by Vivian Lux
"Yo!" came the worst fucking voice I could have heard at the moment. "How'd the first day go?" Everett sang out cheerfully. "I brought over some of the good shit.”
Then he rounded the corner out of the mudroom and stopped short to see me standing there in my living room, still stark-ass naked. "Dude, um..." he started, averting his eyes as we both fell silent.
But not fucking silent enough.
"Shit," came the distinctly feminine voice from Gray's bedroom. Rett's head whipped around and my heart sank right down to the center of the fucking earth when he saw her.
Harper, emerging from Gray's bedroom. Wearing my shirt.
Chapter Forty-Two
Grayson
Everett was standing in Cal's living room and the only thing I could think to do was say, "Hey man," as I moved to cover my dick with my hands
Everything was moving so slowly that I felt like I had fucking superpowers. I could hear the clink of glass in the white plastic bag he'd brought over, probably a bottle of Patron since he knew it was my favorite. He was still dressed in his polo and khakis, so he'd headed over right from work, eager to help me celebrate my first day at the new job.
And fifteen minutes ago my cock had been inside his sister's ass.
My superpowers extended to Harper and I swore I could hear the rapid pulse at her throat, and see the fluttering of her heartbeat under the thin fabric of Cal's shirt. I could read her fucking mind, too, as she wondered whether she should bolt out of here, or stay and see it through. Instinctually, I moved a little closer to her, just a fraction, but it was enough to make her roll her shoulders back and look her brother full in the eye.
Rett cleared his throat. "Gray, man? Could you put some motherfucking clothes on?" he growled. "Maybe you too, Cal?"
Cal and I looked at each other. I twisted and grabbed his jeans from the floor and tossed them to him, then grabbed my own. I could hear Harper's breathing getting faster and faster. She was close to hyperventilating and I knew she wasn't going to be able to take it much longer. "Rett?" she squeaked, then caught herself. "Can we talk about this?"
"Yeah," Rett said, and I'd never heard that tone of voice come from his mouth. Nor did I ever want to again. I always thought the idea of your blood running cold was an expression but I swear my veins were actually flowing with ice. "We can talk later. Right now? You —" He stabbed a vicious finger in my direction, and it felt for all the world like he was trying to stab me right in the heart. "—and you. Outside."
"Rett," Cal started.
But Rett whirled on him. "My sister? My baby fucking sister? The fuck were you thinking?"
"Rett," I didn't know what I was going to say, but it wasn't like he was going to give me a chance.
"Get the fuck outside, right now, or so help me god, Gray..." he didn't finish his sentence, but then again, he didn't really need to.
Harper hiccupped a quiet sob. Without really thinking, I brushed my hand up her back, trying to comfort her, but Rett's murderous eyes landed on me right as I was caressing the small of her back. "Get your fucking hands of her!" he roared.
I snapped my hand back and lifted my chin. "So it's gonna be this way?" I challenged him. "All these years and you aren't even interested in hearing what we have to say?"
Rett was pacing, running his hand over the back of his head and then dragging it down his face. "Both of you?" he whispered, shaking his head like he was trying to dislodge a particularly nasty image. "One of you I could maybe handle, but both of you?" He spun in a circle like a trapped animal, and then stabbed his hand to the door. "Outside."
Cal shot me a glance and in that I saw everything that I needed to do. That we needed to do. There wasn't any way Rett was going to be able to make this right in his head until we gave him something to do with his fists.
I took a deep breath and then nodded back.
"Where are you going?" Harper demanded. "You don't have to listen to him!"
"We owe him, baby girl," I said softly. "Don't you think?"
"No!" she hissed, vehemently. "No I do not think!'
I snatched up her hand. "Clear the air. Get it out in the open. No more sneaking around." I kissed the tips of her fingers. "For our baby."
Her green eyes snapped fire at me and then suddenly filled with tears. Her hand went to her sweet little belly. I could already see the swell starting there, a round little curve that was brand new and perfect. She needed to concentrate on making that bump bigger. And that meant I had to fix this.
Cal had been watching, but when I turned away, he nodded again. Rett was already out in the driveway, his shoes crunching on the icy gravel.
I followed Cal outside. The late February cold wasn't enough to cool the adrenaline that was pumping in my veins. For a moment there was only the drip-drip sound of the snow melting from the pine trees that hid Cal's place from the road.
Then there was the sharp sound of boots on the gravel and the whoosh of a fist in the air. Rett caught Cal with a punch straight to the gut, sending Cal's breath out in a whooshing grunt. I winced as I watched him double over and then fall back, stumbling to catch himself with his left hand.
Fuck this is gonna hurt, I thought. "Rett, man, listen," I started to say...
But he caught me with a wicked right hook. It was the kind of punch that should have flattened me. Hell, I'd thrown the same damn thing in fights before and I knew the damage it could do. But at the last minute he must have pulled back because it glanced off my jaw, snapping my head back but mercifully didn’t drop me like a rock.
"Fuck," I hissed, and spat blood on the ground.
"That's for fucking around with my sister. Any other girl in the world you could have picked to run a train on, and you chose Harper?" Rett spat at my feet. "The fuck were you thinking?"
Cal was bent double, coughing and sounding like he wanted to either puke or murder something, but Rett wasn't done yet.
"And what the fuck were you thinking?" he snarled, whirling on Harper. All the color drained from her face and she stared at him, stricken, her mouth a perfect 'o'. “You're smarter than this, why are you acting like a fucking idiot?"
"I'm not," she shot back, stepping towards him. She was at least a foot shorter than Everett, but she got right in his face as she shoved him back. "You are! What the fuck are you doing, you don't own me! Go help Cal up, I think you really hurt him."
"Good," Rett snarled. "Fucker deserves it."
"No, he doesn't!" Harper shouted, shoving Rett so hard he took a step back. "I love him, Rett! I fucking love them both! And I'm having their baby!"
Chapter Forty-Three
Harper
My big brother's face was crashing down in slow motion. His shoulders slumped. He sagged at his center and staggered backward like my words had punched him harder than he'd punched Cal. And the part of me that would always be his little baby sister, forever wanting to tag along, reached out to catch him before he slumped all the way to the ground. "Rett?"
"Don't touch me!" he roared and smacked my hand away.
And then everything happened so fast I could only catch it in glimpses. A sound, like an enraged bull and the crunch of feet on gravel. And then motion as I was suddenly airborne, whirled around and away and suddenly deposited behind the broad wall of Gray's back as I peered out, terrified, to see that Cal had my brother by the shirt collar. "You don't touch her!" Cal raged. "Do you fucking hear me?"
As fast as everything happened before, now it suddenly slowed back down again, so that I could see the anger in Rett's face dissolve into shock, and then hurt as he turned to look at me cowering behind Gray's back. "Shit," he whispered. "I didn't...mean...Harper are you okay?"
I cleared my throat and stepped out from behind Gray. Gray reached out, but I gently set his hand back down at his side and went to my brother. "I’m okay," I told him, and then somehow, I'm not sure how, I managed a grin. "How about you?" I reached up and pressed my hand to Cal's shoulder. "You can let go of him, honey," I told him.<
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The corner of Cal's eye twitched, but he nodded and loosened his grip on Rett's collar. My brother staggered back up to his feet. "I'm sorry," he sighed, running his fingers through his hair so that it stood up at all angles. "I shouldn't have...I didn't mean."
"I'm okay, Rett. You barely touched me. It's Cal and Gray you should be apologizing to."
He looked up. Cal was running his hand over his sore stomach. Gray grinned like a ghoul and then spat more blood on the ground. "Yeah, well..." Rett said, his voice hardening.
"We'll get to that," Cal said. He stepped forward and extended his hand. "I really fucking regret that summer I taught you how to box," he said, grinning ruefully.
Rett snorted and looked away, then looked down at Cal's hand. Then he looked at me. "You mean what you said there? You love these idiots?"
"And these idiots love her," Gray piped up, grinning and then spitting again. He pressed his finger to his split lip. "Goddamn, dude, you could have aimed somewhere other than my pretty face."
"Fuck you," Rett laughed, looking away again. But his eyes kept coming back to rest on my stomach. "A baby?" he whispered.
I swallowed and nodded and looked down at my belly. "You're like the second to know." I looked back up at him. "Which is actually exactly how it should be."
"Harp," he said, his voice choking up. "Are you seriously...?"
I lifted my chin. "You don't have to be totally okay with it just yet, big brother," I said, reaching out to pat his arm. "But, you should know that I..." I looked back at Cal and Gray and corrected myself. "That we, are okay with it."
"We love her," Cal said, moving to my side.
"And we'll take care of her," Gray added, coming around to my other. "Always have, haven't we?"
"Yeah," Rett choked, squeezing his fist and then pressing it to his mouth. "Okay, yeah. I need to go."
"Rett?"
"No, I'm gonna go...Actually," he cleared his throat. "I'm gonna go take back that bottle of Patron I brought over. I'm gonna drink the whole thing — by myself." He shot a significant look at Gray who in turn looked more chastened than he had this whole time. "And then I'll be ready to hear more in detail about how my best friends and my baby sister plan on raising my niece or nephew, together...I..." He shook his head and sort of staggered to the side. "But first I'm getting shitfaced. Cool?"
"Cool," I nodded. Then grinned a little. "Drink my share too, kay?"
Rett looked at me startled and then narrowed his eyes. "Not cool yet, Harp. Not cool." But the corner of his mouth was twitching as he walked back in the house.
"You think he's gonna be okay?" Cal asked me.
I moved to him, brushing my hand up his stomach. "Are you gonna be okay?" I wondered.
Cal winced but shrugged it off. "I'm fine." Then he raised a significant eyebrow at me. "But don't think I've forgotten what we were about to do."
I tried to wrack my brain but had no idea what he was talking about. "Okay, I'm lost."
"You're not leaving."
"Oh!" I blurted just as my brother reemerged from Cal's house, his hand clenching the bag in a death grip. He ducked away from our gaze as he slid back into the cab of his truck and turned on the engine. As I watched my big brother pull away, he watched us in return, the three of us, and I knew something all at once that I didn't know until just then. "You're right," I laughed. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
Chapter Forty-Four
Callum
The earliest the OB/GYN could see us was three agonizing weeks away. And by the time all three of us were together again, sitting in the waiting room, there was no mistaking the small rise in her tummy. Seeing that rising swell did something to me. Something that was so old and primal I wasn't sure it had a name.
She was swinging her feet. Around and around in these hypnotizing little figure eights. I figured it was better to stare at them, rather than think about what we were doing here in this office.
Gray cleared his throat and closed his hand over her knee. "You okay?" he asked her.
I heard her inhale sharply through her nose. He'd been asking her that pretty much nonstop since she'd told us. It had to be getting irritating.
But she took a deep breath. "I'm okay," she said and the level grit in her voice was much more convincing than the expression on her face. She looked wide-eyed, absolutely freaked out. I slid my hand over her knee. "Do you want..." I cleared my throat. "Want us to come in there with you?"
She leaned back and sort of stared at the ceiling and I got the feeling she was trying not to look me in the eyes. "No," she said. "I need to do this alone."
"Why?" asked Gray.
I nodded. "Yeah. You're not alone."
A faint ghost of a smile twitched at the corner of her lips, and she finally, finally stopped staring off into space and looked at me. She looked at both of us, then looked over her shoulder. Then, in the quickest, sweetest little motion in the world she kissed our cheeks, first Gray's, then mine.
At that moment the door opened. "Harper McCabe?" called the nurse, not even looking up from her chart.
She took a deep breath, nodded once and then slung her legs out, pointing her toes like a dancer before landing on them. "I'll be right back." She told us both.
We both nodded and sat back. Gray started bouncing his leg up and down, up and down, up and down. So fast that it was almost a vibration. I could feel it through the floor. He was rattling the entire row of chairs, sending out a faint metallic clinking sound. I looked at him, significantly, but he kept bouncing that leg, up and down, up and down, then leaned over and rested his elbow on his knee, so that his whole body was vibrating now and it was driving me absolutely up a wall and...
"Stop it," I hissed.
Gray looked up sharply, then down at his leg. He placed his hand deliberately on his knee, like he was trying to stop it, like he couldn't stop it on its own. "Sorry," he sing-songed.
I leaned back, feeling tense. Feeling pissed off, feeling like I wanted to stand up and start knocking things over. All the stupid posters of happy families, happy couples, and all of them, all of them there was only one guy. One guy. This was so fucked up. That might be my baby in there, or it might not be, but I had a hand in its existence, no matter what. Regardless of the outcome, I was still involved.
Could I walk away? I leaned over and put my head into my hands and Gray started vibrating his knee again. But this time I didn't even bother to chastise him. I almost found the vibrations to be soothing, at least it made me think of something other than the fact that I had a hand in making that baby in there. But what if it wasn't mine? What if it was Gray's?
I looked over at Gray. By the rapidity of his vibrating, I knew he was probably thinking the same thing. What if the baby was mine? If it was mine, would he be angry? Hurt? How did I feel? About all this?
If it were any other girl, any other girl in the world and Gray was suddenly a father? Hell, I'd be in that baby's life so fast it would get annoying. I'd teach the kid all the stupid shit that Gray was terrible at. Like how to pick up your fucking towel off bathroom floor, and how to organize your life. But Gray would be a great father too, teaching his kid how to be random and fun and whatever baking skills he chose to pass on. If it were any other girl, I'd be the uncle that remembered every birthday, went to every baseball game, or every gymnastics meet. I’d fucking be there.
And if I had a baby, Gray would be the same way.
I leaned back in my chair. But it wasn't any other girl. It was Harper. And if the baby was Gray's... well I'd be in that child's life no matter what. And since it was Harper's baby... What would be the difference?
I looked up at Gray. He had stopped vibrating. He looked up at me and I willed him, for once in his life, to just get it without needing it spelled out for him. I closed my eyes and hoped like hell he'd just know that I was in this. For real. That the baby inside Harper's belly wasn't his or mine. It was...ours.
Just like Harper herself.
C
hapter Forty-Five
Grayson
The door opened. All the nervous energy that I'd focused into trying not to lose my shit suddenly flooded out of me, and I jumped to my feet, not even worrying about how this looked. ""How to go? How is it?" I said.
Harper looked up and around, then ducked and nodded in the direction of the hallway. I looked at Cal and we both followed her over to a more private corner, shutting the door to the office behind us. She leaned against the wall, blinking for a second. Then she took a deep breath. "Well? The first thing is, the baby is healthy."
I felt a flush of something warm run through my veins and heard Cal's sharp exhale. Harper's fingers were already playing across her stomach. "They also said I missed the window for the CVS."
"The pharmacy store?" Cal asked, at the same time I said, "The what?"
She looked at both of us. "It's a test for paternity," she sighed, leaning forward and burying her head in her hands. "But it has to be administered before you get too pregnant and..." She smoothed her hand over her tiny little belly. It was just the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, the way it was so perfectly round and taut. I wanted so badly to go to my knees right there in the hallway and kiss that tiny little bump. "So if I want a paternity test, I have to have an amnio," she was saying.
I wrenched my thoughts away from kissing her belly and looked up at her. "An amnio is what exactly?"
"Where they take some of the fluid out of the amniotic sac. They can use that to do the paternity test."
Cal was nodding. "Okay, then we have to do that than right?"
She nodded but very slowly. I looked at her sharply. "You seem weird about this," I said cautiously.
She looked down and closed her eyes. For a second, it was like we weren't even there, her hands rubbing over her belly, and a small private smile playing around her lips. It was just her and that kid in there right now, and she took a deep breath. "There's a chance it could cause a miscarriage..." she exhaled.