I scratched my scalp with both hands, trying to force life back into my brain. It was useless. Everything in there was broken, and my heart? Fuck, it was shredded.

“Have you even slept?”

I shook my head, sinking onto my bed.

“You want to talk about the fight?”

“What?”

“With Amber?” she asked. “I slept through it, but Sean said she left here in a hurry yesterday. Crying.”

The image burned my mind. I wanted to take back everything I said. I’d been so angry. In a rage-filled cloud brought on by sheer panic. Tessa’s news had drowned me, and I was so scared for her. The blame on the blog…on Amber…I’d lost it.

I should’ve waited. Should’ve breathed. Should’ve listened to her.

And with Tanner knowing…hell, he’d probably find a way to stop an MIT acceptance letter from coming.

I’m an asshole.

“What did you do?” Tessa snapped.

“I don’t know. Ruined things.” I rolled my neck and stretched my arms, focusing on her. “We don’t need to talk about this. There are far more important things happening right now,” I said, eyeing her slightly bulging tummy. How had I not noticed it before?

God, that will change soon.

The idea of me being an uncle was both terrifying and exciting. But Tessa being a mom? It was straight alien-planet territory. “Tell me what I can do to help you, Tessa,” I continued.

“You can start by fixing things with Amber.”

“What?” I pointed at her. “It’s not that simple, and besides, you’ve got way too much to handle on your own right now. Tell me. What can I do?”

She sighed, her hand rubbing back and forth over her stomach like it wasn’t even a thought. “Forgive me?”

“Oh, Tess,” I said, scooting along the edge of the bed until I was almost knee-to-knee with her. I took her hands in mine. “I’d never judge. You know that. This…it just happened a lot sooner than you expected.”

She smiled, but her eyes were shining with unshed tears. “That’s true,” she said. “But I did something bad.”

I arched a brow at her. “Tessa,” I chided. “I know about the video prank, and the”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“soon-to-be Winters baby. What else could you have possibly done?”

A crease formed between her brow, and my stomach dropped. “You know I was running off like zero sleep yesterday? I had been averaging one or two hours a night for weeks. I was so stripped and raw. It wasn’t until you forced me to tell you everything that I could breathe. I slept for what felt like forever after that.”

“Okay,” I said, waiting for the ball to drop.

“And you know how it is when you get so exhausted,” she said. “You lash out. Do things you shouldn’t?”

“Tess.”