The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(73)

“Honey, when are you going to realize? We know everything.”

“We went to the administration right away, of course,” Raina said. “But they were useless. The fuckers.”

Olive nodded tightly. “I’ll never forgive that principal you had. He was such a bigoted asshole.”

“We tried to get you to change schools,” Raina said. “You flat out refused.”

“You didn’t want our help,” Olive said.

“It wasn’t that,” Brynn said.

“Then what?” Olive asked.

She’d avoided this conversation for years, and for a very good reason. She hated to say or do anything that would hurt them, and this would hurt them. “It wasn’t just me having a hard time. You two faced criticism and shunning for bringing a child into your world.”

Olive and Raina looked stricken. “You knew?” Raina whispered.

Brynn nodded. “I hated what you were going through because of me, and didn’t want to add to it. Changing schools wouldn’t have helped any of us. It would’ve felt like giving in.”

“First,” Olive said, “you were never at fault. Never, baby.”

Brynn held her gaze and felt the love. So much that she couldn’t speak.

“Can you tell us what the real reason was that you didn’t want us to help you get info on your father?” Olive asked.

Brynn let out a breath. “I didn’t want you to think that you weren’t enough. Or have any regrets about having me.”

Raina burst into tears. Olive’s voice sounded thick with emotion as well. “I never regretted a single thing about you,” she said with the intensity of a mama bear.

“You’re our whole world,” Raina said. Or at least that what’s Brynn thought she said, though it was hard to tell, because when Raina cried, only dogs could hear her.

“I finally let you try my magic mascara this morning and you’re crying it all off,” Olive said, not sounding all that steady herself. “Stop.”

Raina swiped at her tears. “You can’t just tell someone to stop crying. It only makes them cry harder.”

Olive hugged her and looked over her head to Brynn. “I’m so sorry you felt you had to protect us. We should’ve been the ones protecting you. It was our life choices that led to this happening to you.”

“How you choose to live shouldn’t matter to anyone else,” Brynn said fiercely. “You are who you are, and I love you both so much.”

At that, she had all of them crying, and no one cared very much about their mascara. Finally, Olive got a box of tissues and pulled out more banana bread. “I’d get out the gin, but it’s seven in the morning.”

“You’ve spent too much of your entire life trying to please everyone,” Raina said to Brynn. “And that’s got to be exhausting. I think it’s time to please yourself.”

“What would please me is to find my father. Not for me. I mean, let’s be realistic. He didn’t sign up to be a dad, and I don’t need one. But Kinsey needs a donor. I’m going to get tested too.”

“I’ve still got a friend at the fertility clinic,” Olive said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Thanks,” Brynn said gratefully. “I was so afraid I’d hurt your feelings.”

“Never.” Olive cupped Brynn’s face. “But that’s not all that’s weighing on you. There’s something else.”

Wasn’t there always . . . “I’m . . . having a lot of feelings that I didn’t intend to have.”

“Well, that’s normal,” Raina said. “Kinsey’s your sister. No matter how complicated your relationship has been over the years, blood ties bind us.” She smiled. “Even when we don’t know they’re there.”

Olive was watching Brynn’s face, and she slowly shook her head. “She doesn’t mean just Kinsey. She also means Eli.”

“How do you know?”

Olive smiled. “Hard to miss the chemistry between you two. When you look at each other, the air crackles.”

“He’s wonderful,” Raina said.

Olive nodded. “But he’s also a man. And where there’s a penis, there’s trouble.”

Brynn choked on her banana bread.

Raina laughed so hard she just about had a coronary.

When Brynn left for work a few minutes later, her lunch bag was bursting with leftovers. Her heart felt just as full, because, one, she was going to find her and Kinsey’s dad, and, two, she’d called and gotten an appointment tomorrow to get her blood test. Life was looking up.

BRYNN’S MORNING IN the classroom didn’t go quite as smooth as visiting her moms. Suzie had “borrowed” her best friend’s pencil box, broken it, and then lied about it. Matt pushed his best friend into the sprinklers on the playground grass, and then told everyone he peed his pants, and so on. Also a new girl joined the class after moving into town. When Brynn asked her if she wanted to tell everyone her name and share anything, she’d said: “Hi, my name’s Charlotte and my daddy has a baby that my mommy didn’t have and now we’re living in Wildstone with my grandma.”

Right before lunch, already exhausted, she and the kids made a big sharing circle. “Okay,” she said, holding the talking stick. “So we had a bit of a rough morning, testing some of our friendships, but I think we overcame it. The thing about friends is that you have to treat someone the way you want to be treated. There’s a message in the way you treat people.” She thought about how Kinsey had treated her back at summer camp compared to how they were now.