waist, but he fought her, begging her to reconsider whatever it was they were arguing about. The tears streamed, but she had made her decision and shook her head twice before bounding up the stairs. It took everything in me not to chase after her, but I knew it wasn’t my place, so I held back.

Ethan slumped into himself, his hair falling forward, shielding him.

Surprising me, Ellie fell to the second step on the bottom of the stairwell, buried her face in her hands and wept openly. Emmett sat with her and held her hand but didn’t say a word.

The other hands had dispersed back to the dining hall, realizing they’d overstayed their welcome from the beginning. I turned around and went to Jonah and Bridge.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

He looked down at his feet. “I’m, uh, not really sure.”

“Bull, Jonah. Just tell me what’s going on?”

He looked at me with sympathy. “You’re in love with her, with Cricket,” he stated.

“I’m not.”

“Then it seems you shouldn’t worry about it,” he told me. “It seems to be a private matter to me.”

He led Bridge off toward the dining hall and left me there speechless. I turned when I saw Emmett pass me and follow Bridge and Jonah. Ellie still sat on the steps but she’d stopped crying, though her head hung low, thinking. I looked around and saw that Ethan was nowhere to be found.