***Reagan***
“I’msorry!”Ilifted my head from the toilet and clutched the pregnancy test in my hand, unwilling to face it. “I’m so sorry.”
August knelt behind me, his chest pressed against my back as he held my hair out of my face. “Why are you sorry, baby?”
Charlie sat on the edge of the tub on the other side of the toilet, a damp rag in his hand that he used to dab at my face each time I came up. “Finished?”
“I ran and I didn’t answer your calls and you came here anyway. I’m sorry! I just—” I jerked forward and threw up again, going limp against the side of the toilet halfway through.
“I called Ben. He said she’s been like this pretty consistently. No wonder she looks thinner.” Theo leaned over us and flushed the toilet. “Come on, baby. We’re going to get you tucked into bed so you can rest.”
I fought to keep my eyes open as I was carried to bed. “Scared. You didn’t want me before. What if you don’t want me now?”
“Hush, Rea. We’re here. We came to get you and we’re not leaving without you. Rest now.” Theo stroked my face and then pressed his lips to my forehead. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
I fell asleep thinking there was no way that I was going to be able to sleep when they just showed up. I woke up terrified that I’d dreamt everything. That quickly, I worried that I was going to find the house empty and be crushed.
I made myself take the time to brush my teeth before racing through the house. My heart soared when I found them in the living room, sitting around on the uncomfortably low couches. Over the moon happy to see them, I flew over the back of the couch, into Charlie’s lap.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I peppered his face with kisses and took in his impossibly blue eyes and deep dimples. “Charlie!”
He grunted as I climbed away from him and crawled into Theo’s lap, repeating the process with him and then again with August. I mumbled excitedly, uncaring that I probably seemed out of my mind. It didn’t matter. They were there. I hadn’t been able to process my pure joy before throwing up earlier, so I was making up for it.
August kept me in his lap, letting me turn so I could face them all. “Is it normal for you to bounce back so quickly?”
Theo grunted. “There’s no such thing as normal.”
That was when I made eye contact with the pregnancy test on the coffee table between us. I stiffened and looked away quickly, like it was just my imagination if I didn’t stare at it for long.
Charlie chuckled and raised his eyebrows at me when I looked at him. “Why are you avoiding the test, baby?”
August stroked my back and heaved out a giant sigh against my shoulder before laughing. “Sorry. Sorry, I just… I’ve spent the last couple of weeks as tense as I’ve ever been in my life and it’s starting to fade away. Feeling you tense up over that test just about gave me a heart attack, though. Do you not want kids, Rea? With us?”
I gasped and captured his face in my hands. “It’s not that, at all. I’m scared. Why are you three not shocked or scared? Or anything?”
Theo grinned. “Lisa accidentally told us. We were plenty scared, Reagan. We were scared shitless that our woman was just out in the world without us, vulnerable and pregnant.”
I whimpered as more tears filled my eyes. “I don’t even know that I’m pregnant for sure.”
“You’re pregnant, baby.” Theo nodded to the test. “You can take it if you need to feel sure, but I’ve seen it with Iris’ birth and all my brothers’ wives.”
August rested his big hand over my stomach and stared at it, blinking away a tear of his own. “We want this. More than that, though, we want you. The bet was just some stupid thing we did. It was never serious, Rea. We’re crazy about you. All of us. We love you… I love you.”
Crying harder, I kissed him. “You mean that? You love me?”
Charlie cleared his throat. “We love you more than you can imagine, Rea. I love you so much that I felt like I was falling apart without you.”
Theo nodded. “I love you, too, Rea. I realized somewhere along the way that you’ve had a place in my heart for so long that it wasn’t hard and it took no time for me to fall in love with you.”
“We’re in love with you, Rea. You’re it for us. We’re in this for good if you’ll have us. No matter what comes our way, no matter how much work it takes to figure out a…quad-couple…we’re in.” August made a face. “I’m deeply sorry for saying quad-couple.”
I pressed my face into his neck and breathed in his scent. “I love you. I love each of you so much that it’s been hell without you. I missed you so much. I missed your moodiness and overprotectiveness. I missed your silliness and your smiles and your touches. I’ve felt lost without them. I don’t want to be here. I want to be home. Please tell me you came to get me and not to tell me I’m terrible for running away or that you want me but can’t choose me over Russ.”
Charlie sank down next to us and pulled my face to his so he could slowly kiss me. “We’re here to get you, baby.”
Theo easily lifted me into his arms and grunted unhappily. “You’ve lost weight, Rea. Clearly, you need us around to force food on you and coddle you into a round, happy pregnant lady.”
I wrapped myself around him and held on tight. The past two weeks of sadness came seeping out as I cried into his shoulder. The panic I’d been barely holding off overcame me, as well. “I drank. I don’t know when we got pregnant and I drank that night at the chip. Maybe after. I can’t remember. I just know I got drunk and I was pregnant. Maybe. I’m going to be a terrible mother. I probably hurt the baby and then I left town like a chicken. I’m so scared. I’m so scared I hurt her. Or him.”