Page 35 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Thirty-One

Keir

Keir,

You might be asking yourself—where the fuck is she?

I’m at a shelter for pregnant teenagers.

Surprise, we’re having a baby.

Not that I’ll tell you. I think you’ll freak out and probably get angry at me. At least that’s what I imagine. You’ll yell and ? —

“I never fucking yelled at you, Simone.” My voice cracks more from the truth than the volume. “Not once.”

She glares at me like I’ve committed a fresh sin. “Stop reading my stuff and get the fuck out of here.”

“You never told me.”

“What was the point?” she snaps, jaw clenched. “You would’ve left anyway. At least, in the beginning, I had hope. I . . . not knowing that I meant nothing to you gave me something to hold on to. It’s hard to explain, but it got me through.”

I don’t press. I don’t defend. I go back to the letter because her words hurt in a way I can’t dissect yet—and because I’m not sure I deserve to look at her when she’s bleeding like that.

You’ll yell and then leave me just like the sperm donor did to Nina.

Then there’s my grandparents. They might take away my school privileges, just as they did with her.

When I called the shelter, I told them about Mom and Grandfather.

About how the most pious man in Birchwood Springs turned on his daughter after she got pregnant and . . .

I’m afraid I’ll end up like her.

That they’ll take my baby and I’ll become invisible. That I’ll try so hard to be seen that the entire town will hate me for my behavior.

It feels like history is repeating itself, and I’m trying to cut it off before it swallows me.

I don’t know what’s next, but I’m in a safe place.

If I never see you again, I hope you get everything you deserve.

Love,

Sims.

My throat burns. I swallow it down because there’s no safe place for a reaction like this.

Not with her watching. Not with everything I didn’t know pressing in on me like a bad dream I never woke up from.

I remember—fuck, I remember—that one call.

A week or so after I left Birchwood Springs. She didn’t even sound like herself.

It was right before a fight.

I was backstage, wrapped hands, adrenaline pumping, waiting for my name to be called. Some guy came over telling me someone was looking for me and handed me a phone. It was bizarre because I didn’t know the dude.

Her voice was so calming, which is why I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her. I had to end the call. Simone has always been the one thing that could cut through my rage.

And that night—I needed the rage. Needed the fire in my gut. Needed to be that version of myself who didn’t give a fuck. The one who could throw punches without blinking. Who could watch another man bleed and not flinch. Who could win without caring who he had to become in the process.

But I also had to cut her hopes. I had to set her free.

“How did you find me?” I look up. I need to know.

Her jaw flexes. “Get out.”

“If you had just?—”

“Don’t,” she cuts me off again, voice cold and exhausted. “Don’t say if I’d told you, things would’ve been different. I tried. I fucking tried. But I was a terrified teenager making impossible choices.”

I nod. Or maybe I’m just too stunned to move. My fists clench, but I don’t lash out. I want to ask how she found me that night. Who helped her. But what would that even fix?

She had the baby.

I stare down at the picture. Lyndon. A name. A life. A boy who exists—who happened—and I wasn’t there.

Lyndon.

That’s who she talked to on the phone just now. Jesus. I thought I’d have to break that kid’s jaw for just talking to her. And now?

Now I know he’s mine.

A kid who didn’t grow up carrying my rage or learning how to weaponize silence like a Timberbridge man does. A kid who got her kindness instead of my bitterness.

“Nothing I say can fix this.” My voice is low, but it carries. “You’re right. That Keir . . . he would’ve burned it all down. You, the baby . . . the same way my father burned through my mother.”

“Don’t.” Her voice comes out like a warning. “You’re not him.”

“I might be worse.” The confession tastes like rust. “You have no idea what I’ve done since I left Birchwood Springs.”

Her brow arches. “Illegal street fighting isn’t a mortal sin, Keir.”

I blink. “You knew?”

She shrugs like it’s obvious. Like I’m late to my own story.

“How?”

“It’s complicated.”

Of course it is.

“You two clearly did better without me,” I mutter, letting my gaze sweep over her. She did well. Look at the house at her life. “You’re a doctor with a career. You raised him. You?—”

“Shut up, Keir.” The tone lashes so hard I feel it all the way to my gut. “You don’t know anything about me. Or him. Don’t pretend. Don’t assume. Don’t think. I . . . I’m calling Finn. He’ll get you the fuck out of here. I’ll ask for another assignment. I’ll figure out another way to pay.”

That word—pay—sets something off in me.

“You owe money?” I’m on my feet before I finish the question. “Sims, I can get you out. If you’re stuck here, if someone’s?—”

“You don’t pay family with money.” Her voice cracks, but only a little. She kneels to gather the scattered letters with the precision of someone who’s cleaned up too many emotional spills already.

I rake a hand through my hair. “What the fuck does that mean? There’s no one else. Your grandparents don’t count. And Finn—he’s just your boss, right?”

She doesn’t answer.

Just stacks the envelopes and pictures with care, tucking a corner here, smoothing a crease there, like they’re sacred. Then she hands them to me without meeting my gaze.

“There,” she says. “They’re in the right order. It’s the only way to explain the first eighteen months of his life.”

I don’t mean to, but I reach for her hand. Just a touch—fingers meeting in the space between us and I feel it.

I fucking feel it. The warmth, the tremble. And I don’t pull away.

Though, she turns around immediately, leaving me with a big secret. And I’m not sure whether if I should try to catch her or sit back down and find out what I lost.