“Nate said that?” Jesse said.
“Yeah,” she said. “I felt a little bad for him when I told him everything that night. I think he wanted to turn around and go back and kill my father.”
Jesse smiled. “I knew there was a reason I liked him.”
“No shit,” Leo added.
“He will absolutely make sure no contact ever happens,” she said. “You three are all on the same page.”
“For the record,” Leo said, “I really like Nate. And not because I’d love to have him around here all the time to work on me for pain. Laurel loves him, and when I watch him with you, I can see he loves you.”
“Ditto,” Jesse said.
She smiled. “Thanks.” Her stomach rumbled. “Hold that thought.” She barely made it to her bathroom before she puked. The men followed her.
“Okay,” Leo said. “Executive decision. We’ll call and reschedule the appointment.”
“No,” she insisted. “I’m okay. Seriously. Just…give me a minute.”
Sure enough, she felt better after that. She rinsed her mouth out and brushed her teeth, all under the watchful eye of the men, who didn’t seem convinced.
“Better, see? Obviously, I’m not a Vietnamese food kind of girl. Remember how I nearly hurled the first time I tried sushi? Hello, that’s why I usually don’t do date night with you guys for sushi. Sensitive stomach. Last night was tough for me.” She’d barely been able to eat what she’d ordered, through no fault of the restaurant.
Jesse drove and Leo made Eva take shotgun while he climbed into the backseat. An hour later, they were shown into an exam room and the nurse left Eva with a gown, sheet, and specimen cup that already had a sticker on it with her name.
“Go ahead and fill that for us in the bathroom down the hall before you get undressed,” the nurse said. “Leave it inside the little metal door in the bathroom. We’ll grab it.”
“What’s this for?”
“Routine,” the nurse said.
“Okay.” Eva did that first, quickly returning to the exam room and changing. She didn’t even feel bashful in front of Jesse although he still turned around without her asking while she changed.
Leo helped her up onto the exam table. “It’s safe,” she joked once she had the sheet over her lap.
Jesse turned, his face an adorable shade of red. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Not like I think you have cooties or anything, but…” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to see a sister naked either, if I had one.”
“Are you going to tell your parents?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. I haven’t even told Jason.”
Jesse’s oldest brother was the only one of his family who’d have contact with him. His parents and second-oldest brother had disowned him when he’d come out after high school.
“You do realize you’ll be required to make the craving runs, right?” Leo teased Jesse.
“Huh?”
Eva giggled. “Oh, I forgot about those.”
“Of course you did,” Leo teased. “I was the one who had to go make them.”
“Like what?” Jesse asked.
Leo snorted. “There was the one infamous midnight Burger King onion ring run, where I was on my phone Googling locations and trying to find one that was open. You’d think that was easy, and maybe it is up in Tampa or somewhere, but not in Sarasota County. Holy fuck, be glad you aren’t sharing a bed with her. She had Godzilla gas all the next day.”
Eva laughed. “Sorry.”
“No, you absolutely were not sorry,” Leo teased. “Because you sent me out again the next night—earlier, thank goodness—for another damn batch of them.”
“They were good…at the time.”
Leo playfully poked her in the arm. “The salad phase wasn’t so bad.” He looked at Jesse. “We might need stock in Sweet Tomatoes, though. She could plow her way through her weight in greens at their salad bar.”
“Hey, that was a healthy craving,” Eva protested.
“True. And not nearly as gas-inducing as the onion rings.”
They were still bantering back and forth when the doctor walked in. “Mrs. Cooke?”
“Miss,” she corrected, her face heating. “It’s…complicated.” She’d opted to keep Leo’s last name when the divorce was finalized.
The doctor sat after shaking hands with everyone and the introductions were complete. She offered Eva a smile. “Well, it sounds like you’re one big happy family.”
“Pack,” Eva corrected without thinking about it, her face heating when she realized what she’d said. “It’s…complicated,” she repeated. “Actually, our daughter came up with it after seeing a story about wolves.”
No need to get into the BDSM dynamic implications of it.
“Your daughter?”
Leo pointed from him to Eva. “Our biological daughter, but Jesse is her step-father and she calls him Poppa.”
The doctor consulted the chart again. “Okay. So we’re actually going to be working with Mr. Morrow and Miss Cooke?”
“Mr. Cooke-Morrow,” Jesse corrected with a smile. “It’s complicated.”
“Obviously.” But the doctor wore a smile. “My brother’s gay. He was with his partner nearly ten years when the gay marriage ban fell and they were able to get married. They have a daughter through a surrogate.”
“Oh.” That relaxed Eva, that the doctor was so open-minded already. “Then you understand.”
“I think so.” She started to ask Eva a couple of questions when there was a knock on the door. The doctor stood and cracked the door open enough Eva could see one of the nurses on the other side.
“Excuse me just a moment,” the doctor said. “I’ll be right back.” She slipped out, closing the door behind her.
Eva heard them discussing something, but their voices disappeared down the hall.
Jesse had moved to stand on her other side, so Eva took both their hands in hers and pulled them into her lap. “This will be good,” she said. “Adding to our pack.”
Jesse’s brow furrowed. “Remember—”
She squeezed his hand. “Yes, I know. But I do want this, so stop that. You’re starting to make me think you might not be sure.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” He chuckled. “Sorry. I’m just nervous. Seriously, this is like a dream. I didn’t think this would ever happen.”
The doctor returned. Eva noted her expression had changed. A rumbling started in her gut that had more to do with that than any remnants of last night’s dinner still causing trouble for her.
The doctor sat and seemed to be figuring out what to say. “There’s a slight…complication,” she said.
“What?” all three of them asked.
The doctor looked at Eva. “We’re not going to be able to do a fertility procedure on you at this time.”
“Why not?” all three of them asked.
“Because, Miss Cooke, you’re already pregnant.”
Chapter Twenty-One
They sat in the car, silent, the engine running and AC on high to chase away the June heat.
Eva was in shock.
All three of them were.
Beyond the shock she felt horrible, guilty.
She felt like she’d let Jesse down.
She couldn’t even enjoy the news.
Finally, Jesse reached over and took her hand, gently squeezing. “We need to go talk to him.”
It took her a moment to realize what he meant. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.”
“So what,” Leo asked from the backseat, “exactly haven’t you told us?”
“I…” She swallowed hard. “The night a couple of weeks ago, after we went to my parents’ house and then had the big talk, we…actually slept together. I mean, we finally had intercourse for the first time.”
“Well, obviously you had intercourse,” Leo said. “But is there anything else?”
“We used a condom!” she said. “We were careful!”
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Jesse hadn’t let go of her hand, but now he was staring out the windshield. “Not careful enough,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her tears coming hot and heavy. “This isn’t what I meant to happen!”
He squeezed her hand and finally turned, pulling her into his arms. “I know, sweetie. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I think we’re all in shock.” He stroked her back as she sobbed against his shoulder. Leo leaned forward, between the seats and laid an arm over her shoulders, too.
“What am I going to do?” she managed through her tears.
“First thing,” Leo said, “is we’re going over to Nate’s office and having a talk with him.”
“He’s going to hate me.”
“Why?” the men asked.
“I mean…what if he thinks this was on purpose?”
“Was it?” Jesse asked.
“No! Hell, I didn’t know we were going to sleep together. I was so upset, and I told him about this, and then when he said he was okay with that I told him…what he did to me, and then…” She started crying again. “Hell, we didn’t even think it was going to happen until he found he had a condom in his bag he’d forgotten about. We were out of the ones we normally use for play. Usually he gets these flavored ones for me because—”
“Wait,” Leo said. “Back up. You guys didn’t mean to have intercourse? And it was the first time? What the hell have you been doing together all this time? I thought you two were sleeping together. I wasn’t asking because I was trying to respect your privacy.”
“Orgasm play, but not…you know…actual intercourse. So it wasn’t planned, no.” She fumbled the glove box open and found a pack of tissues in there. After blowing her nose, she said, “He even joked he hoped it wasn’t expired.”
There was a moment of silence from both men. “Oh. He did, did he?” She didn’t understand the sudden venom in Jesse’s tone.
“No! Not like that, it wasn’t like that. Please, guys, don’t hate him.”
Jesse and Leo exchanged a long look, apparently on the same wavelength…and the wrong one.
“Guys, please—”
“You were officially collared as under our protection,” Leo said. “He knew that. He had no right to go getting you—”
“You never said I couldn’t sleep with him,” she said, starting to feel a little aggravated at them for trying to shove the blame onto Nate. “You both said you liked him and signed off on me pursuing a relationship with him! You’ve practically been shoving me at him. So don’t go hating him because someone fell asleep at the quality control station.”
Silence filled the car, other than the sound of the engine and the AC running.
Jesse blew out a long breath. “Fuck,” he quietly said. “That could have been me the only time I slept with a girl when I was a kid,” he said. “Accidents happen.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Please, this is as much my fault as it is his. We didn’t set out to sleep together that night, but one thing led to another. If he hadn’t had any condoms we were just going to fool around like we usually do, but not actually have sex. I just…I wanted more, okay? I needed more.”
She looked down. “You guys have each other,” she said. “I wanted at least one time to actually fuck him before I got pregnant, and I knew once we started with the appointments he and I wouldn’t be able to risk it. I needed something that was just between me and Nate, that was all ours, until after I had the baby. Besides, it’s been a long fucking time since I’ve actually been fucked. Since before Leo left me. Not that our play isn’t fun, but sometimes, a girl just needs that intimate emotional connection, you know?”
More silence. She hadn’t meant it as a guilt trip, but when she finally forced her focus up again, both men were staring at her with sympathy in their gazes.
“You never told me that,” Leo said.
“You never asked,” she shot back a little more harshly than she meant to.
“When you told me no one stayed the night while Laurel was home, I thought that meant—”
“I didn’t want to look totally pitiful,” she said. “The reason I broke up with Mark was besides the comments he made about you…he wanted to take things to the next level and I…didn’t.” She started crying again. “The other couple of guys I dated, when they wanted to have sex, I broke up with them. I couldn’t. They weren’t you. And after you left, I didn’t even have a goddamned orgasm until Nate and I started playing together. What Nate and I’ve had has been great, but I wanted just a little more…before. You know? Was that too much to ask? He’s sharing my goddamned uterus with you guys. I just wanted at least one time with him before that.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Leo’s sad tone only made her cry harder. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m happy for you two, all right?” she nearly screamed. “And I love you two guys, but dammit, I’ve been alone! Even with Nate, because I couldn’t make myself tell him everything before then. And I finally didn’t feel alone anymore with him that night, and I didn’t want to stop feeling not-alone, okay? So if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine for not being more careful. So please don’t hate him, because I love him.”
Jesse pulled her back into his arms. “Shh. I’m sorry. I don’t hate him.”
“Me, either,” Leo said.
“Well, good, but he’s probably going to hate me for this.”
“No, he won’t,” Leo said. “Not unless we’ve all horribly misjudged him, including Tilly.” Leo sat back and pulled his phone out.
“Who are you calling?”
“Cherise. To see if Nate has an opening to talk this afternoon before we have to go get Laurel from school.”
“He’s coming over for dinner tomorrow night. Do we have to tell him today?”
“Yes,” the men said.
* * * *
Nate was waiting on his next client when Cherise hit him up on the intercom. “Leo just called and asked if you could slide him in this morning. It’ll bump your lunch a little, but I’ll run get you something. They won’t mind if you eat while you’re working on him.”
“Okay, thanks.” He would always make time for any of them.
Then he had a thought. This morning was their first appointment with the doctor.
I hope everything went okay.
If it hadn’t, surely Eva would have texted him. But nothing since her chipper good morning text exchange. Not that that was unusual. She knew he was busy with clients and they usually had a lunchtime text exchange until after both of them were home from work.
Maybe Leo didn’t go to the appointment with them.
Perhaps he’d misunderstood. It was going to be Jesse’s baby. Maybe they decided he should be the one to go with her.
Well, it wasn’t his business. If they wanted to tell him, they would. He didn’t want to pry. They had welcomed him into their dynamic, and he was happy to be there. They were supposed to have dinner together tomorrow night at Eva’s and break the news to Laurel that he and Eva were going to get married.
He had finally gotten Eva an engagement ring and was going to “propose” to her in front of Laurel. That way, they wouldn’t have to explain the ring to her later.
Even more, he was looking forward to spending time with Eva and Laurel and yes, with Leo and Jesse. He hadn’t had brothers growing up. Just Cherise.
It was nice to actually have men he felt a sibling bond toward. Sure he had male friends, but this was different.
This was family.
He did manage a quick bathroom run and was scarfing down the lunch that Cherise had grabbed for him when Eva, Jesse, and Leo appeared in his office doorway.
“Hey…” He studied their faces. “What’s wrong?” Eva looked like she’d been crying.
“We need to talk, Nate,” Leo said, pulling the door shut behind them.
“You’re not here for an appointment?”
“No.”
Cold fear congealed in a hard, jagged ball in his
gut. He focused on Eva. Standing, he walked over to her, taking her hands in his and waiting until she looked up at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, hoping he’d kept his tone as calm as he meant to.
She didn’t answer at first even as she stared up into his eyes.
“Do you want me to tell him?” Leo asked. But Leo’s tone sounded gentle, not harsh.
She shook her head, blinking back tears. “Nate…”
He led her over to the table and had her sit when she couldn’t continue. “Eva, sweetie, tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring me.” He pulled her hands against his chest and realized how cold they felt, even though it was hot outside. “Are you okay? Is there a problem?”
He was aware of the men standing behind him, but he kept his focus on her. She swallowed hard and took another deep breath.
“I’m…pregnant,” she whispered.
He frowned. Maybe he’d goofed up the timeline and missed hearing about an appointment somewhere. He’d been so damn busy the past couple of weeks that it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility. “That’s…great, right? Congratulations! I told you, I’m okay with this—”
“No,” she said, stopping him. “It’s not Jesse’s. It’s yours.”
His mouth snapped shut.
He processed.
And processed.
And…
“What?” he whispered, certain he’d misheard her.
“I haven’t been with anyone except you. And the timing is right from…the night we talked. They did a routine urine test before my appointment and found out I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant?”
She nodded.
“Mine?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry.”
He pulled her into his arms. “Why are you apologizing?”
She started crying again. “I feel like such an idiot. I’m so sorry. This isn’t what was supposed to happen.”
He made her sit back and cradled her face in his hands, kissing her. Once he knew he had her attention, he said, “Sweetie, this is okay. I’m still not going anywhere.”
“But…it’s yours.”
“Yeah. You made that clear.” He had a thought. “Unless you mean you’re not going to ke—”