Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
VALLIE
Five months later
I wake to the sound of a thud and deep laughter. Sprawling my arms wide, I stretch and seek a warm body beside mine. It's been five months since Dexter returned, and I am very rarely alone in bed. We have settled into life as a family. As a unit. Always together…
Huh…
I sit up on the mattress and search my room—Donnie’s room. Initially, I moved in here for Molly. For the adoption agency. Mum and Dad. Normality.
Now, it’s just what it is. It’s also one of the biggest, central, and we all fit in this bed at the same time.
So, yeah, t his room has all my personal things from the unit, my bookcase with all my favourite books and limited editions. Though I am like a cat—I sleep in every bedroom, and I’ve had my naked arsehole pressed to most surfaces.
Let’s be honest…
“Where are they?” I mutter to myself, the sound of another thud from above offering me insight. My brows knit. What are they doing at seven am on a Saturday morning?
Scrambling from the mattress, I grab my robe and slippers and wander towards the stairs. I head to the third floor, follow the chatter and thuds down the corridor towards their mum and dad’s old room.
I push open the door. “What are you doing?”
“Hey, Baby!” Tyler darts to me and wraps his arms around my middle, lifting me for a few seconds while he kisses me on the lips.
I wave him away. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”
“I enjoyed Donnie’s lasagne last night, and I’ll enjoy it again now,” he claims, forcing me to kiss him.
“Gross.” I cringe and look across the room.
“Morning, Mum.” Molly waves from a corner of the room. She is sitting crossed-legged on the floor, colouring in, with her nightgown still on, and her hair is a blonde sprinkler on her crown.
“Sweet—” Before I can greet her properly, she pops her headphones back over her ears, sticks her tongue out, and uses the pink crayon like it’s the only colour that exists— “Pea.”
My men are shirtless, indecently virile in their low-hanging denim, sweat sliding down their abdominals as they dismember the gorgeous wooden bed. “What’s going on? Besides a TikTok slideshow photo op?”
“That’s what we’re doing, Baby Girl.”
I laugh. “What pornography? Molly is here.”
“We’re going to set this room up for you to do your book marketing.” Dexter squats to lift one side of the mattress while Donnie takes the other, continuing, “It has great light from the east. Best in the house.”
What?
“We thought you could put a green screen up here.” Tyler rushes to the left wall, my perfectly angelic, blue-eyed dream boy. “And the projector there.” He points, and I follow slowly. In a daze. “We could put a nest here, with books and your beanbag.” Moving over to a nook in the wall, he says, “You could set up and stage books here. For insta and stuff. And this entire wall” —he stands with his back to me, hands on hips, staring at the largest rear wall in the room that once had the headboard pressed to it— “will be wall-to-wall bookcases.”
“I, ah, hm .” I clear my throat, dislodging my shock. “We don’t have that many bookcases?—”
“I’ll build them,” Donnie states, adamant.
Wow. “For real?”
“I’ll build them. Custom, Pup.”
Dexter starts, “I’m rich, I could easily buy her?—"
“I’ll. Build. Them,” Donnie repeats.
“Sure.” Dexter smirks, the knee-buckling, pussy soaking smirk of a condescending, wealthy prick. “Fine with me. While you’re building bookcases, you can listen to your wife begging for her daddy’s thick cock.”
Oh, my, God.
I look at Molly, but she’s bopping her head to something in her ears—oblivious.
And then it sinks it.
What they are doing for me… I blink and blink, my eyes roaming the space, imagining the possibilities. I’ve been saving dream libraries on my Pinterest for as long as I can remember… “With a ladder?”
Donnie grins, and, God, that grin. “With a ladder.”
“Like Bell!” I beam.
“Who?” He frowns, pretending he hasn’t watched Beauty and the Beast with Molly more times than I can count, and turns to pick up a post, avoiding my bright gaze— averting it. Every time he fixes something or does something sweet or kind, he does it in the shadows. I enjoy it after the fact. This is usually too open and vulnerable for Donnie Vaughn.
I wrap my arms around his strong waist, pretty confident he is the one who instigated this. “You don’t just want me out of your room, do you? Threatened by all the model covers and bare abdominals?”
His dark brow cocks, unimpressed. “You’re not leaving our room, Pup. Just your book boyfriends. And no, not threatened— possessive .”
Warmth moves through me.
“Hey”—Tyler opens his arms— “I helped.”
Turning to face him, smiling hard, I say, “Thank you, Baby.” I look at Dexter. “Thank you, Daddy. This is so exciting. It’ll get my mind off…” My words trail to a sad pause. “Off the other thing.”
They sigh, heavy with empathy.
This is a distraction… The room, the bookcase.
I welcome it. Them. Donnie, Tyler, and Dexter are the best things that have ever happened to me. And they did happen to me. They sledgehammered into my peaceful, boring, unfulfilled, lonely existence. The weirdest, wildest, most-fucked up, and incredible experience of my life.
The Vaughn brothers are not my great ‘what-if’ anymore. They are my forever. My, I didn’t miss a moment, I lived, really lived, each day.
My lower lip wobbles. I regret nothing… A ball of anguish fills my throat, expanding, demanding I recognise it. Nothing except not giving them children of their own from my body.
Ugh.
It is month five of ‘not trying to not’ get pregnant, and each month gets a little bit harder. I am due to get my period soon—though it’s been so irregular. It’s probably bloody sheets and hard fucking tonight to soothe me and help me forget.
Not wanting to ruin the moment, I hide my sudden sadness, staring at the ground.
“I got a stick this time,” Tyler says, crossing the room to stand in front of me. He dips to catch my lowered gaze. “Hey.” He lifts my chin with his finger. “I got the stick so you can pee on it, and then you’ll know now, instead of having to wait each day for your period to decide to show up. It was on the 5 th , then the 9 th , then the 2 nd , then the 7 th . I just don’t want you in limbo. Those days suck. I can feel it, baby. Hear it. It’s a C, F-sharp, tritone. It’s unsettling. And I can taste it, too. When I lick your pussy, I can taste how sad you are on those days.”
And there it is. I smile. Somehow, he can soften any situation with his brand of lunacy.
Looking between the three men, I nod once. It makes sense. Get it out of the way each month instead of waiting for that bloody spot to arrive and drive a stake through my hope. “Okay. Let’s go pee on a stick.”
I sit on the toilet lid with my naked thighs peeking out from under Tyler’s shirt. I jig in place, waiting. Patient.
Not so patient.
Hurry up.
Tyler is leaning on the wall opposite me with his thick arms folded over his chest, tattoos and scars moving over his contracting abdominal muscles, adding to the dark expression drawing his brows in. He glares at the pee-stick as if he’s going to snap it in two.
“It’s okay, Tyler Baby.” I bite my lip to stop it from trembling. “It doesn’t matter either way. We can adopt again. Or foster.” God. Elbows to my knees, I cover my face. “Ugh! I’m sorry. I wish?—”
“Baby! Widor .”
I lift my head and my vision blurs. “What?”
In his hand is the stick. On his face is resounding awe, and I’m too afraid to look away in case it’ll change. I refuse to blink away the tears. Too afraid my mind is playing tricks on me. I hold the pools in my eyes.
Tyler’s wide, blue gaze flicks from the stick to my face and back again. He presents it to me, as if it actually were the infant, with caution and possessiveness.
“It’s positive, Baby.”
Rising to my feet, I take it.
As I look at the test, tears rush down my face.
Tyler lifts me up for a cuddle. “Vallie, Vallie, Vallie, yes!” I squeal. “Whoops. Gotta go easy. All my favourite songs combined.” He sets me down, greeting me with his stunning grin. I’ve seen this grin so many times, and for so many insane and dubious reasons.
But this one is different.
Not because it looks wider or shines brighter than before. Just because it’s the grin I received when I first found out I was pregnant.
Tyler guides me from the room. “We have to tell them!” And I blink, slow, processing. “There is so much to do.”
“Right. Um, a doctor. A pregnancy doctor, and erm.” My brain stops working. Pregnant. I end up back in their parents’ old room and look at Donnie and Dexter. Wide-eyed.
Donnie is squatting by a post when he notices me, lowers the drill in his hand, and rises slowly to his feet. “What? What is wrong, Pup?”
“I, um.”
Dexter frowns. “Baby girl?”
“I’m pregnant.” My shock breaks into a bright smile. “I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant. Are you happy? Are you ready? Please be ready?—”
Dexter is beside me before I can start freaking out. “Baby Girl.” He cups my cheeks and kisses my forehead, then my cheeks and lips. “Relax. Daddy has this. This is wonderful. I’m— We’re ready. I already have an obstetrician picked. You’re on the full gold hospital cover. We are ready for you, Baby Girl. Whatever you need, whenever you need it.”
I nod, my breath in my throat, as I gaze at Donnie, who has the most stunning smile on his face. He looks younger, and yet… So grounded. “Congratulations, Pup.”
“And to you.” I inhale and sigh with happiness.
Molly jumps to her feet and grips her hips, sass rushing from her. “Why is everyone looking at my mum like that?”
I drop to my haunches so that we’re eye level as she approaches. “Molly.” Gripping her shoulders, I say, “Mummy might have a baby in her belly. It’s still early?—”
“Really?” she squeaks, her cheeks look as though they may pop open under the pressure of her excitement.
“Yes, Sweet Pea. But it is early. Very early. So, it is still a secret. And we have to cross our fingers that it will all go smoothly. Sometimes?—”
“I have to redo my drawings sometimes,” she cuts in. “Is it like that? You might have to erase it and redraw?”
Sure. I nod, just happy she made that easy for me. “Exactly. Just send me lots of positive vibes.”
She pulls me into a tight embrace, her voice muffled against my hair. “I’m going to be the best big sister, I promise.”