While they always said that everyone in the Fury was family, some bonds were stronger than others. Tess had that with Dyna, Cage and Jemma. They had truly turned into a family. Easy was the outsider in this case.
He watched Tess rise from the couch and put Dyna on the floor with her toys, being careful not to bump the toddler with her cast. The cast she wore because he broke her fucking arm during that goddamn crash.
He was the one who had insisted she ride with him in the middle of the night.
Everything that happened to her was his fucking fault. The bruises, the broken arm and now…
Her being knocked up.
He had taken her life and fucked it upside down and sideways.
He closed his eyes for a second and remembered the rides they took together and how right it felt with her pressed to his back as they traveled the back roads around Manning Grove. Yeah, something had been so goddamn right about it. Having her ride with him actually made him happy and feel at peace.
And look where they were now.
In pain and fucking turmoil.
“We need to talk,” he told her again as she came over to the table, her eyes and nose not nearly as red as they had been while in her brother’s kitchen.
“Are you okay?”
“Just fuckin’ peachy,” he answered. “Are you okay?”
“Just fucking peachy,” she echoed and glanced at Jemma. “Thanks for taking care of him, Jem.”
Judge’s sister nodded. “Of course.” She sighed and finished taping his nose. “I only wish you would’ve told me about the baby, Tess.”
“Same,” Easy muttered.
Jemma continued, “Especially since you were already pregnant during the crash. That could’ve caused a lot of complications. I’m a damn nurse. I would’ve kept an eye on you.”
“I didn’t know I was until the night of the crash when they drew blood. I had Carly check me out and do an ultrasound. Everything seems fine.”
Fine? That was debatable. “If this is my kid, I should’ve been there, Tess. You shouldn’t have been alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. Saylor went with me.”
He blinked. “Saylor fuckin’ knows and I didn’t?” He was trying to keep his shit together about the whole situation but… Damn.
“I was worried. And scared. And I wasn’t sure…”
“If you would miscarry,” Jemma said. “That makes sense.”
“If I was going to keep it,” Tessa finished.
Those words hung in the air.
No one even breathed until Easy asked, “And now?” while staring at her. “Because, fuck me, that’s also a decision I should be a part of unless…” His heart skipped a beat. “It ain’t mine?”
She had said she hadn’t been with anyone else but him since that first night. If it wasn’t his then she had lied to him and was fucking someone else at the same time she was fucking him. Of fucking course they had never discussed being exclusive, but for fuck’s sake…
After a connection grew between them, even in the silence and the darkness, he never fucked anyone else. He hadn’t wanted anyone else. He thought it had been the same for her.
But how the fuck did she get knocked up then?
“I don’t get it. We used a wrap every fuckin’ time, Tess.”
“Cage used a wrap, too,” Jemma reminded him. “Dyna’s proof that birth control isn’t one hundred percent effective.”
“He used one that he’d had in his fuckin’ wallet too long. It wasn’t like that with us. So, I need an answer, Tess. Did I go through all this shit for nothin’? Should someone else have this fuckin’ broken nose instead of me?”
“Yes. Of course, it’s yours.”
Never in a million years would he have thought he’d be relieved that a woman had been knocked up by him. Life was goddamn crazy and confusing.
“Nobody should have a fucking broken nose over this. And that’s not the only reason condoms fail,” Jemma stated.
Easy glanced at Tessa to see her lips pressed together. “What am I missin’?” Because if she hadn’t been with anyone but him, he had to be missing something.
“You’re not,” she answered, “you’re just not remembering.”
“Then fuckin’ help me remember,” he insisted a little too harshly. He took a deep breath to settle his shit, but that inhale only caused his ribs to ache. A reminder of what he just went through for the woman standing on the other side of the table from him. Close, but just out of reach.
“That night toward the beginning…”
That night toward the beginning.
That night…
Oh fuckin’ fuck! That was all she had to say. One night during that first month when they were together the wrap broke and he wasn’t aware of it until after he pulled out. He forgot all about it.
For fuck’s sake!
“I thought you were on birth control, that’s why I didn’t freak the fuck out at the time.”
“We were using condoms, Easy. That is birth control.”