“Listen to them, Em,” Shane urged. When I remained silent, stubbornly wanting to hold my ground, he brought out the big guns. “The wedding is in two days. You don’t want to miss it if you get worse.”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t miss Shane’s wedding. The one day I thought would never happen was less than forty-eight hours away. I would never forgive myself if I weren’t able to take care of all the last minute things I knew would need my attention if I was still sick—or worse. My shoulders drooped as I relented. “Okay…”
“Come on. I’ll go back with you,” Layla offered, taking another long sip of her cool drink from the thick straw. “My feet are throbbing.”
“I want to tell Nik I’m going.” I wanted to see Mia’s face when she got off the ride. She was always excited to see me when she got off one of the many toddler-friendly rides.
Harper and Lana gently pushed me toward the park exit. “We can take care of Nik. And Mia.”
Harper lifted her camera, something that seemed like another appendage of hers. “I’ll even take a thousand pictures for you. You won’t miss anything.”
Layla
By the time we got back to the hotel, my feet felt like they were the size of watermelons. I dropped down on the closest couch as I entered the penthouse suite right behind Emmie. We had both penthouses, which took up the whole top floor, and that was a good thing since it had a total of eight bedrooms for the wedding party to choose from.
As I propped my feet up on the closest coffee, table I let out a relieved sigh and leaned my head back against the back of the couch. Just as I closed my eyes, I heard Emmie retching from the hall bathroom. Poor Em had picked up that horrible bug that had been going around Mia’s preschool. Both Mia and Nik had had it just the week before but it had taken longer for Emmie to get it. The bug had probably been too scared to infect that little spitfire and had waited until her back was turned before invading and conquering.
“Is she still throwing up?”
I opened my eyes to find Natalie, Shane and Drake’s sister, coming out of one of the bedrooms down the hallway. When I had first met this girl—whom I considered as much a sister-in-law as Emmie and Harper—I knew that she was going to make life more interesting. She looked so much like Drake and Shane who were the male versions of beautiful, and Natalie was drop dead gorgeous. Seriously, no one person had the right to look that beautiful.
Natalie had become Emmie’s assistant more than a year ago. Since Emmie had taken over as Demon’s Wings’ manager, Natalie had become a godsend, especially with Drake on the East Coast for America’s Rocker at least three months out of the year. I hoped that Emmie would hire at least one more assistant to take some more of the stress off her shoulders, but Em being Em, I knew she was going to do it all herself whether she hired someone else or not.
“Yeah. We had to make her come back and rest,” I told her.
“I hope she isn’t going to go out with us tonight. That zombie nearly went mental when she tossed her cookies on him last night.” A smile teased at Natalie’s lips as she dropped down beside me, tucking her feet under her as she turned to face me. “I thought Jesse was going to burst a gut he was laughing so hard.”
“I wish I had been there.” Lana and I hadn’t been able to go with them the last two nights. Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios wasn’t exactly the place for a pregnant woman. Lana had been pissed when she found out that she and Drake wouldn’t be joining everyone else for the fright nights of fun. She loved horror movies.
“You didn’t miss that much,” Natalie assured me, pushing her dark hair back from her face. “Axton drank too much and of course Linc was trolling for tail. I wish Dallas had been able to come earlier. I miss that bitch.”
A grin split my face at the thought of Dallas Bradshaw. That girl was hell on wheels and we had welcomed her into our strange family with open arms when Lana had been living with her and Harper back in New York. Dallas was supposed to join us today and go out with the guys tonight, but we had missed her over the last two days. The girl had been crazy busy over the last two years with nursing school and we had rarely seen her during that time. But now she was an RN and able to breathe again after the stress of the prestigious nursing school was behind her.
Natalie and Linc had flown out a few days early so they could have fun with us at Universal Studios, leaving their roommate to follow today since she was working at the busiest ER in all of New York until the end of the year. “I’m sure the fun will only begin once Dallas gets here,” I told Natalie with a wink.
“You know it.” When Emmie’s retching turned to dry heaves, Natalie stood to go check on her. “Em, this isn’t good.”
“I’m fine,” she called weakly through the door. “Just get me some lemons. That always helps.”
Yeah, those lemons did help. They had helped me through the worst of my morning sickness. Some mornings I hadn’t been able to even get out of bed until I sucked on a lemon…
I gasped and stood with some difficulty. Oh. Shit. “Em!” I exclaimed.
Something in my voice must have frightened Emmie because she rushed out of the bathroom as I hurried toward it. “What is it?” she demanded. “Are you hurting?”
I shook my head, patting my ever-growing stomach as I continued toward her. “I’m fine. No, it’s you that I…” I stopped and bit my lip, wondering if I was losing my mind and making something out of nothing. Maybe it really was just the bug that Nik and Mia had had.
“What?” Emmie demanded, looking pale. Her hands were trembling and I knew she was dehydrated.
Jesse had told me all about how sick Emmie had been when she was pregnant with Mia. They had been freaked out because Em wasn’t one to get sick easily. “Could you be pregnant, Em?”
Big green eyes grew even larger in that beautiful, pale face of hers. “What?” She shook her head and frowned. “No. No… I mean…” she broke off, looking stunned and even paler.
Natalie was already heading toward her room. “It’s always a possibility. I mean, look at what she is married to. The way those two are always all over each other it wouldn’t surprise me. I’m going to go down to the shop and see if they have a pregnancy test.”
Fifteen minutes later Emmie was sitting on the couch between me and Natalie as we waited for the results of the three pee sticks in front of us. We had to wait three minutes and the wait was making Emmie shake. “I’m just starting to get closer to Mia,” she whispered. “And I’m so busy. So fucking busy. How will I handle another baby and Mia on top of all of the things I have planned for the guys? And Axton? We just signed a contract with OtherWorld.”