Due Date

“I don’t want an open relationship,” I snapped, with a sudden jealous emotion wrapping around my heart. “I want her. I love her, damn it. You should all know it. I joke around a lot of the time, but my feelings for her are huge. And if I am the father, I’d be proud for everyone to know it.”

My raw emotion conflicted with the logic of Noah’s words, and much as I hated it, I thought this might be the only time I got to tell the guys what I wanted.

“I want her to myself, I’ll admit. Noah, I’d like to be the married man with the baby. But I’ve shared everything with Ry my whole life.” I shift my focus to my brother. “It would be odd making a life without you, man. So if Grace wanted to make a permanent family with both of us, I’d have no hesitation with that.” Then I looked at tiny Brandon before focusing on Noah. “You guys are like brothers to me. Not anything like as close as Ry, of course.”

“You twins aren’t like brothers,” Brandon called from the phone. “Real brothers are like Noah and me. We bicker at every opportunity, but we’ve got each other’s backs.”

“So, you and I make perfect bros, Brandon. We’ve perfected the bickering part,” Ryan snapped and held his hand up for me to slap, which I did.

“Yeah. Right.” Brandon laughed. “Look, it’s all up to Grace, in the end, but I take it we’re all behind her whatever she wants?”

“Noah held up his bottle in agreement. “Right, brother.”

“Then I’m gonna leave you guys to your drinking and crash.” And he was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

GRACE MILLER

I haven’t moved in with Kelly, not exactly, it’s more of an extended sleep over.

Kelly’s father was strangely accepting of me staying over whenever I wanted to. He seemed nice enough, but I got... uh... questionable vibes from him at times. He just wasn’t my kind of person.

It was preferable to dealing with the overbearing presence of my twin soon-to-be stepbrothers, who were even more attentive since finding out about the baby. They were always looking a me and my tummy.

I suspected they’d organized something because whenever I wasn’t in my room one of them was there, watching me.

Still, first world problems and all that.

As much as Kelly was happy to let me borrow her clothes, I drew the line at underwear, and I needed a few other things to make my life bearable as well. So I asked my mother to let me know when the boys were out, and I got that call.

My footsteps were heavy as I trudged back to my new family home. I wondered if my lead-weight feet were more early pregnancy symptoms or if the weight of my mental and emotional burden pushed me down and reality crushed me from all sides.

I headed into my home and ran into my mother, who immediately rushed me and wrapped her arms around me.

“I’m so worried about you, dear. I’m sorry about bringing this to you.”

“Huh?”

“Ryan’s boys. I had no idea they’d create such problems for you.”

Oh good. Guilt on top of everything else. “Mom, it’s not that. Really. I swear, it has nothing to do with anything the boys did. They’re perfect gentlemen. I just want girl time. Before we lived here, I could choose when to see them, and I saw them often. I liked having that choice.”

Her grip on me grew tighter. “I know you want everything to be perfect for me, but you don’t have to cover for them if they are painful.”

“They’ve done nothing. Really.”

“Then why are you trying so hard to avoid them? You asked me to tell you when they weren’t home.”

I winced. My stubborn self caused so much trouble for my mother, for them, for everyone. I felt like the worst person on the planet. And I hadn’t even given Noah a proper reply to his shocking proposal of marriage. And I’d canceled my charity work so I wouldn’t have to face Brandon.

“I know it’s weird, Mom, but I’m not covering for them. It’s really like this. They’re good people, but I... but I don’t want to see them.”

Those were words even I didn’t believe.

She stroked my hair. “You don’t have to hide things from me, you know. I’ll always be here for you.”

I nodded along. “Thanks, Mom.”

Her love was never in doubt. A lot of people loved me, and I didn’t doubt them either.

“Take care of yourself. I hope you’ll make yourself less of a stranger, too,” she said. “Really do miss you having around.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I’m sure Kelly will kick me out soon.”

“Now, I have a class to go to, dear. Sorry for cutting out on you so soon, but life always feels so busy for me.”