Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Ella
The next day passes in a blur. I never take more than three steps away from my phone. It goes into the bathroom with me when I shower, and I carefully set it right next to the shower stall so I can hear it if it rings.
I refuse to believe Tommy is dead. No way. I won’t believe it unless I see his dead body. And I won’t see his dead body, because he’s alive.
Simple.
Kingston and Sebastian have been tiptoeing around me.
King even takes the day off work. I don’t know why they’re here, though—it’s not as if there’s anything they can do.
We’re just waiting for news that might never come.
Yes, Jaxon promised to check in, but he might be checking in with a whole lot of nothing.
Despite my frustration and sorrow and anxiety, despite the fact I kind of want to kick both men out of the penthouse and be left in peace for my wallowing and nerves, I’m grateful that they’re here. Without them, this waiting and worry would be so much worse.
Kingston coaxes me to the balcony for a midday swim.
The sun perks me up a little, but I don’t even want to be underwater for long, for fear of missing a call from Ironwood.
Sebastian makes us sandwiches after the swim, but I can’t force myself to eat.
I pick at the crust and try not to stare at my phone.
I’ve gotten a couple of texts from Natasha and Olivia, congratulating me on my performance last night.
They hadn’t been able to come, which I hadn’t minded because the whole affair was so last-minute.
But now, they’ve been watching clips uploaded to VideYou by people from the audience and by Red Letter, which has its own channel.
They’ll share some of the videos with me to cross-post, an arrangement Helena made on my behalf.
Hearing from Natasha and Olivia brings back the fact that I had an amazing show last night.
I wish I was more in the mood to celebrate.
I wish the last words to my brother hadn’t been telling him that I couldn’t have him in my life. I told him I was done. If he’s dead now, those are the last things he heard from me.
Fuck. I press my hands to my eyes, trying not to cry.
Sebastian and Kingston get out of their chairs and come around the table. They pull me into a big hug, and eventually I can breathe again.
“What can we do?” Sebastian asks. “Is there anything you want right now?”
“I just want my brother back,” I say. “I want to know what’s going on, and I want him safe. But you guys can’t control that.”
“No,” Kingston says sadly, “we can’t. Can I put a show on TV? Something to distract you? You like that vampire saga, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, although I couldn’t care less about what those two stupid vampires get up to.
The girl in their love triangle should just choose them both and call it good.
Honestly, my initial reaction to that show when I was a teen—shouting, “Pick both, you donut!” at the heroine—should have been a good indicator of where I might end up someday: equally in love with two wonderful men.
Then again, I never would have dreamed I could end up with guys like Kingston and Sebastian.
I half-watch the high-school drama unfold with the vampires mucking up every event. Homecoming, football games, snooty weird-ass city celebrations, parties in the woods. The other part of my attention is on my phone, which is sadly silent on the coffee table in front of us.
Sebastian and Kingston sit on either side of me, buffers against the sorrows of the world.
Finally, at four p.m, a call comes in from Ironwood. I almost elbow Bash in the gut in my rush to grab it.
“Hello?” I answer breathlessly.
“Ella, this is Jaxon.”
“Do you have news?” I don’t even bother with the niceties, but given the circumstances, I’m sure he doesn’t mind too much.
“Yes. We had team members canvasing, searching for a body, but what they found instead was evidence that your brother walked out of that hotel room in Bellefleur on his own. Video surveillance footage from nearby buildings shows someone who looks just like him walking out, although it does look as if he was forced to go. We’ve shared that footage with the police.
Detective Marks is now more helpful than ever, because there’s something to go on. ”
Kingston and Sebastian are watching my face. I’m not sure what I’m hearing.
“Wait,” I say to Jaxon. “Can you say what all this means?”
“It means my team thinks your brother could be alive after all.”
I knew it. I knew it.
Thank heavens I didn’t call Gianna last night or this morning. Stressing her unnecessarily, so close to the baby’s due date, could’ve been bad.
Jaxon and I exchange a few more words, and then we end the call.
“They think Tommy’s okay,” I blurt as soon as I hang up.
Kingston and Sebastian take turns kissing my cheeks. I hug them and laugh and feel so much relief. No, we don’t have Tommy back yet, and he could still be in a lot of danger. But at least we’re no longer looking for a body.
“How do you feel, babe?” Sebastian asks.
“Famished,” I say.
“I’ll order something,” he says. “What do you want?”
“Actually, I want to get some groceries. I want breakfast for dinner, and I want to make it.” I’ve spent all day cooped up in the penthouse and it’s starting to feel like a prison, although I’d never admit that to the guys. It was a prison of my own making, and had nothing to do with them.
Now that I have Ironwood’s assurance that Tommy still has a fighting chance, I need to get out and move around a little.
* * *
Kingston
After Ella leaves with her bodyguards, Sebastian fucks off to the studio to dick around with his guitar.
I want to do something nice for Ella, but I’m not sure what.
She’s already got it in her head to cook breakfast for dinner.
I open the refrigerator and give a critical look to what’s inside.
A little basket of strawberries rests on the top shelf, so I take them out.
I can slice them to put over the waffles or pancakes or whatever Ella decides to make.
Contrary to all of Bash’s shit-talk about how I don’t know how to find anything in the kitchen, I am actually not terrible at food prep.
I grab a cutting board and small knife, wash the strawberries, and get to work.
In no time, I have a nice little mound of delectable-looking strawberry slices, perfect as a side for breakfast-for-dinner.
“Nice,” Sebastian says, coming from the hall toward me. “She’ll love that.”
“Poor girl’s been under so much stress lately,” I say. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Well, don’t leave her with a messy kitchen,” he says with a laugh.
Flipping him off, I gather the strawberry stems and carry them to the pull-out cabinet where the trash and recycling are hidden. But when I dump them in, one of the stems goes wide and falls between the two bins.
“Fucking hell, damn it,” I say, crouching low to look into the trash drawer. The stupid piece of strawberry fell beneath the recycling bin, I think. I don’t want it to get rotten in there.
Bash just laughs.
“A little help, asshole?” I say.
“You don’t need my fucking help, just leave it.”
“I’m not leaving disgusting shit for the house cleaner to have to deal with later this week.” I reach around the base of the recycling bin, but all I succeed in doing is pushing the stem back even farther.
Cursing some more, I haul the recycling bin all the way out of the pull-out cabinet. The innocent little strawberry stem is right there. Feeling victorious, I grab it and throw it in the trash where it belongs, and where it can no longer thwart me.
“Happy now?” Bash asks.
I flip him off again and fit the recycling bin back into its little frame. As it locks into place, something tumbles from the side, jarred loose from all the movement. A white and purple box, not much longer than my hand.
Curious, because I’ve never purchased anything in a box like this, I look at the label as I move to throw it away.
What. The. Fuck. It’s a pregnancy test box.
* * *
Sebastian
Kingston holds up a bit of trash, and I laugh again. “It’s like trash and recycling are out to get you tonight, I swear,” I say.
“No, fucking look ,” he says as he brandishes a flimsy cardboard package.
“If you’d stop waving it around like a lunatic, maybe I could see what it says.”
He shoves it at me. The cardboard crunches against my chest and I take it in hand to look at it. The font is bold and big, white on a purple background.
Rapid Results Pregnancy Test Kit .
I raise my eyebrows at Kingston.
“What do you think it means?” he asks.
“She could be pregnant?” I say, blinking. “Doesn’t she have an IUD?”
“That’s what she told us.”
“She didn’t lie, you asshole,” I tell him, pulling out my phone. Whatever is going on, Ella wouldn’t lie to us about that. I open the internet browser and type in failure rate of IUDs . The top result tells me the failure rate is under one percent, but less than one percent is not the same as zero.
“Well, what does the internet say?” Kingston asks in a snarky voice.
“It says our girlfriend wouldn’t lie to us about birth control and if we’re concerned about something, we should act like motherfucking adults and talk to her.”
He glowers at me until I add, “And it says the chance is under one percent of an IUD failing. Somewhere between point-one percent and point-four.”
“What I want to know,” he says, “is if she was worried it was a possibility, why didn’t she come to us first?”
“Want me to search for that online, too?” I ask.
“Shut up, asshole.”
She’ll be back any minute with groceries. Maybe that’s why she wants to cook—she wants to make a special dinner, share an announcement.
Are we going to be dads?
“Do you think her IUD failed?” I ask.
He scowls. “I don’t know, I’m not a fucking fortune teller.”
“Stop being a dick.”
“Look, you remember what happened with Rayanne.”
I surge forward, ready to throw a punch. “Do not even hint that Ella would do something like baby-trap you?—”
“What?” He holds up his hands. “No, fuck no. I don’t think that at all. This just brings up a lot of fucking feelings, okay? Rayanne betrayed me.”
“I know, King. I was there.” I was there. And at the time, we didn’t know she was trying to trap him on purpose. We’d just thought her birth control failed and he was going to be a young dad.
Because of course, the idiot loved her at the time.
I was less sure about everything, but maybe this is all in retrospect, I don’t know.
I’d love to go back in time and stop him from sticking with Rayanne.
Things would’ve gone a lot differently. If it weren’t for Joel, though, would King have noticed Ella? I’d like to think so.
But in the end, I’m glad everything happened the way it did, because we’re here now. Pregnant or not, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Kingston takes the pregnancy test box back from me and sets it on the kitchen island.
“I need a drink,” he says, “and we have to decide how we’re going to bring this up. Figure out how we’re going to go about it.”
“We could pour some champagne and see if she drinks any,” I say.
“Or we could be, as you put it, ‘motherfucking adults’ and talk to her about it,” he says.
I tilt my head in his direction. “Good point. Let’s do that.”
The elevator chimes a warning before the doors slide open. Ella’s home.
Kingston meets my gaze over the box resting on the island. I guess we’re going to have a conversation.
Ella whisks into the kitchen, two canvas shopping bags looped over her shoulders. She stops short when she sees King and me standing here. Then her gaze travels to the purple and white box.
“Oh, shit,” she says.