I absolutely couldn’t wait for that moment, looking down into the tiny bundle in my arms and seeing her mother there or marveling at the reflection of myself in him.
I had a long time to wait, so I’d been entertaining myself with the thing that always served as my most favorite hobby—my wife.
The ping of the elevator echoed inside my head as Georgia giggled and pulled me forward, my front still practically plastered to her back as she headed for the little restaurant where we usually had breakfast.
It’d only been days, but it was human nature to fall into a habit as if you’d be there forever. To find comfort in routine and regularity as a way to mimic your everyday life—the very life you were trying to escape by being on vacation.
“God,” I murmured as I kissed on my wife’s shoulder and pulled her closer as we walked side by side.
“Kline!” she chastised without force or derision. She liked what I was doing just as much as I did, so I kept doing it, concentrating on nothing more than her and putting one foot in front of the other.
Distracted by Georgia’s neck and Georgia’s ass and Georgia’s laugh, I didn’t notice the motley crew at the table until it was too late. My wife had pulled away with a smile, and I moved to sit down across from her without even glancing at anything other than her face.
Only a tap on my shoulder brought my eyes around.
“Ah, Jesus,” I cried as I pulled back up from almost sitting in Thatch’s lap.
“Hey, dude. I get it. I’d be into me too,” Thatch rambled as he continued to smother his pancakes in butter. I waved him off with a very particular finger and moved to the other side of the table.
He pretended to take offense, but the smirk in his eyes and on his mouth kind of gave him away. “But I’m a—” he started.
“Father now,” everyone recited in unison. He’d been saying it so goddamn much, I was starting to have dreams about hearing it. Apparently, everyone else felt the same.
“We get it,” Wes added with a laugh, but Thatch was pretty much unfazed. He was always unflappable like that when everyone got riled and reacted in some way, because that was his goal in the first place. He didn’t feel shame like normal people, and he certainly didn’t care to fit into societal norms.
It was one of my favorite things about him. That, and, ironically, the fact that he was a father now—and a good one.
Butterflies took flight in my stomach at the reminder that I’d soon be able to say the same thing, and I couldn’t stop the resulting smile from swallowing my face. Of course, someone had to notice.
“What are you smiling about, Big-dick?” Cassie asked.
Unbidden and completely unplanned, I blurted, “Georgia’s pregnant.”
It was so unlike me. But then again, I’d never been expecting a baby before.
Everyone froze, even Georgia at my side, and I winced at the fact that I hadn’t even consulted her on the decision to share our news. Fuck, I hadn’t even consulted myself. There’d basically been no thought involved at all—just emotion.
“Kline,” she whispered and turned to me. I only had eyes for her.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I apologized on a whisper. “I’m just happy.”
She closed her eyes then, one tear spilling from the corner of her eye and nearly breaking me in two.
“I don’t get it,” I heard Wes stage-whisper.
Lexi didn’t bother to lower her volume. “Statistically, married couples are usually happy with the news that they’ve conceived.”
“Dude,” Thatch whispered. “She’s so smart.”
Winnie smiled and put a hand to Georgia’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
One deep breath and my wife finally returned. She’d conquered the madness inside and convinced herself to share the rest.
“I’m fine,” she answered Winnie, but her eyes were on me. I leaned forward and touched my lips to hers.
Steeling her spine, she turned to the group and started to explain. “We’ve…had trouble…getting pregnant.”
“Wheorgie,” Cassie whispered, the pain in her friend’s voice hitting her somewhere deep. “Was this the big secret?”
Georgia nodded. “But we’re finally pregnant. Apparently.” She shrugged. “I’m having some trouble believing it.”
“How many weeks along are you?” Winnie asked.
“Eleven or so,” I offered when Georgia stayed silent a beat too long.
Thatch spoke around a mouthful of pancake, shrugging his beefy shoulder and shaking his head mockingly. “So fucking find a doctor and get an ultrasound and make your wife feel better, for fuck’s sake.”
That was actually a good idea. From Thatch. He honestly had good ideas more than I’d like to admit. The whole world was upside down and he was a maniac, but at the end of the day, he was one of the best kind of people to have in your corner.
“Christ,” he muttered, stabbing another bite. “It’s like I have to do all the husband coaching.”
Cassie nodded supportively. “You should give classes.”
“I don’t know,” Winnie whispered quietly, running her hand through Wes’s messy hair. “Some people seem to have a pretty good handle on it all on their own.”
My eyes narrowed immediately before zooming in and refocusing to their interwoven hands on the table.
Jackpot.
“Something you’d like to share with the class?” I asked through a smirk, jerking my head to the sparkling metal on each of their most significant fingers.
“They got married this morning,” Lexi shared without prompting, and all eyes went to her. She wilted slightly under the scrutiny, so I turned back to the matter—and people—at hand.
“Oh, really?”
“And we weren’t fluffing invited?” Cassie whisper-raged. Ace slept comfortably on her shoulder, and even Crazy Cassie knew not to wake a sleeping baby.
“It was just us,” Winnie said quietly, and Cassie rolled her eyes. Everyone else looked on, bouncing back and forth, as they volleyed their little war.
“Obviously.” Her voice was rough with the effort it took to stay quiet. “But it could have been just us.” She waved a hand in a circle around the table.
“I know, but—”
“But nothing!” Cassie whisper-yelled, and Wes’s face turned stern in a way that even Thatch took it seriously.
“Cass—”
I waded in and shut them all up with the one question I thought held all the answers. “How was it, Lex?”
All eyes turned to our friends’ perfect, brilliant little girl.
She shrugged shyly before whispering, “Good. I’m Wes’s daughter now. I’ll have to check to make sure he filed the right paperwork, but ceremonially anyway.”
Six big fucking mouths, and in that moment, you could have heard a pin drop.
“Well, all right,” Thatch said roughly, a lump in even his big-ass throat. It must have taken a hell of a lot of emotion to clog the monstrous thing.
“Come on, Crazy,” he murmured to Cassie, pulling Ace gently from her arms and placing him against his own beefy shoulder. “Let’s go for a walk on the beach before ultrasound time.”
Georgia’s eyebrows shot together. “Um…”
“You’ll let us know what time?” Thatch asked, and I sat back, straightening in my chair.
“I will,” Winnie noted before I could open my mouth. Then she turned to Wes and her eyes were moony. “Let’s go for a walk too.”
I had a feeling Melinda would be on duty and “a walk” was really innuendo for another form of exercise. Hell, it probably was for Thatch and Cassie too.
As the table cleared and we were left sitting there alone, Georgie’s head settled on my shoulder and she sighed. “Is my ultrasound really going to be a freaking group activity?”
Everyone sure thought it was going to be, but that was completely inconsequential as far as I was concerned. Serious, I told her the only answer that mattered. “Only if you want it to be.”
She was silent for several beats before finally shrugging. “Actually, with this group, for some reason, it kind of seems right.”
Prone on the bed and waiting to find out one of the most important things in my life, I looked up and found seven sets of eyes staring directly at my exposed stomach. Mom, Dad, and seventy of their closest friends looking on, waiting to see the first picture of their baby.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t seventy, but with how much square footage Thatcher Kelly filled out, you’d have thought it was.
Nerves flitted inside of my stomach before crawling slowly out the length of my arms and legs. And when Cassie lifted up her shirt and blew out her stomach forcefully in jest, I had the strong and irrational urge to hop off the bed and run out of the room.
Fear was a prominent emotion swirling inside of my veins, but that didn’t stop my friends from being their ridiculous selves. In fact, they probably thought acting crazy would calm me, distract me, even, but I was way past the point of help.
I was absolutely terrified that we wouldn’t see what we were so desperate to see on the ultrasound. I had been trying so hard not to get attached until I knew for certain that I was pregnant, that there was a beautiful little baby growing inside of me. I had been trying so hard not to get my hopes up, not to feel the love and joy inside my heart, but now, with everyone here and nowhere to hide, it was useless. I wanted this baby, our baby, more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life, and if disappointment rained down on us today, there wouldn’t be a person out there who would miss that I was fucking soaked.