Chapter 59
My bare feet swiped over the wooden boards of the wrap-around porch as I rocked in one of those rocking chairs. No one ever uses them; my entire pack prefers the darkness of the indoors, but the late spring breeze felt too nice to ignore.
I let a hand slide absently up and down over my stomach. The bump was very present now, so much so that I could barely see my feet beneath me. We decided to keep the gender a secret, since it didn’t really matter to any of us. Everyone was on team healthy baby.
“You ready to go, final girl?” Marcus asked from the door.
He looked fine as ever, his large frame basically filling the entire space. He wore a black t-shirt with some kind of horror movie logo on the front. His legs were clad in thick black jeans, even with the beating sun. Normally, he’d be at work today, but he took the day off.
I got the email invite a few days ago; he and Cameo wanted to take me out, and I couldn’t say no. It’s not like I had a reason to anyway. I was still banned from the Streamverse site. Though it was frustrating, I’d forgiven them for it. So much had happened, and they did a lot to make up for it.
Including following up on supporting my game studio, though it’s been slow.
The first trimester proved to be full of morning sickness and naps.
The second has been much better, especially with a personal chef making everything I’ve ever craved.
So I’d been working to line up software engineers and collaborating with Indi on the story.
Since we’ve played so many, storyboarding with them has been fun.
And Joon has been helping me with the art.
I was planning to hire someone, but why when their designs are so unique?
“Ready,” I said. I went to stand, but with my front heavier than usual, my balance was off, and I plunked right back into the chair.
He was there in a second, holding his hand out and helping me up. They were all so sweet to me—sometimes, it made me want to cry. Though I blamed that on the hormones.
I pressed into him briefly, his sweet scent almost having me turn us right around inside.
Who knew pregnancy could make you so horny all the time? The smallest thing would make me jump one of them, though no one really complained.
His large hands circled my waist, “Cameo’s waiting for us in the car.”
I nodded, shelving my X-rated thoughts for later.
The day was still young.
We walked hand in hand to Cameo’s car, and he opened the front door for me, not saying a word when I ungracefully fell to the seat.
Cameo’s attention was drawn from whatever he was doing on his phone. They were both taking the day off, so I assumed it was work stuff.
“You’re glowing, tesoro,” he said, leaning in to kiss me on the lips. The car rattled as Marcus squeezed himself into the back seat, looking like a folded piece of origami.
“I could sit in the back,” I said as Cameo started pulling out of the drive, one hand gently placed on my thigh.
“I’m fine,” Marcus assured, though all his adjusting back there told me otherwise.
I let my head loll to the side towards the window as the rolling trees of the suburb gave way to the concrete of the city. My eyes got heavy, threatening to shut multiple times, but I managed to keep them open.
Or so I thought, until Cameo was gently shaking me. “We’re here,” he said lightly.
It took me a moment to realize where here was, but as soon as I looked up at the building beside us, it was obvious.
“Why are we at the Streamverse headquarters?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he promised.
Everyone was quick to get out of the car, but I was still sitting there frozen. The door opened, and Marcus led me out and across the parking lot. I had no idea what we could be doing here. Did they set up a meeting to get my account back?
Even more surprising, standing at the door was Tara and her pack, my best friend animatedly showing her alpha something on her phone.
Probably that short video repost she sent me this morning about the wild animals who tried to steal Halloween candy, only to be scared by some porch animatronic and turn the whole place into a disaster.
“Eva!” she screeched as she saw me and ran forward, her heels clicking against the asphalt. “I’ve missed you.”
She pulled me into a hug. “We just had brunch two days ago.”
Tara waved me away as if I’d said something totally irrelevant. “How’s my niece or nephew doing?” she asked instead, putting a hand to my belly.
“Very active,” I said. They moved around all the time, even at night, keeping me up. Though it could be annoying, the feeling was also almost… comforting in a way.
“Good, all ready to play with all the toys auntie got.”
“You didn’t need to buy them anything,” I said.
She waved another hand at me, apparently her chosen gesture of the day. “Nonsense. What’s the point of being the rich, wine-drunk, fun aunt if I don’t buy them everything?”
“I wouldn’t try to stop her,” Jesse said. “She just can’t help herself.”
“All their clothes are so tiny and cute!” she defended. “I couldn’t just put them back.”
I laughed, but looked up at the looming, black-glassed building we were standing in front of, with that large pink-and-green logo on it. “What are we doing here?” I asked.
No one answered my question. “Let’s go,” Cameo said instead, leading us all forward and through the building.
I’d only been here a couple of times. The first was when I scraped enough subscribers together to become a partner, and the second was when they hosted some networking event, mostly about vying for ads with different companies looking to sponsor.
The woman at the desk looked up and barely batted an eye as our party continued forward. My confusion grew as we got into the elevator and shot to the top floor, where executives were normally. This had to be a meeting to get my account back, but how had they reached such a high-up connection?
When we finally arrived, Cameo was quick to walk back into an office all the way in the back, one that had to be the largest up here.
And it was… empty. And not just organized empty, but void of everything save for the furniture.
“What are we doing?” I asked for what felt like the zillionth time.
“Visiting our office,” Cameo said. He went to the chair behind the desk, swivelling around in it like he owned the place.
But… “What do you mean by ‘our office?’”
I looked around, hoping for an answer, but everyone waited for Cameo. Well, everyone except Tara, who looked like she was going to burst.
“It’s my office,” Cameo said. “Mine and Charlie’s, I guess. But I think I’ll take this one for myself.”
Charlie scoffed. “Says the guy who never even comes to the office.”
“I do,” Cameo defended. “When I have to.”
“Which is almost never.”
“Wait,” I said, pausing their bickering. “I don’t understand.”
Cameo came over and held my hand, walking me to the desk that was in the middle of the room, and sat me in the chair that was there. “This is the CEO’s office. And it’s mine… and Charlie’s. He’ll throw a fit if I don’t mention him.”
“Because I own it too!” he snapped.
“You bought Streamverse?!” I yelled.
He hummed. “Well, we bought the majority of the shares, meaning technically yes.”
I sat and blinked at him for a few long moments. “Why?” I finally asked.
“To recover your account, silly,” Tara said from the couch where she cuddled up to Jesse. “They’re really pushovers for us, huh?”
“Shut it,” Charlie said playfully.
I watched her brows shoot up. “Someone’s looking to get put in the cuck chair tonight, hm?”
Charlie’s cheeks reddened as Jesse “oh’d” loudly like we were in grade school.
I couldn’t help it—fat tears rolled down my face again. It felt like I somehow cried even more than I did before, and I used to cry a lot if I was honest.
At least Cameo had gotten sort of used to it. He no longer looked like he would crawl straight out of his skin if it meant getting away from my snotty face. But he didn’t pull me in for a hug either.
That seemed to be Marcus’ cue to come around and hold me, letting me cry right into his shoulder, snot and all.
“I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you,” I said through my sobs.
“You never need to, tesoro,” he assured. “You gave me everything I could ever want.”
After I was done sobbing and mostly together, Tara and her pack left, and we went to Marcus’s restaurant for lunch. Though I’d called it pretentious and a lot when we first came here, I’d grown to really love it.
Especially since Marcus started slowly but surely rotating my favorites onto the menu. The seafood pasta was my current favorite, and he brought it home for me almost every day.
Once we were done, I was whisked to one of my favorite baby clothes boutiques. Did I go overboard? Maybe, but I had a pack that fed my obsession with all these cute, tiny clothes.
By the time we were done, I was exhausted.
Cameo said he wanted to take me to that maternity clothing store I liked, but I told him I just wanted to go home.
He agreed, but drove us the long way. I didn’t mind—this direction had a long stretch of trees that had recently regained their green, which was beautiful.
When we finally got home, Marcus opened the door and helped me out, holding my hand the whole way to the door. He jiggled the key more than normal before slipping into the house.
I toed off my shoes, ready to go relax downstairs, maybe asking them if they wanted to watch a movie with me.
But loud steps thundered down the stairs, and I looked to see Indi and Joon all but tripping over each other to get down them.
I stared, eyes wide as they looked like a cartoon. “Hey,” Joon said, trying to sound casual.
He was dressed weirdly. In a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that looked worn, like he’d had it in high school or something.
“Hey?” I said, question in my voice.
“We’d like you to come upstairs,” Indi said, sounding at least a bit normal. “We have something to show you.”
“O-okay.” I followed them up, Marcus and Cameo not far behind me.
All of the doors were shut like normal, even the new one at the end of the hall. They insisted on building an addition for the nursery. It fell a few weeks behind, so it wouldn’t be ready for some time yet, but I was excited to see it when it was.
I walked down the hall to where the unfinished addition was, my brows knit in confusion.
“We sort of lied,” Joon said.
“Lied about what?” I asked, worry knotting in my stomach.
“Nothing scary,” Indi assured, probably feeling my nervousness.
All of them gathered in front of the closed door as Joon pushed it open. I was expecting a single room, but was instead led to a hallway addition with a door on either side.
“What’s this?” I asked. “I thought you got behind?”
“We did,” Marcus said. “But not as behind as we said.”
“Those contractors said two weeks ago,” Cameo grumbled.
I walked down and turned to the room on the right first. “Can I open?”
They all nodded, looking a bit anxious; everyone but Cameo, who never looked anxious.
I opened the door and gasped at what I saw. It was a room, painted my favorite color, pink. There was a giant round bed in the middle and a desk to the side. It was mostly a blank canvas, but there were some things to get started.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“We thought you could use your own space,” Marcus said. “Somewhere to stream again, maybe, or your room, whatever you want.”
“It’s really nice,” I said, barely managing to control my tears. I’d done enough of that today.
“You can change whatever you want,” Cameo added. “We just picked some things we thought you would like.”
“I love them,” I said. I could see the finishing touches in my mind now, exactly what I wanted to do to personalize.
We turned, and I was brought to the other door. I knew this was what the addition had been built for, but I didn’t know what to expect.
After a few beats, I pushed the door open.
The first thing I smelled was fresh paint.
We’d picked a crib, dresser, changing table, and a few other things that were all built and placed in the room already.
The walls were a deep blue, but then my eyes caught the far wall, and I gasped.
There was a huge mural. It was the night sky, filled with clouds, stars, even the moon.
It was gorgeous.
That did me in; the tears I tried to hold back fell like rain. “Did you do this?” I turned and asked Joon.
He looked bashful, but nodded. “It took me a while since it’s not my normal medium. And I’m still not sure if I’m happy with—”
I cut him off with a hard kiss, stopping whatever criticism he was about to give himself.
“I love it,” I told him. “It’s perfect. My pack is perfect.”
He smirked. “Yeah, we are.”
I pushed him gently at that.
“Thank you all,” I said, hugging and kissing each one of them.
“We’d do anything for you,” Marcus said.
“I’m so glad you love it,” Indi said.
“It was nothing, as long as you’re happy,” Cameo said.
I was happy.
And, I was pretty sure it was going to stay that way for the rest of my life.