“You son of a bitch,” she sneered as she stomped down the hall, leaving the front door wide open. “How dare you!”

“Now Piper,” Erik said, standing up with his hands out in front of him.

“You forgot about the ultrasound, didn’t you?” Phillip asked as he leaned back into the couch.

“Shut up, Phillip!” they both said at the same time. Erik turned to look at Piper just as she picked up his hockey stick.

“Piper, I’m—”

Before he could get anything else out, she swung the stick into the middle of his beautiful seventy-inch LED TV.

“Oh, you are so f**ked, dude,” Phillip laughed as she continued to slam the stick into the screen.

“How dare you!” she screamed as she turned, the stick resting at her side. “How do you forget that today was the day we find out what the baby is! Oh, I know how! Because you are always playing these useless f**king games and you don’t give two shits about this baby or me!” Before he could even move, she swung and slammed the stick into his Xbox console. Erik took in a sharp breath as she continued swinging annihilating his poor game machine. When she was through, Piper was breathless as she turned to him and screamed, “You promised me!” Her body began to shake as tears poured down her face.

“Piper, I’m sorry—”

“I don’t want your apology! Because of you, I still don’t know what my child is because I f**king promised our child that I wouldn’t know unless you were there! I promised myself, and also you. I said I wouldn’t do it because I kept things to myself for so long!” she yelled, and it felt like she was jabbing him in the heart with knives. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to take her in his arms, hold her, kiss her angry mouth, and apologize but he knew there was no touching or even trying to talk to her right now. “So thank you! Thank you for ruining my f**king day and hell, the rest of my pregnancy because the ultrasound techs are fully booked for the next three months, which means I can’t find out what I am having until the baby is born! I wonder if you’ll be there for that, or maybe you’ll f**king forget!”

She threw the stick down, knocking over an end table as she stomped through the house and toward the back door.

“Piper!”

“No!” she said, whirling around and pointing her finger in his face. “No! You have broken my heart, Erik, for the second time, and you get to say nothing else to me!”

Her eyes were wide, tears pooling in them before they fell in heaps. She turned to walk out of the house, slamming the door behind her. Erik never meant to hurt her, and when he looked around the house, he was in complete shock at all the destruction she had caused. The biggest blow was the one she did to his heart. He had never felt like such a piece of shit since he left his father’s abusive home.

“You can promise a fetus things?”

Erik looked down at Phillip and was about to yell at him when he saw he was wearing his hockey helmet. “Why are you wearing that?”

“Dude, I gotta protect my head. She was swinging that stick harder than Shea does, I swear.”

Any other time, Erik would have laughed, but right then he shook his head and dropped down on the couch. “Man, I f**ked up.”

“Uh, yeah. She is pissed.”

“Pissed is not the word for what she is.”

Shaking his head, he buried his face in his hands as he took in a deep breath. She was right. How did he forget? She had reminded him yesterday! Erik’s heart hammered against his ribs. Usually he knew what to do to fix things, but with her, he didn’t know and she was pissed. Pissed enough to break his TV and game system and probably his neck if she wanted to.

God, he was an idiot.

“Yeah, I’m not really sure how you are going to fix this,” Phillip muttered.

“I’m not, either.”

But he knew he had to try.

Because Piper mattered.

Chapter 13

The next morning Erik stood at the lakeshore behind Piper’s house letting the water run up his ankles, his mind completely on her. They hadn’t talked much since yesterday, after she annihilated his toys. He still could not believe he missed the appointment—God, he was an idiot. He was losing his mind worrying about her. The feelings he was having were scaring the hell out of him. But he had no control over them. When it came to Piper, nothing made sense and he was starting to accept that.

Running his hand down his face, he took in a deep breath and reached in his pocket for his phone. Looking down at the display he saw he had no missed calls, no text messages or voice mails. He didn’t even have a Facebook notification, which was so pathetic. Just then the phone lit up with Jakob’s ugly mug, but before he could answer it, Erik jumped in surprise when a hand came down on his shoulder. Looking behind him, a smile came over his face when he saw it was his brother. “Hey, bro, what’s with the phone call, warning me you’re in the vicinity?” he said as Jakob came to stand beside him, his arms folded across his chest.

“Nah, just wanted to make you jump. Why are you standing out here alone?”

Erik let out a breath. “Thinking.”

“About?”

“Piper,” Erik said honestly, with a sideways glance at Jakob.

Jakob nodded as he looked down at the ground.

“They talked yesterday. Harper said that you guys missed the appointment to find out what you’re having.”

Erik nodded. “I forgot.”