Canon (Klein Brothers 2)

However, this little girl was going to be an amazing big sister.

Carefully, I squatted down in front of her and accepted the chokehold of a hug. “Congratulations, big sister girl.”

“Thanks, Aunt Jacinda. I need you to give me lessons on how to be a sister. I don’t want to fudge it all up and the baby to be pissed at me.”

Don’t laugh, Jacinda. Don’t you dare laugh.

“Uh,” I hummed, biting on my lower lip to stop the giggle that was itching to burst out of me. “I’m not sure your parents would like you saying that word.”

Her little forehead scrunched up. “Oh, should I say caramel instead?”

I was saved by Sayla, who came dancing up and plucked her niece out of my grasp. “Congrats, big girl.”

Leaving them to it, I went to congratulate Heidi when I heard Katy excitedly yelling, “I’ve got them, I’ve got them.”

I wouldn’t call Jarrod’s wife a klutz, but she was accident prone. That’s why no one looked surprised when she slipped on the floor as she ran out of the door, juggling three bottles of champagne.

A couple of things happened in quick succession after that.

To begin with, the bottles all rolled against each other and slipped out of her arms, the glass making a clinking sound as they bounced off one another on their way to the ground.

The first bottle hit with no problems, rolling away from her and toward where her husband was jogging on his way to catch her before she hit the ground, too.

The second bottle somehow hit the ground and then hit the third bottle before arcing through the air and colliding with the first one, which had been stationary by that point.

Somehow, this made the cork pop out of the bottle. I didn’t see it coming. My mere mortal eyes would never have been able to track it, even without the alcohol in my system, as it flew at the speed of light through the air, hitting me in the center of my chest.

I had a moment where I wondered if this was what it felt like to be shot before the worst pain I’d ever felt in my tit hit me, and I realized a second cork had also been ejected from a bottle.

What were the chances of it hitting me where it did? I didn’t have that much up top, and I was pretty sure what I did have was now inverted, and that my tit was on its way to greeting my spine or lung.

Dropping to my knees on the grass, I gasped in a breath and cupped the poor abused booby.

Through the sound of hell rushing around my brain, I vaguely heard Bond murmur, “Ah, maybe I shouldn’t have taken the foil and the wire thingys off the bottles when I put them in the fridge?”

Bending over next to me, Heidi pushed my hair away from the side of my face. “Maybe we shouldn’t have asked Katy to go and get them?”

The mean bitch, Sayla, started laughing as she squatted down next to me, precisely like I’d been positioned only minutes—or was it hours? —ago with Nemi. “What were the chances of it popping her booby?”

I couldn’t speak, it was taking everything I had just to breathe, but if I could have, I’d have let her know my thoughts on the statistics of my situation.

It took me a while, but finally, I regained the ability to talk. “Did—” I stopped and licked my dry lips “—it burst?”

Looking down at where my hand was still holding my tit, Sayla pursed her lips. “Your dirty pillow?” I nodded. “There wasn’t that much to begin with, but I don’t think so. Is it possible for it to be forced inside your body with blunt force trauma?”

The question echoed my own from immediately after the impact, and I stiffened as I waited for someone—anyone—to answer it.

“Um, I don’t think so,” Cole finally answered, making me clench my eyes shut.

“Maybe I should take her to the hospital to get it seen to?” Canon suggested, handing me a baggie filled with ice. “Put that on it, and we’ll head out to the car.”

“I’m not going to the hospital,” I ground out but accepted the ice from him.

“It’s just to get it checked—”

“No,” I clipped, getting unsteadily to my feet, and hoping I didn’t pass out. “Now, if we could get back to the celebrations, that’d be great.”

I was almost immune to embarrassment—almost—but if anything could cure that, it was what’d just happened. Seeing I was reaching my max, my friends all nodded and moved away slowly, checking back to make sure I hadn’t disappeared periodically.

It felt like I was having palpitations for a good five minutes, leading me to wonder if a heart could be restarted by a champagne cork to the tit.