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“Hooray,” he mutters, and his back might be turned, but I hear the displeasure in his voice. “Another little Ashby soldier.”

“Wicker,” Pace snaps, not even bothering to glare at him. He’s too busy staring at my stomach, his face so stricken that it makes my belly clench. “Fuck,” he breathes, pushing away. It’s only then that I can place the expression on his face.

Disappointment.

“Why the long face?” Wicker says, holding his arms out limply. “Look at it this way. If it’s a girl, she’ll be a whore. A boy gets a thirty-three percent shot at being something else.” The smile he gives is pure agony.

Suddenly, it’s all too real; the heartbeat, the shape of the body, the sex. A boy. God help us all. All the angst, the emotion, the fucked-up-ness of it all slams into my chest, and as much as I hate crying in front of these assholes, I release a choked-up sob.

All three of the brothers' gazes snap toward me, but after a stretch of silence, Lex is the one to speak.

“Get the fuck out,” he barks, tightening his grip on the wand and yanking it away from my stomach. “Both of you, get the fuck out of here before I toss you out myself.”

“Chill out,” Wicker drawls. “Just because—”

In a flash, I see why Lex was a goalie. His reflexes are lightning-fast, his body coiled and ready to strike. One thing is certain, no one is getting between him and me. Not even his brothers.

“Go,” he repeats. “I know you’re both fucked in the head over this, but that doesn’t mean you get to upset her. For everything this means to us, it means a thousand times more to her.”

I look away, wiping my eyes, not seeing but hearing them leave. After a tense moment, there’s a long, tired sigh, and then Lex returns to my side. “I’m sorry about that. They’re just…”

“Scared,” I answer, knowing they don’t deserve an ounce of grace. “I know. This is so scary.”

He looks at me, his wild hair framing his face, and then reaches forward to cup my cheek, thumb wiping away a tear. All the rage that he showed his brothers has vanished. “Pace knows what it means to be a boy in this house. He just has to process it in his own way. And Wick,” that tic in his jaw returns, “he’ll come around.”

I’m not sure either of us believes that.

“Can you…” I look down at the sonogram wand, gulping down the remnants of a sob. “Can you show me again? The baby?”

He blinks, fingers sliding away from my cheek. “Of course.”

“And show me everything? All I really saw was a blob.” I brace myself for another squirt of the cool gel, but this time when he squeezes it out, it’s less startling. Lex presses the wand over my belly, and he’s faster this time, locating the fetus—no, locatinghim—quickly. Thewoosh-wooshof the heartbeat fills the room.

He clears his throat. “So here’s his head, obviously,” he says, pointing to the screen. “And the heartbeat, see it move?”

I watch the tiny vibrating spot thud faster than I’d expect. “Yes.”

“Then we have the spine and the other organs. They’re hard to see because they’re all smushed together, but this,” he grabs a pencil off the cart and taps it against the screen, at what looks like an elbow or knee or maybe a tail, “that’s the sex organ. His tiny penis.”

“So it’s really a boy.”

A grin tugs at his mouth as he assesses the screen. “It really is.”

It might be the first time I’ve ever seen him smile arealsmile. No bitterness or spite or malice driving it. Just this small, delighted quirk of his mouth.

He looks beautiful.

I wait for the wave of fear and upset. The doom of reality at knowing I’ll bring another spoiled Royal into this world. It never comes. Instead, I’m struck by a sense of awe, protectiveness, and truth.

I just see my baby boy.

Ourbaby boy.

16

Lex

It’s still rainingthe next morning, when I park my SUV in the old diner parking lot. The service road we took to get here is flooded out, not to mention half of South Side. Over the speakers, the DJ—a creepy junior who runs the underground college radio—is talking about the crisis not so unlike a stoned art major. The broadcasts are more riddle than news, but Verity has taken a strange liking to them.