“You better be in one piece for the show, Kagan, or I’m going to take a chunk out of you myself,” Lila called out.
His smile grew as he kissed Margo’s forehead. “We make the rules. Except with her.”
Nine
She was fully aware her husband was the one who’d gotten a beating recently and not her. However, Margo was pretty sure every muscle in her entire body was throbbing. And it wasn’t from the exceptional sex she’d had for the last two days.
Including a quickie after the show that night.
Ill-advised with Simon’s bruises, but they’d both been careening through an adrenaline high thanks to another amazing set. She’d been prepared for disaster, but Simon had been riding that same demon from the night before. Every member of Oblivion had been just as locked into the concert as her husband, feeding on his insane energy. In fact, he’d demanded a second encore from the band and the crowd.
Simon tonight had reminded her of the man who would monkey around the stage, climbing on every available surface. But he wasn’t in his early twenties anymore, and neither was she.
Simon’s hand brushed her shoulder and she smiled, shifting toward him. The monotonous swish of the windshield wipers had lulled her into that sweet spot between dreaming and awake.
“When did I turn forty?”
“You haven’t even made it to thirty, pal.” She glanced at her husband in the back of the black taxi cab they’d managed to steal away into. His head was tipped back on the headrest and stripes of silvery light from the old gas lamps on the street cut along his long neck. He’d scraped any trace of stubble away from his arresting jawline. Even in the dim light, she couldn’t stop staring.
He’d make a beautiful baby.
He’d made, she corrected herself with an absent hand along her middle.
They’d made.
“Hungry?” Simon gently stroked the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “You didn’t eat much before the show.”
She shrugged. She actually couldn’t tell when she was hungry these days. Everything felt twisted and knotted up. Not nausea per se, but wrong.
She caught his hand and held it tighter to her cheek. Wrong because she was keeping it from him.
This wasn’t the place to tell him.
But was there a right place? A right time? There were always distractions and interruptions. And dammit, she was so tired of holding this in. She wanted to talk to someone about it, but loyalty sat so heavy on her chest right now. She wanted him to be the first to know, the first to react.
Terrified.
Happy.
Shocked.
Angry.
She didn’t even know how she felt herself, so how could she guess how he would feel?
The Ian situation made the timing of her news even worse. But despite Ian—or maybe because of him—she wanted Simon to know they had a growing family all their own.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
His face shimmered as tears that matched the rolling raindrops marched down her face.
He turned to her. “Violin Girl, you’re scaring me here. Was it because of earlier? I swear I’ll never do anything that epically stupid again.”
Fat chance on that one. One of the reasons she loved him so damn much. She laughed—or thought it was going to be a laugh, but it just rolled into a sob.
He gathered her closer. “Margo, please.”
“I can’t.”