Chapter Thirty-Three
My skin feels itchy. I hadn’t realized how anxious it makes me feel to have Sophia out of my sight until she left with my sister.
Emma and Aubrey will watch out for her, but it still makes me nervous. Knowing that James, or Hugh, or hell—maybe both of them—are out there somewhere looking for her, looking to cause her harm, stresses me out.
“Son, she’ll be alright. You can stop watching that driveway and start watching my steak,” Pops says, slapping my shoulder.
“I just don’t like her being away from me right now.”
“Get used to that feeling, son. It never goes away, and if it does, then you might have yourself a problem. Besides, it will only get worse when you have your own children. Then the feeling just magnifies by the number of kids.” He laughs.
“And then they all decide to get married and give you grandchildren. That’s just one big rollercoaster ride. ”
Tires crunch down the gravel driveway at the inn. Turning to Pops, I hand him the tongs for the grill. “You’re up, Pops.”
Taking off down the driveway before he can yell at me, I listen to the snickers from my brothers about me being a little bitch, as if they aren’t one themselves when it comes to their women.
Before the car is completely in park, I rip the back door open to see Sophia.
“Ems, could you have driven any slower?” I ask her.
She glares at me from the driver’s seat. “Did you want me to speed and risk getting into an accident, officer?”
Narrowing my eyes in her direction, I retort, “No, smart ass. You know I didn’t.”
“Then how about you just pay attention to your girl and not my driving?”
Since I don’t have a comeback, I turn to kiss Sophia on the cheek and tug her out of the car. Emma and Aubrey wait at the hood with big-ass, goofy grins on their faces. I furrow my brow.
What are these two up to?
Leaning down to whisper in Sophia’s ear, I ask, “What’s going on with them?”
This time she narrows her eyes at them, and I know they’re up to no good.
“Nothing. They are fine,” she answers through gritted teeth while keeping eye contact with both of them.
Ems and Aubs have the decency to look away and walk over to the family after Sophia’s stare down.
Sophia takes my hands in hers, looking sweet as pie. “Do you want to walk down to the cove with me?”
“Sure. Are you still not feeling well? Need to be away from the food?”
“No, I feel better. Just missed you and want to go for a walk to spend some quality time together.” She loops her arms around my middle and stands on her tippy toes to give me a kiss.
“Who am I to argue with that?” I laugh and take her hand in mine to walk down to the cove.
All of my brothers start singing, Wyatt and Sophia sitting in a tree. K-I-S–S-I-N-G.
Sophia laughs at their antics. I just roll my eyes. Guess I should expect it. I haven’t had a girlfriend since Melissa. Not that they even liked her, which they didn’t feel the need to tell me until after I moved back home, post-messy breakup. They really could’ve saved me a lot of trouble.
“Where would you like to sit?” The cove is private and small, so there’s not much space to walk down the beach, but we can sit here and enjoy the sound of the waves and the beauty of the descending sun on the horizon.
“Um… Anywhere really,” she says, looking around. “How about over on the log?”
Follow her over, I sit down and pull her into my lap. “Are you sure everything is okay? You look nervous.”
If seeing her so quiet wasn’t enough, when we sit down, her hands tremble in her lap.
“Actually, there is something I need to tell you.”
A cold dread snakes over my body. “Okay… I’m really sorry if I made you mad—”
She reaches out to cup my cheeks in her hands, pulling my face to hers. “No. You didn’t. You did nothing wrong.” Her soft lips drop to mine.
When she pulls back, she has a smile on her face, and now I’m more confused. “Okay? Then why do you seem nervous to tell me?”
She chews on her bottom lip. “Um… Maybe… It might be easier to show you.”
Reaching into her back pocket, she pulls out her hand in a closed fist. “Close your eyes.”
Closing them, I hold her tighter. “You know I like to be the one doing the surprising, right?”
She giggles. “Open your eyes.”
Looking at her outstretched palm, my eyes widen. That’s one, two, three, four… five pregnancy tests in her hand, each one showing a glaringly obvious positive. Stunned into silence, I can’t even think. I’m excited, but thoroughly shocked.
How did this happen? We’ve used condoms every time.
In the time it takes me to process what’s happening and what she’s saying, she moves off of my lap and out of my grip.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. I’m so stupid to think that you would be happy. I am so sorry. I can leave right now, and I won’t ask you for another thing.” The panic in her voice has her eyes welling with tears.
She starts to walk away from me, but I reach out and grab her around the waist, pulling her back down to my lap. I tip her back and wrap my hand around the base of her neck, spreading my fingers into her hair and holding her to me.
“Don’t you ever think that you could make me mad with that news. I was just shocked and trying to process.” Moving my hand down to her stomach, I kiss her again. “How did this happen? I mean… I know how it happened, but we’re always so careful.”
“I guess with everything going on, I didn’t think about it. But before I got here, I was in a medically-induced coma, and taking a ton of medications, and I never thought about how they could interact with my birth control. The night after Rebels—”
“Oh my God. It wasn’t until the next morning I realized we were out of condoms. I never even stopped to think that we didn’t use any the night before.” The realization hits me like a freight train.
How did I not notice?
“I don’t really think either of us was thinking very much that night.” She winks, hopefully remembering the night as fondly as I am at the moment.
Looking her in the eye, I whisper, “We’re having a baby.”
The thought slowly sinks into my brain, taking root. I’m going to be a dad. Sophia is going to be a mom. And the best part is that we get to do it together.
“We are.” Her smile is the biggest I’ve ever seen.
Now I have even more motivation to end James and Hugh.
“When do we get to tell everybody?” I let my excitement shine through. I’m ready to tell everyone, everywhere.
Holy shit. I’m going to be a dad.
“Emma and Aubrey already know. We didn’t go to get juice. We went back to Emma and Roman’s because she has an abundance of pregnancy tests at home.”
I frown. “Yeah, she and Rome had a miscarriage last year. And she has been having trouble getting pregnant since. Does that mean we should wait? I don’t know how this works.”
“I think we can tell your family. I don’t want Mimi K and Pop Pop coming for me over a secret.” She giggles.
Holding her in my arms, I wrap her legs around my waist and run off the beach, up the stairs.
When I get to the top, I pause. “Are you sure you’re ready for the chaos?”
“I’ve never been ready for more chaos in my whole life. If we’re being honest, I never allowed myself to see this as a possibility for my life.” She kisses me again, long and hard. “Bring me to the chaos, Officer Keaton.”
With a grin on my face, I run over to the family. Everybody’s eyes are wide, focused on the two of us. They’re all scanning Sophia to see if she is injured since she’s in my arms.
“We are having a baby!” I yell joyously.
Every single person freezes and stares at us for a moment too long before Cooper is the first to comment. “No fucking shit. Guess I was wrong about you two.”
Audible gasps are heard from more than one family member, all of them probably waiting for one of us to punch him. Once he laughs, breaking the tension, everybody runs over to congratulate us.
Mom hugs us first. “I’m so happy for you two. Three. Three of you!”
Pops joins us, wrapping his arm around Mom. “That feeling we were talking about just got bigger, son.”
And so it has. Not only do I have to keep Sophia safe, but now I have to protect our baby too.
Out of everything I have ever accomplished in my life, Sophia and this baby will always be the greatest things in my life.
Now, I just need to find the assholes threatening my family.