No, there’s fear in her eyes that I decide not to antagonize.
See, I’m growing up fast, aren’t I?
My eyes meet Cade’s, and his go to the nurse’s before shifting back to mine.
“I love you,” I tell him, and his jaw clenches tight, but I don’t wait to see if he’s going to answer me. I don’t care if he does.
I slip into the hall and close the door behind me, putting my back against it.
Beast is waiting for me.
I look up to find him watching me, and my heart breaks into pieces beneath the intensity of his stare. He escorted me down the hall to Grainger’s room when I got here, but that’s the only interaction we’ve had since Crown broke the news to me.
You married me knowing I was pregnant with another man’s baby.
This is soap opera level shit right here.
That or … it’s like love in its purest form. Nothing else matters except that we’re supposed to be together. Do I believe in that shit? I want to. But if I allow myself, will it break me?
Probably.
“Sin wants to see you,” Beast tells me, his voice carefully neutral. He sounds like he’s holding back; I recognize it in the tightness of his shoulders, the way he seems almost disturbingly calm when he’s anything but.
“Right.”
I take off down the hall before I’m forced to acknowledge the attention, finding Sin waiting for me. He’s sitting up, and his color is much improved from the last time I was here.
A grin takes over my lips as I end up in his lap again. He grunts, but he puts his arms around me anyway, letting me kiss him with a fervor that makes me want to wiggle on his lap. If only …
“I might be able to go home this weekend,” he says, his mouth as stained with lipstick as Grainger’s. I swipe the color away with my thumb. “Whatever that means.” Sin reaches up to tousle his blue hair.
Back to the farmhouse. Or to my Gram’s place.
That’s what he’s asking.
I decide to shift the subject to an even more agonizing one: the pregnancy.
It’s sort of a time sensitive subject; I can’t bury my head in the sand and ignore it.
For all the reasons that I wasn’t ready to talk about this with Grainger, I feel like I should talk about it with Sin. Partially because Grainger is so damn convinced that he’s the one that got me pregnant. He’s the one I gave the tests to, that I shared that emotional moment with in the kitchen. He told the others, but he hasn’t told me yet.
I feel like he’s the one that needs to bring it up.
Sin is like … easy rationality in an irrational world. He’s never told me what I wanted to hear, just the truth—whether I like it or not. The other three, I imagine, might romanticize the idea of having a child with me. Sin wanted to eject me as far and as fast from club life as he could. He won’t talk me in or out of anything for his own benefit.
“Crown told me,” I admit, and I decide that in the future, group discussions are in order. It’s fucking agonizing to drag these things out person by person. But hey, it’s a learning curve.
The whole idea of considering other people’s thoughts and feelings is new to me. First off, I never gave a shit what Cat or Nellie wanted because they never gave a shit about me. As for my sisters, I was the youngest and so that sort of responsibility never fell on my shoulders.
Now, here I am with two huge issues that need working out: the pregnancy and the sharing.
Beast said he might not be inclined to share.
So what the fuck does that mean?
What do I do if that’s the case?
The only way I’m going to find out the answers to my questions is to figure out how to talk things through with these men.
Sin grimaces, resting his hands on my hips. He knows what I’m talking about, even if I’m being vague.
“I figured you wouldn’t be happy,” he remarks, but in a carefully neutral sort of way.
I push my hair back with both hands and stare down at him. He said that once he had me, he was never letting go. But does this change things? Should it?
Not for the first time, I wish that we’d had a normal—at least for us, anyway—reception. I wish Beast and I had been able to dance all night, and fuck until morning, and I wish that stupid test was negative.
But wishes don’t get things done.
Actions do.
I should know: my list of unfilled wishes is longer than Beast’s dick—and trust me, not many things are.
“I’m not, and I’m still processing it.” I scrub at my face with both hands and try to breathe through the sudden rush of anxiety. Until just now, it hadn’t hit me. It’s hitting me now. Hard.
