Busted (Stacked Deck Book 11)

by Emilia Finn

  “Get up, lovebirds. We’re going to Tink’s for dinner.”

  “Go away, Little Bit.” Daddy’s words are muffled against Mom’s neck, but his shoulders bounce with quiet laughter. “Tell Tink she can go eat someplace else.”

  “She is eating someplace else.” I head into my kitchen and stop in front of the fridge to grab a soda. “She’s eating at her house. So are we. You have twenty seconds to get up.”

  “Or else what?”

  I glance over my shoulder and roll my eyes at the sight of him now sitting up, but with Mom on his lap. She straddles his legs and rests her cheek on his shoulder. She’s content and smiling, snuggling in and safe knowing her man is all hers.

  Oh, the luxury of being so secure in your relationship.

  “Or else I’m gonna send Uncle Jack in.” I grab a Pepsi and slam the fridge again, then heading back toward the living room, I pass them by and head toward the stairs. “If he catches you two making out, he’s gonna hurt you. Get up, put Mom’s bra back on, then go outside.” I stop at the bottom of the stairs and, turning serious, I meet Daddy’s eyes and nibble on my bottom lip. “I need you to come to Tink and Jon’s for dinner. Just… do this for me, ‘kay?”

  Rob

  I’d Prefer A Real Explosion

  I sit at the base of Mom and Dad’s staircase and watch the front door. Me being here isn’t abnormal. Even with my not-so-normal behavior lately while dealing with Grace and keeping this news hidden, my parents haven’t noticed that I’m ready to crawl out of my skin.

  Luke is in the kitchen, pre-gaming his dinner with a turkey sandwich and whatever other shit he can find in the fridge, but I sit where I am and bounce my knee as anxiety wreaks havoc on every cell in my body.

  I’m dropping a bomb at my family’s feet today. I’m announcing what I saw in the OBGYN’s office this morning, I’m showing my family a picture of my baby, and I’m telling them of my fears for that child; the spot on its heart, the potential for having too many or too few chromosomes, the chances that, if Grace gets news she doesn’t want, she may take the choice out of my hands anyway.

  And then there’s the fact I’m going to see EmKat; the woman who actually has my heart. The woman I wish was carrying my baby. The woman I’m asking to take all of this in stride, and not only hoping she won’t hate me, but I’m actively asking her to be involved and to help me.

  I’m not sure there has ever been a more selfish man in the history of the world.

  The front door handle jiggles and brings my eyes up with snapping speed. It’s unlocked – it always is – so I don’t move. I don’t have to. I watch without blinking, without breathing, and after just a second, the door is pushed open, and I’m met first with Kit Kincaid, then Bobby.

  “Rob.” Bobby crosses the space between us with a smile that says he has no clue what tonight is. Em hasn’t snitched me out; neither in regards to my ghosting her for the last month – if he knew, he’d kick my ass – nor with the baby news. In Bobby’s world, everything is as it should be. He stops in front of me and offers a hand, so I reach up in silence and shake it. “What’s happening here, kid? Your mom has something to announce?”

  “Daddy?” EmKat rushes across the room and diverts his attention the way she’s always been able to.

  She points him toward the kitchen, she speaks and jockeys her parents in the direction she wants them, but I can’t focus on her words when my attention is completely on… well… her. Her hair, hanging low and bouncing as she moves. Her jeans, so tight, so perfect that she may as well wear nothing. She wears a top that floats around her torso and appears like it’s completely loose, but there’s something in there too, some kind of shelf that makes her breasts stand tall.

  And I’m the selfish prick objectifying her body while also asking that she completely ignore the fact I knocked someone else up.

  Shaking my head, I let my gaze drop away until I look at my shoes, and breathe through what is quite possibly a panic attack. Time seems to drag out so that seconds feel like hours, and minutes feel like days. It seems like Em is gone forever, redirecting her parents’ attention, but eventually she comes back.

  She doesn’t make me pay for my bad behavior. She doesn’t kick me in the face – like I deserve – or make me beg for forgiveness – though I owe her at least that.

  Instead, Em drops down on the step beside me so that our hips touch and her shoulder touches my arm, then she leans closer and drapes her forearm over my thigh so we’re kind of cuddling, kind of snuggling.

  “Breathe,” she whispers low enough that no one will hear us. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  “I’m sorry,” I choke out and turn to stare at the wall, so that she can’t see the way my eyes instantly fill. “I’m so sorry, EmKat. For everything.”

  “It’s okay.” She moves so that she stops hugging my leg, and instead hugs my arm. She forces me to get closer, so that we touch from toes to hair, and when she’s comfortable, she exhales and helps me do the same. “Moratorium time. So let’s just focus on the friend stuff and not the… other stuff. The status quo stays the same, our families never have to know that there was more for a second. Let’s just… let’s hit them with one thing at a time. Right?”

  “Grace?” I can hardly breathe past the emotion clogging my airways. Can barely speak past the sandpaper that I’m certain lines my throat.

  “Yeah, Grace.” She speaks softly. Far kinder than I would probably afford her, if roles were reversed. “Where is she? Is she coming tonight?”

  I sit a little taller when Luke walks through the room with half a sandwich in his hands. He knows about Grace, but he sure as shit doesn’t know about Em, so I plaster on half a smile, a smile that says, We made up since that last fight!, and act like me and Em sitting so close is normal… which, well, it is.

  He stops in front of us for a moment, eats with his mouth open, and studies us with a lifted brow. But when we say nothing, he nods and steps over us to head upstairs. “Good to see your face again, Kincaid.” Then he adds, “I’ll be down in a few. Then we can start.”

  “Where is she?” Em whispers the moment Luke is out of sight. “At the apartment?”

  I shake my head again and distract myself by playing with Em’s fingernails. They’re manicured and pretty, not long, but not short. There are no chips in the paint, which means they were done recently.

  And why the fuck am I focusing on that when she asked me a direct question?

  Because I’m a coward. That’s why.

  “She’s at her place,” I answer quietly. “We keep fighting, so she decided to go to her apartment for the night.”

  “Why do you keep fighting?” Em leans forward and peeks around to try to catch my eyes. “Aren’t you guys, like, in post-coital, pre-marital bliss right now?”

  I roll my eyes and let my gaze drop. “There’s no coitus, Em. I doubt we’re even friends at this point. She and I… we went to a scan today, and now we’re kind of on different sides of the fence about things. We’re not getting along very well.”

  “What things are there to argue about? She knows there’s no baby store where she can select socialite, stuck-up bitch with a pretty bow in her hair, right? This isn’t Build-A-Bear. She gets what she gets.”

  “First of all,” I murmur. “ ‘Socialite, stuck-up bitch’… when referring to my potential daughter?”

  Em looks to the floor and chuckles. “Too harsh? My bad.”

  “Second, can I just… can I tell it all at once? I don’t wanna keep repeating myself.”

  “Sure.”

  Em is always the first to make a move, always rushing forward. Which means, just as expected, she pushes up to stand at the same time Luke stops at the top of the stairs, and grabbing my hands, she grunts and pulls me up beside her.

  She glances up at Luke and tips her chin as though to say hey. “You know what’s up?”

  “Um…” Luke stops his descent and looks to me. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say.”
<
br />   “Yeah,” I sigh. “You both know the same. It’s time to go tell everyone else now.”

  “Alrighty.” Luke skips down the stairs and chucks Em’s chin, then with a playful grin, he leads the way.

  He’s our crazy one, our louder one, but he’s also my protector. He camouflages it with obnoxiousness and pterodactyl-type screeching sometimes, but it’s always there, always shielding me from the world.

  The whole family has been gathered: Mom and Dad, Bobby and Kit, Iz and Jimmy, Jack and Britt, Aiden and Tina. Add all of my cousins, plus the offspring my cousins are now creating, and my mom’s kitchen is bursting with several dozen bodies and zero pizza.

  Luke leads the way through the crowd; it’s a bit like walking up to a pro fight. The family creates a type of tunnel, I’m the fighter, Em is my cornerman, and Luke is my… hype man, perhaps. The only thing missing is the cheering and high-fives. Instead, since no one has any inkling shit is about to go bad, everyone simply mingles and chats. The kids play, and my cousins watch to make sure the new generation turns out, at the most, only half as weird as us.

  Em’s mom and my mom have been best friends since the dawn of time, so they sit on the marble counter now, side by side, and giggle about something only they know. They each hold a wine glass, and not so far away, the other wives – Britt, Tina, and Iz – are already set up with their drinks of choice.

  I glance around the room to see where everyone is, to see their moods, but not one single person makes eye contact except for Jack. He stands by the door with his arms folded and his brows pinched close together. He watches me, then Em. Between the two of us, he stares so hard that I’m certain he’s trying to see inside our brains.

  It’s warm in here, too many bodies, too little space. Or maybe it’s just me.

  “Calm down,” Emma squeezes my hand and walks the gauntlet by my side. Just like she promised. “It’s gonna be fine.”

  “It’s gonna be so bad,” I murmur back. As we walk and tension follows us into the room, we catch more eyes, more attention. “It’s gonna be really bad.”

  “Could be way worse,” she snickers almost silently. “Could be me making this announcement. Now that would be bad.”

  Luke snorts in front of us. So loud, so obnoxious that I know he heard Em’s words.

  I guess she’s probably right, in a way. Mine’s still going to be bad, but Emma announcing she’s having a baby would be nuclear-explosion-type shit.

  An event that, if everything was different, I might have looked forward to. A beating I would have willingly accepted. A stomach I would have thrilled in watching grow.

  Finally, when we’re close enough to the counter, and the tension growing in my chest is enough to choke me, Mom and Kit glance over, mid-joke, mid-laugh, and stop to swallow it all down. Dad was standing by the fridge beside Bobby, but when their wives’ laughter cuts off so suddenly, so noticeably, their heads snap up, and their attention comes to me and Em.

  Dad searches my eyes for what feels like a full minute. He looks to Em, to her hand in mine, to my face, and likely the way I’m paler than I would be in death, then he looks to Bobby and takes a few steps to the right.

  “Rob?” Mom’s words are gentle, when usually she’s kind of cutting and sharp. She’s not unaccustomed to seeing me and Em joined at the hip, so her eyes flick to our hands, but then away again, unmentionable, unimportant. “What’s going on?” She looks around the room in search of… something. An ally. Answers. An escape route. Or potentially, a shovel for when I tell her something bad and she’s forced to kill me.

  When she finds nothing, and I don’t speak, she passes her wine to Kit, pushes off the counter, and drops to her feet so that we stand six feet apart and facing each other, and everyone else around us, seeing the tension now as though it was a palpable thing, makes sure they’re not in the splash zone.

  “Baby. I’m at a point in my life right now where I don’t want a long, drawn-out, suspenseful reveal that’s going to change my life. Whatever this is,” she waves a hand around to our crowd, “whatever you’ve done, just say it. Because right now,” she presses a hand to her heart, “You already got me. Just looking at you now… Your eyes, baby. You’re scaring me. Jon?” Mom spins in search of her protective lion. “Leo?”

  “Here.” He steps forward, around the counter and Kit, and stops beside Mom so that their fingers link much the same way mine and Em’s do. “Is this Em’s thing too?” he asks and spares a fast glance for Kit. “Or is she moral support?”

  “Moral support,” Em answers and forces a gentle smile for her mom and dad. They had a moment to panic, a single second to search each other out and find that island of safety. “I’m here as moral support only.” She squeezes my hand. “For my best friend.”

  “Alright.” Mom nods, steps closer to Dad, and nods a second time. “Go. Say it fast.”

  Instead of saying, I reach back into my pocket and take out the sonogram picture. I hold it so the image is hidden by my hand, and pressing the whole thing to my stomach, I swallow down my nerves and hold my breath. Then I extend my hand and close my eyes when Mom’s breath comes out on a pained gasp.

  “Oh god.” She takes the picture from my hand, I feel her touch, her fingertips shaking with fear, and when I open my eyes again, I see hers as they water and spill over. “Oh man. There’s no… You’re not…” She passes the picture to Dad, and presses a hand to her mouth for a moment. “Fuck, baby.”

  “I’m sorry.” My voice breaks so that even my cousins step in as a type of support.

  They were standing back to watch the shit hit the fan; it’s always fun when someone else screws up and catches heat. But when one of us breaks, we close ranks. Bry stands on my right, and Luke to the side between me and Mom. Evie holds Wes on her hip, but she’s in fight stance; I’m not sure she even realizes it. Bean and Mac. Ben, Iowa, and Em’s sister, Brooke.

  The children I was raised with stand on one side of the kitchen, blindsided by my news, but still, they’ve got my back. And on the other side of the room, the first generation of “us”. The moms and dads. The aunts and uncles. The original best friends and fighters.

  The adults who are slowly but surely being made into grandparents.

  “It wasn’t planned,” I tell Mom when all she can do is breathe into her hands and stare. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, but it did anyway.”

  “Grace?” she whispers. Her voice is muffled by her hand, but I hear enough to understand. “You don’t have a girlfriend, baby, but she’s been hanging around a lot lately.”

  I nod and look down at my shoes when I can’t stand up under the weight of all of those stares. “Grace. I found out a few weeks ago, so I’ve been dealing with that in private. Processing and all that.”

  “Weeks?” She looks back to the image, as though to remind herself. Or perhaps to confirm she saw what she saw. “You’ve known for weeks, and you’re only telling us now?”

  I nod again and squeeze Em’s hand. I need to know she’s here, just as Mom needs to know that image is real. “I had to process it myself. It wasn’t something I was ready for. And it was made especially trickier, since I’m not… Grace and I…” I stumble over my sentence, over how to explain exactly what Grace and I are. “We’re not really, like, in love or anything. So that complicates things.”

  “It doesn’t really matter if you like her.” Bobby steps forward now and stands beside Mom. “You did the work, you created an innocent, so now you put your personal relationship shit aside, and you co-parent the fuck outta that kid. You make it so that the kid knows unconditional love. That is literally your only job now.”

  I shuffle my feet from the anxiety coursing through my blood. “Um… yes, sir. I intend to stick.” Then I look back to my parents. “But here’s where it gets messier.”

  “It’s worse?” Mom’s cheeks lose all color. “What could it possibly be?”

  “Um…” I draw a deep breath and look down to Em. Then over to Luke. This is s
tuff they don’t know yet. “Grace and I went in for a scan today. We saw the baby.”

  “Hence,” Mom flicks the sonogram printout, “this.”

  “Right. But if you…” I release Em’s hand and take a step forward to gently take the image from Mom’s hand. I turn it around so I can see it, I study my baby’s perfect head, its chest, its arms and stomach. Then bringing a shaking hand up, I point at the bright spot on its heart. “This here,” I speak to Mom and Dad. Everyone else simply crowds in to listen, to watch. “There’s a spot on the baby’s heart.”

  “Oh no.” Mom’s breath catches with the beginnings of a sob. “What does that mean?”

  “Uh… the OBGYN said it could mean absolutely nothing. It isn’t uncommon to find a spot on a baby’s heart, and it could prove to be nothing at all.”

  “But…” she pushes. “If it is something, what is it?”

  I shrug and let her take the picture from my hands. She brings it closer to her face, and strokes the dot with the very tip of her finger.

  “It could be bad,” I choke out after a moment. “It could end with a child with special needs, or no child at all. Dr. Kelly insists that we need testing to figure it out, though he says the testing is purely our decision. We could just leave it all alone and see what happens at the end of nine months.”

  “And what are you gonna do?” Dad’s voice cracks. His eyes, when I glance up, hold unshed tears, but they also hold concern and love. Loyalty for a baby he’s never met. And fear for the bright spot on the image. “What will you choose?”

  “The testing is pretty invasive, Dad. It means a massive needle in Grace’s stomach, where they’ll pull some of the amniotic fluid out and test it.”

  “Fuck.” Mom backs away and snags a stool from in front of the counter. Dropping down, she deflates; her breath races out, and her chest caves in on itself. “That means there’s risk of miscarriage.”