His amber eyes flood with profound, deep-seated love, and I’m anchored to him.
* * *
8:47 p.m.
Lo rejected most of my positions, but he let me blow him. He knelt on the couch while I sat up, and I took him in my mouth. His expression is one of the best parts. Infatuation and lust coats his eyes, and he’ll hold my hair out of my face. When he comes, his whole jaw tenses. He’ll tilt his head back, and his glare murders the ceiling before his eyes roll.
Lo climaxing turns me on, and he knows it. So he had to help me again.
“No more,” he reminds me.
“I know.” I tuck my towel out around my pregnant frame. We just took a shower, and I must have this horny look while I think about our sex-capades. It’s much easier to fall into compulsions when I’m pregnant. I’m not allowed to seek hundreds of orgasms.
My phone suddenly buzzes on the bathroom counter. I waddle because the floor is slippery. Lo uses his towel to dry his hair before his body, but I’m not complaining. I like a naked Loren Hale.
“Who is it?” he asks just as I grab the phone. Lo comes up behind me, the screen illuminated.
My heart twists. The notifications say Ryke and then the partial text. I quickly click in. We haven’t heard anything besides the occasional we’re here and everything’s fine since he left for the camping trip.
My worry mounts for a brief second.
Then I let out a breath.
He sent a photo. Ryke, Jane, and Moffy sit around a campfire and roast marshmallows. They both have huge goofy smiles. Priceless.
Ryke, who even has a hard time lifting his lips, smiles too. I bet one of the bodyguards snapped the photo for them.
“He looks happy,” Lo says, a smile to his voice.
“Your brother or our son?” I wonder.
“Both.”
I click off the phone and spin towards him. “I’m glad we did this.” I nod. “We chose well.” Moffy spending quality time with his uncle. Lo and I having quality time alone.
It’s all positive.
And it has nothing to do with sex, even if the sex is so good.
Lo’s hand falls to my abdomen. “Luna,” he says her name much more gently than he says most. “Are you going to be into camping? Or are you going to be scared of bears like Mommy?”
I slug his shoulder.
“It’s a good fear,” I defend.
“The best fear there ever was.” Then he kisses the outside of my lips, teasing.
I grow serious in a quick second. “Are you worried?” I’ve admitted that having a girl would be more frightening than having a boy. Lo even said that raising a girl would be different, maybe even tougher beneath the limelight.
“I’m not scared of any goddamn bears,” he quips, but he knows what I’m really asking.
“Lo—”
“I’m going to protect her,” he says strongly and certainly. I must still look concerned because he repeats it. “I’m going to protect her, Lil. And you know what, she might not even need me.” He cups my cheeks. “If she has even a fraction of your strength, she’ll be okay.”
He kisses my lips, cementing this truth.
Lily & Loren Hale welcome the birth of their baby girl
LUNA HALE
November 30th, 2019
{ 16 }
December 2019
The Lake House
Smoky Mountains
LOREN HALE
“This is all your goddamn fault,” I tell my brother as I zip my snow jacket higher. We hike through the dense woods in search of a fir or spruce tree to replace the last one. Temperatures dropped overnight, and my breath smokes the six a.m. air.
Ryke hikes ahead of me. “You think I fucking knew the tree had bugs in it?” That’s right. My brother had one job. One goddamn job and he blew it. He picked a Christmas tree that had a nest of spiders in it. We set up the tree, decorated the thing, and two days later, spiders started crawling on presents.
We’re lucky none traveled to the kid’s bedrooms.
On top of that horror show, I still hear Rose’s laugh in my right ear. Last year, the girls found, chopped, and wheeled an eight-foot spruce tree home, all on their own. This year was our turn, and I get it. This was a shit display, but I’ve been over tree hunting before it even started.
Connor scrolls through his phone and successfully avoids colliding into trunks while simultaneously landscaping the area for a fir. The guy can multitask better than some people can take a shit.
Sam and Garrison bring up the rear.
I yawn into my arm, falling behind even them. “Goddammit, why’d we wake up this early?” The sky is a dim blue color, the sun rising but still hidden.
Sam stuffs his fists in his dark red snow jacket. “Shouldn’t you be used to the morning by now?”
Right. Samuel Stokes is the one who told me I’d be a “morning person” after I had one kid. Well, now I have two, and my feelings are the same. I wake up early to run with my brother; I yawn for five straight minutes while stretching. I wake up early to feed my kids; I yawn for ten straight minutes while wandering up and down the hallway.
“No, Sammy,” I say. “I prefer a warm bed, next to my wife, and not out here with you, freezing my balls off.” I wear a half-smile that feels as brittle as the air.
Ryke finally shortens his stride so this trek isn’t as miserable. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fucking miserable. I want to be with Lily, I keep thinking. If I say it out loud, my older brother will tell me to stop complaining.
“Does your leg hurt in the rain?” Sam asks Ryke. “Because of the titanium.”
My brother has an eight-inch plate in his femur, eleven screws, and a rod and pins in his tibia. He acts like he was never hurt, but I helped him rehabilitate his leg, so I know his body isn’t what it used to be. I lost my brother for a while, but stubborn Ryke Meadows is back now. I hold onto that every goddamn day.
The Ryke who gives up is not someone I ever want to meet again.
The elevation increases as Ryke hikes up the snowy trail. He shakes his head towards Sam. “No. In the cold, my leg is fucking stiff and might cramp, but it doesn’t ache any more or less than usual.”
Connor’s grip tightens on his phone, his annoyance so apparent on his face that I don’t even question its existence.
“Did the artist fuck-up their oil painting of you? I told them not to forget your crown.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Let me at ‘em.”
“That’s what our dog is for, darling.” Connor smiles.
Ryke hears and throws his middle finger backwards at us.
We both laugh.
I never really pry or ask for more details about Connor’s phone, but he waves his cell towards me, trusting me enough to explain.
“Social media is a wasp’s nest. I have no problem stepping on it once and a while. I willingly take those steps, but when people throw the nest in my face out of idiocy and fallacy, it’s the equivalent of twisting a screwdriver in my eardrum.” He scrolls on his phone. “I’m in the process of yanking out the screwdriver.”
I rub my gloved hands together for warmth. “What kind of social media?”
He reads, “At Connor Cobalt.” It’s a tweet. “We know you planted the evidence against Scott Van Wright.” Evidence…he means the tapes of Daisy giving a blow job to her old boyfriend. She was underage, so it was considered child pornography, and it’s what essentially got Scott Van Wright’s ass thrown in jail three years ago. He was the one who filmed it during Princesses of Philly and then kept the footage to watch later—without any of us knowing, including Daisy.
Ryke screeches to a halt. “What the fuck?” He swings back towards Connor, and we all come to a stop in an open clearing, evergreens jutting to the sky all around us.
“I’m not finished,” Connor says like he cut him off mid-fuck. “You deserve to go to jail, not SVW. Hashtag criminal. Hashtag jealous.” He slips his phone in his pocket. “All morning, I’ve been sent hundreds of notificati
ons like that one. Each time my assistant blocks them, the person creates a new account.”
Connor would never waste time blocking people himself. Unsurprisingly, he has employees for that.
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Ryke curses. “Scott deserves life in prison for what he did to Daisy, for what he did to Rose.” Child pornography. Sex tapes.
My jaw locks, and my blood heats. I don’t know how Lily and I escaped that sick fuck. Luck—we were lucky. Daisy got swept under. Ryke—he’s still torn up about it.
“People see what they want to see,” Connor says, “and some people liked Scott with Rose during the reality show. Their taste was questionable from the start.”
It’s almost unfathomable the things Connor must’ve heard…maybe even seen, just to find justice in relation to Scott. We’re all thankful of Connor. For being in our lives. For what he did. But none of us truly realize what he mentally went through back then. No one does except him.
Garrison leans against a tree and smokes a cigarette. “I’ve seen the VanWrighties whole conspiracy theory shit on Tumblr. It’s in depth.”
“VanWrighties?” Sam frowns.
“Sammy,” I say. “Where have you been?” This was a Princesses of Philly era. Forever ago.
“Staying away from you,” he rebuts.
I clap. “Looks like we have something in common. Miracles do happen.”
Sam actually smiles.
Garrison blows out smoke. “VanWrighties are the fanatics obsessed with Scott Van Wright. They chose the name.”
Ryke gestures for Connor’s phone.