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CHAPTER THREE

luca

I did not, in fact, get the vasectomy in time to start football camp. My coaches were grumpy as fuck about the delay, but they didn’t argue. Remington still had my back from the grave. I’d been with Nashville my entire career and they treated me like royalty, but I was planning my retirement.

Not this season, but soon. My body was at peak performance. I was still a beast on the field. Continued to scare bodily fluids out of the opposing team’s offense from the first Monday in September all the way up to the last week of January—and sometimes lasting until the first full week of February.

Every time my team had won our championship and moved on to the Super Bowl, we’d won. Like most players, I wanted one more shot before I walked away and focused on my family. Vi and our kids deserved my full attention without me being half crippled from one too many hits on the field.

It was with a pulse throbbing in my ball sac the day after my vasectomy that Vi gave me that sweet, innocent smile and informed me that she was pregnant.

With twins.

Again.

I had taken one of the painkillers an hour before, so I was seeing double of her. But she had the first ultrasound in her hand, waving it around as she talked animatedly.

Pregnant.

It was easy enough to pinpoint when it had happened. That day she’d kissed Shaw in front of me for the first time. I’d lost control that day. How the hell was I supposed to remember something trivial like birth control when I’d turned into a man possessed watching my smoking-hot wife kiss the second-hottest woman I’d ever met?

That may have been the first time she’d kissed her best friend in front of me. But it hadn’t been the last. Experimenting Era 2.0 was starting slow. I was sure that I was the reason she was taking things one step at a time instead of diving in headfirst. She wanted to make sure I was comfortable.

Apparently she still hadn’t completely realized that she was my fucking world, and now that world had expanded a little. If it made Violet feel good, I was down for anything.

But only if that anything was with Shaw.

Which was a lie that I was done telling myself.

I was tired of pretending I didn’t notice how Jagger looked at Vi. How lost he got, unable to tear his gaze away. The yearning that radiated off him in waves that would drown a normal person in utter despair if they didn’t get what they ached for so deeply. I knew that look well—I had fucking been him those years I’d spent without Violet’s love. He never tried to touch her, though. Which meant he had a hell of a lot more willpower than me. Because when it came to Vi and Shaw experimenting, I couldn’t last two seconds before I was begging them to let me participate in some way.

Jagger had watched me go down on Shaw only two weeks ago. Something Vi had encouraged. Flat-out begged for it. But she’d barely gotten the words out before I was on my knees. At the time, I hadn’t cared how Jagger felt about it. I’d take the ass-beating if he wanted to throw down.

He didn’t.

He hadn’t moved a single muscle while he watched us. Didn’t seem to breathe until Shaw had come twice on my tongue. And then he was pulling her to him, fucking her right in front of us.

I knew why he hadn’t touched Vi, though, and I respected him for it.

Jagger was waiting for Vi to ask. Or maybe to put him out of his misery and just take.

Admittedly, I was having fun with all the experimenting when we had private time with our friends. But it would all stop in the blink of an eye if Vi said it wasn’t what she wanted. Her wants, her needs? That was all that I cared about. And if she wanted Jagger to kiss her, any part of her, I’d be down for that in a heartbeat.

“This is crazy, right?” Vi exclaimed, returning me to the land of the agony in my scrotum. She had on a pair of running shorts and a tank top that showed off a nice view of her tits.

I should not have been able to get so much as a twitch from my dick yet. The doctor had assured me that the swelling wouldn’t be too bad if I kept an ice pack on my balls and took the meds he prescribed. That fucker was full of shit. My balls felt like they were the size of peaches, and I was half hard.

“Insane,” I agreed, making a mental note in my high-as-fuck brain to double- and triple-check that my vasectomy had taken before I put my dick back in her.

“You said that out loud, babe.”

“Oh. Sorry. Did it hurt your feelings?” Fuck. I couldn’t tell. She was all bright-eyed and full of smiles. She’d even given me that beautiful laugh I was so in love with. But what if I missed something while I was lying there recovering from a little snip to the boys down south?

How did anyone get shit done on drugs? If this was what it was like every day for an addict, there should never have been an opioid epidemic. The most I’d ever done was get stupid drunk and do even stupider things. And that was plenty of experience with not being in control for one lifetime. A shudder crawled up my spine, regret making my stomach turn.

“Shaw. Where’s Shaw?” I glanced around, half expecting her to materialize out of thin air. I was surprised when she didn’t. Maybe I’d said the wrong name. “Jagger?”

Nothing.

“Where the fuck are those two?” Realizing I was swearing, I pressed my lips together and peeked around, hoping I hadn’t said bad words in front of my little princess. But Love Bug was absent. And there was no Grier chirping happily. Or Fallon terrorizing Elijah and Ethan. She scared the living hell out of them the majority of the time. They screamed when they saw her most days, then did absolutely everything in their power to avoid being in the same room with her.

It was not the cute kind of scared either. Not much frightened my sons, but Fallon? Yeah, those two were terrified of her.

Where Grier was the carbon copy of her mother, Fallon was a perfect blend of Jagger and Shaw. Which was dangerous as fuck, because that perfect blend wasn’t just Jags and Shaw. It was Emmie Armstrong and Dallas Cage, rolled into one small, strawberry-blond hell-raiser. Those blue eyes might look all sweet and innocent, but they had flames in them that had us all on edge, waiting for the inevitable explosion from the little bomb Shaw had birthed.

“Jags and Shaw have the kids at their house, so you can recover without Ethan and Elijah all over the place,” she gently reminded me, her voice soothing a restless part of me while simultaneously making the heartbeat I felt pulsing in my balls hurt like a son of a bitch.

“Right. I remember. Jagger is on daddy duty all week. My parents and yours both said they would help out if he and Shaw need backup, though. No, wait. Shaw shouldn’t be over there.” I frowned, trying to think through the fog that had invaded my brain. I hated those freaking narcotics. “Why isn’t Shaw here? Didn’t you tell her yet?”

“Oddly enough, no. I wasn’t having some crazy life-changing catastrophic event, so I did an at-home test on my own and then had it confirmed at my OB. Because you Thorntons always seem to double down, I was adamant about an early ultrasound. You’re the first to know anything this time around.” She frowned down at the picture in her hand. “But now I’m wondering if you are even going to remember this when the Vicodin wears off.”

I snapped my fingers and was pleased with myself when they actually made the sound. Shaking away my amazement, I knew I’d have plenty of time later to bask in the success of what a good finger-snapper I was. Vi was more important.

All three of her.

Wait. There had been two of her just a few seconds ago.

“Why are there so many of you?”

Her brows lifted like she was confused. Or maybe she was upset. But she laughed. Did that mean she was happy? Or was it that fake laugh that should have chilled me to my bones? I couldn’t tell. The damn pills were making everything fuzzy and numb. Which was a good thing for the amount of pain in my ball sac. That was next-level agony. No wonder Lyric cried when he had his vasectomy. Mila was a coldhearted bitch for saying my brother was a wuss. He couldn’t help that she was a freak who had a crazy-high pain tolerance.

“How many do you see?” Vi asked, her voice calming the flare of anger that filled me on my twin’s behalf. I should call Lyric and tell him I was sorry for doubting his pain when he had been brave enough to get snipped. It took guts to let some supposed professional get close enough with a knife to play mad scientist with his mojo.

Jagger had experienced it too. About a year after Fallon was born, Shaw had decided she was done populating the world with her mini me’s, and Jags didn’t hesitate to make the appointment himself. He told me about the pain, but again, I thought they were both overdramatizing it. Wanting extra TLC from their wives.

Ha!

Wait.

Vi had asked me something. How many who?

“Of me, Luca. How many of me do you see?”

“Three. No, two.” I blinked and then blinked again. “No, three. Definitely three. But I’m not complaining, baby. That just means there is more of you to love.”

Her lips twitched. Was she fighting not to laugh or cry?

Damn it!

I needed backup.

“I am so glad I decided to record this. I can’t wait to show you later. And then I’m going to show Shaw.”

“Shaw!” I yelled, remembering the important thing I absolutely needed to remember. “That’s what I was going to ask you. Where is Shaw?”

Violet cupped my face in her hands. “Shaw is at her house. With Jagger. And our kids. All of them, minus the two still in the oven.”

I covered her hands. So soft. I loved her hands. Don’t get distracted yet, idiot. I blinked up into those pretty purple eyes. They were all glittery with emotions I couldn’t name. A lump filled my throat, choking me. “But I need Shaw here so she can tell me if you’re upset. Because I really can’t fucking tell right now, baby. And that kills me. I need you to be okay. Okay?”

She kissed my nose. “High Luca is so adorable.”

No one had ever called me adorable before, least of all her. Adorable? Pfft . Had I turned into a puppy when they’d clipped my balls? I grunted and lightly swatted her on the ass before I grabbed my phone. I had to blink a few times before I could see the screen so I could call the right person.

“Luca?” Shaw’s voice finally filled the room. “You should be sleeping. Does Vi know you have your phone right now?”

“I know,” Vi assured her. Apparently I’d hit speaker when I’d tried to connect. “Oh my god, he is so loopy right now. It’s freaking adorable.”

“Stop saying that,” I grumbled.

“Please tell me you are recording.” Shaw’s amused voice rolled down my spine like silk.

“I’m getting it all. I might even edit and send clips to Lyric later.”

“Don’t make me have to kill my brother,” I pleaded, but maybe I didn’t say that out loud, because no one promised they wouldn’t.

“That’s going to be fun to watch. Remember how chill Jagger was the first day? And then, on day two, he became the biggest baby. But I couldn’t kiss his ouchie better for two full weeks.”

“Can she stop talking now? I feel my heartbeat in my left nut.”

Silence echoed in my brain. That was much better. Blowing out a breath, I slowly relaxed. No sexy voices that played with my head and made my dick jump. Closing my eyes, I started to fade into the nothingness of no pain.

Violet burst into giggles, startling me awake with my favorite sound of all time.

And the pain returned ten times worse.

“Shaw!” I shouted.

“What?” she yelled back, fear in her voice. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Vi, what is going on over there?”

Vi couldn’t answer because she was bent over, laughing so hard she was practically crying.

Wait. Maybe she was just crying.

“Shaw, get your ass over here now. I need help. I don’t know if Violet is happy or sad. She’s laughing, but there are tears rolling down her face. Please, I can’t read her, and she just told me she’s pregnant.”

“Adorable,” Vi choked out.

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”