Page 73 of Deserving Lara
Stone rolled his eyes. “Whatever. As long as you don’tsmotherme for waking you up.”
“She needs practice with that mothering thing,” Owl said nonchalantly when they were inside the elevator.
“Wait—what? Are you pregnant?” Stone asked incredulously.
“No.”
“Yes.”
She and Owl answered at the same time.
Stone raised a brow in confusion.
“He thinks he has super-sperm and that heknowshe knocked me up last night,” Lara said with a roll ofhereyes this time. She felt her cheeks warm and knew she was blushing, but pressed on. “So he’s assuming I’m one day pregnant, but until I see the line on the test or get the thumbs up from a doctor after he examines my pee, I’m saying no.”
“Ah…right. Congrats then. Since I’m the first to know, do I get the honor of having a kid named after me?” Stone asked.
“Did you hear what I just said? I don’t even know if I’m pregnant,” Lara asked.
The door opened, and the three filed out onto the fourth floor.
“I heard you, but I also know my friend. If Owl says he knocked you up, he knocked you up,” Stone said. “He’s nothing if not stubborn like that.”
“You guys are insane,” Lara said. But deep down, she realized that bantering with Stone and Owl, observing how close the two men were, made it easier not to dwell on her own situation.
“And no, we aren’t naming our daughter Jack,” Owl told him.
“Jacketta has a nice ring to it. Besides, you could have boys.”
“Of course we will,” Owl said. “Our first will be a son. Then we’ll have three girls, then another boy.”
Lara turned to him in astonishment. “We aren’t having five children!” she exclaimed.
“Why not? You want a big family. You told me so yourself.”
She had. But five? Then something occurred to her. “Are we seriously talking about having five children when we haven’t even had one yet?”
“Yup,” Owl said with a small smile.
“Whatever.”
“Stoney is a gender-neutral name,” Stone joked as he opened their hotel room door.
Laughing, Lara relaxed when the door shut behind them. Finally behind a closed, locked door with both Stone and Owl, she felt ten times safer.
“What are we doing for dinner?” Stone asked. “I’m starved.”
“Take-out,” Owl and Lara said at the same time.
She shot him a smile.
“Take-out it is,” Stone agreed as he flopped onto his back on the bed closest to the door. “Let me know when it arrives.”
Owl shook his head at his friend. “Guess we can get that pizza with pineapple you love so much, Lara. Or maybe that broccoli pasta dish you like. We can get a family-style dish big enough for us all.”
Lara was confused. She didn’t like pineapple on pizza, and couldn’t remember talking to Owl about it in any case.
But when Stone sat up and grumbled, “Fine,I’lltake care of ordering dinner,” she realized that Owl had been needling his friend once more.
