Confiding in the Wrong Friend

*Isla*

“I just don’t understand how he can be so confident about the existence of this curse but not be willing to budge an inch when it comes to the discussion of the fountain.” I take a bit of my piece of toast and shake my head, not sure if I’m actually going to be able to eat much of what Poppy has set before me on the table this morning. All night, I tossed and turned, thinking about Maddox and the discussion we’d had right before I asked him to leave the night before.

“Well, he is very protective of you,” Ben says, still chewing. His appetite has definitely not been affected by this situation. He came back to check on me after he was certain Maddox was gone last night, and I’d told him I was pregnant and needed to get some rest. He’d been ecstatic to know he was going to be an uncle again. My sisters have kids after all, but he never gets to see them because they live so far away, and even though I do, too, now, my brother and I are very close, much closer than he is with anyone