Alpha Billionaire Series
Coming Home Chapter 7

MAKENZIE

Everything about this summer was going by so fast and I was terrified I was going to miss something. Miss a moment with Holden, a moment of joy where we could sneak away and be together. I was so concerned about missing something fun that it was the end of July before I realized I had missed my period. I couldn't remember the last time I had it. Fortunately, drugstores sold pregnancy tests, and they're cheap, fast, and easy. I had two purple lines telling me I needed to have a serious talk with Holden. I couldn't wait. Two purple lines meant our timetable would move up. Two purple lines and we wouldn't have to keep hiding; we could tell people that we were in love and that we were going to get married because we were going to have a baby. My phone buzzed, startling me.

"Can I see you?" Holden texted.

"Meet me at the ferry." We had been sneaking away on the ferry to Martha's Vineyard for the past two summers. It gave us time to be together where we could talk uninterrupted.

"Hi, beautiful," he said as he easily strolled over to me, his hands in his pockets. He looked so relaxed. He reached up and brushed a wind-whipped hair from my face. His grin was soft, and he looked tired.

"What's up with you? Good call on the ferry. I have something I want to talk to you about."

"Really? That's fabulous. I have something I want to tell you as well." I grabbed his hands and I skipped up the gangplank after we had our tickets in hand.

We found a bench that overlooked the water and waited for the engines to thrum to life and cast off. Holden started to speak but I put my fingers on his lips. Wait, wait. We hadn't cast off yet. And he knew my fears and always catered to my wishes when it came to waiting, to making sure we were alone. The island got smaller behind us as the ferry chugged its way over to Martha's Vineyard.

"Okay. I have something I need to tell you," I started.

"Let me go first."

"Oh, okay. I guess so. Are you alright?" I pushed down my enthusiasm.

Maybe he had a job. The look on his face had me worried that he wasn't going to be nearby for weekends together. If he wasn't going to be in New York it was going to be much more complicated. He could always come up to see me in Vermont. Mary Brooks College

was in a tiny little town with only one hotel. If I was seen going in and out of that hotel with a man everybody at my school would know about it. But if I was engaged, publicly engaged, I wouldn't have to worry about that.

I bit my lip and quelled my excitement and waited for him to tell me what he needed to share.

Holden's brow furrowed and he looked deep into my eyes. It was like he was trying to search for an answer without asking me a question. As much as I wanted to know exactly what he was thinking, all I could see was the beautiful depths of his eyes.

"What is it? Can you tell me? Did you get a job?"

"Kind of a job," he said.

"That's fabulous. Are you going to be flying?"

He shook his head and shrugged. "Sort of, no. Yes. It's not that kind of job."

"You're not going into finance with Travis, are you?"

Oh God, I hoped he wasn't. I didn't want to have to deal with Travis any more than necessary. It was bad enough that he was my brother. It was terrible that he was Holden's best friend. Travis was the quintessential I hate my sister kind of brother. He did what he could to make my life difficult. I didn't want him getting in the way of my future with Holden.

"Okay, so you've kind of got a job."

"I'm going to have to leave."

"You're moving, when?" I asked tentatively.

He nodded. He picked up my hand and squeezed it hard. A knot formed in my middle, and I no longer had to purposefully keep my enthusiasm down. It had left on its own.

"I can see that you're going to hate this."

"Then why are you doing it?" I winced at the whine in my voice.

His expression dropped; he was sadder than normal. "Dammit, this is harder than I thought it was gonna be. I mean, I'm just going away for the job. I'm not leaving. I'm not breaking up with you." "Okay," I said. That didn't sound good, but what else was there to say? "I leave in ten days."

I blinked hard and looked at him with disbelief. Ten days? I didn't know what else to say. I kept saying okay, like some kind of an idiot. All other words and thoughts got stuck in my chest. Holden stared at my hands in his. "I love you."

I slipped my hand from his and cupped his cheek. The scruff of his beard, not quite grown in, tickled my palm. He was scaring me, but I could do this for him. For us, for our unborn child. "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out. We've survived this long sneaking around. We can keep going. What kind of job did you get? Where are they sending you?"

He lifted his gaze to meet mine again and that's when I knew that whatever it was, I wasn't gonna be seeing him anymore. It wasn't that he wanted to break up with me but that he had to because it wasn't just a job. "I've joined the Army."

I bit the inside of my cheek hard trying to stop the tears. No, no, I didn't understand why. What was he saying?

"You did what?"

"I joined the Army." His voice got quiet, a sure sign that he was getting angry. "It's the right thing to do. I can't call myself a patriot and expect someone else to do the hard work."

"But Holden..." I didn't know what else to say.

"I'm going in as an officer. I go straight to officer training and aviation school."

"Aviation school? So, you are going to be a pilot."

"The Army has pilots?"

He let out a forced chuckle "Yes. The Army has pilots and aviation officers. I'll be flying helicopters."

"Okay. So, you go away for how long? What happens to us?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"I get leave and we can write. There's the telephone. I'm not going to be completely out of touch. I won't be able to do much for the first eight weeks of training. That's the boot camp part." "Right." All I could do was sit and nod.

"But once that's through and I'm into regular officer training courses I can call, I can write to you. I will write to you." He looked so earnest. He believed his own words.

"I just go back to school and wait for you exactly how long? I don't think it's going to be a little bit more than a year before we can do anything about us. It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it. And it's what you really want to do."

He nodded. I bit my lip again and leaned against him. I couldn't help it, but that's when I started crying. I couldn't tell him about the baby. I couldn't replace the words that would make him not do what he needed to do.

"Okay. Okay." There it was. I was saying okay, again.

I twisted my fingers into the fabric of his shirt. I sniffed back tears.

"Makenzie." He stroked my hair.

I scooted so that I was sitting on his lap. I let him hold me for the rest of the ride. Every now and then like a babbling idiot, I would just say okay, okay. I don't know if it was more to remind myself that it would be okay, or if I was telling him, it would be okay. "Okay. Okay."

With each mile closer the ferry got to Nantucket, Holden got a little further away from me.

When he leaned in to kiss me, I flinched back. I was too sad. I couldn't. There was no us anymore. By the time I got home, I was a slobbery crying mess. Of course, the first person I literally walked into was Travis. I smacked into his chest as he was coming out the back door.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I didn't think and blurted out, "Holden is leaving me."

"What?"

"Holden's leaving." I cried and then ran up to my room.

Travis followed and stormed into my room. "What did you mean when you said Holden was leaving you?"

I stared at my brother and with all the anger I felt for Holden that I could not unleash on the man who was causing me the pain, I yelled at Travis.

"We've been seeing each other for two years, and he is leaving to join the Army. He's not waiting for me to finish school like he promised. That's what I meant when I said Holden was leaving."

"What did you do? Why is he leaving?"

And like that Travis turned everything on its end. Like it was my fault that Holden was leaving.

Travis spun on his heels and slammed my door behind him, leaving me alone.