It's Our Time (Carolina Rebels 3)

Scott chuckles. “Stay out of it,” he quietly orders.

Then, Sydney realizes her feet are in Meredith’s lap and that she’s leaning on Lizzy, so she sits up and places them on the floor. “I’m hungry,” she says, still not answering my question.

Noah laughs. “Mere, let’s go, yeah? Sounds like Ian needs to cook and you’re done here.”

“Same for you, Elizabeth,” Marc says right after him.

“Don’t even try it, Scott,” I hear from Sylvia as the chair creaks.

“Thanks for helping me,” Sydney says, glancing at each one of them. “Wait. I don’t have my car.”

“We’ll get it,” I tell her.

There’s some more goodbyes said and then our guests are gone. Sydney leans forward and gently touches my face and the fresh cut under my eye.

“Fight?”

“Yeah. Bastard got me good, but I gave as good as I got. What do you want to eat?”

“You’re not going to ask what happened?”

“The girls told me before I woke you up.” I stand and head to the kitchen. “Want anything in particular?” Hearing her footsteps, I whirl around. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“You should go to bed. You have another game tomorrow and I’ve had plenty of sleep today. I can cook myself something.”

“Babe, put your ass back on the couch.”

She levels a stare at me, but when I don’t back down, she rolls her eyes and parks herself on the couch. “Fix whatever you want.”

“Breakfast? Maybe some eggs, french toast, and sausage?”

“No eggs, please.”

I start on her meal. “How worried should we be about these near-fainting spells?”

“It’s happened once. I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“Sydney,” I begin, but she cuts me off.

“I know. But I woke up, we ate, I called my parents, Carey came over, then I went to buy the test, we took our nap, and I went to the game. I didn’t wake up until it was time to go, so I went straight there. Trust me, I don’t need the lecture.”

“Okay.” As I cook, I start thinking about how things will change. “So, we’ll still be able to have sex, right?”

Sydney starts laughing so hard, I hear her snort. I glance over to see her clutching her stomach and wiping tears from her eyes.

“What is so funny about that?”

“There’s a human growing inside of me, I’m currently feeling miserable, and your second question about this is about sex?” She falls over, her laughter taking over again. When she calms down enough to speak, she says, “Yes, we’ll be able to have sex. How often it happens once I’m further along is a different story.”

There’s a knock on the door and Sydney is practically running over before I can step away from the stove.

“Zane?”

“Hey,” I hear him say as I glance over my shoulder to see him step inside. “I heard a bunch of the guys left in a rush to come over here. I wanted to make sure everything was okay. I tried calling, but Bruiser wasn’t answering.”

“Everything’s fine,” I say.

“Are you hungry?” Sydney asks. “Ian’s making French toast.” Without waiting for an answer, she says, “Make some for Zane, Ian.”