Page 40 of Curvy Cabin Fever

ARIA

THREE MONTHS LATER

R hett makes a pot one morning—something herbal from the little shop in town—and the scent hits me wrong. My stomach flips before I even taste it.

I set the mug down quietly, trying not to draw attention. But Morgan’s eyes flick to me across the table, his perception always sharper than I expect.

“You okay, sugar?” he asks, pausing with his own mug halfway to his lips.

“Fine,” I lie, forcing a smile I hope looks convincing.

And I mostly am. But I’m tired and a little dizzy. My breasts have been tender for days, but it’s probably just the altitude. Or the cold.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

By the third morning, I can’t ignore it anymore.

My jeans don’t button comfortably despite all our hiking. The smell of bacon—Morgan’s specialty that normally makes my mouth water—sends me fleeing to the porch for fresh air. And when I flip through my planner to mark a deadline, I realize I haven’t had my period in a long time.

My whole body goes still as the possibility washes through me.

Could I be pregnant?

Oh, my fucking god.

I don’t tell them right away. Instead, I spend the day drifting between tasks, pretending I’m just tired, just distracted. But the thought won’t leave me; it sits in my belly, impossible to ignore.

What if I am? Only one way to find out.

The next morning, I announce I’m walking into town alone.

Damien offers to come with me, his dark eyes narrowing slightly at my sudden need for solitude.

“I want to see Trish at the café,” I tell him—not entirely a lie since I do plan to stop there after. He watches me with that penetrating gaze that suggests he knows there’s more, but he lets me go without pressing. “Women’s things.”

“Take the heavier coat,” is all he says, helping me into it with gentle hands.

At the pharmacy, I grab a bottle of shampoo we don’t need, some toothpaste though we have plenty, and—after glancing around to ensure no familiar faces are watching—one small pink box that I quickly tuck beneath the other items.

The cashier barely looks up from her phone as she rings me up.

Thank god.

I slide the test into the bottom of my bag before leaving the store. It rattles with each step all the way back to the cabin, a constant reminder of the question I’m both desperate and terrified to know the answer to.

I wait until everyone is outside. Rhett is working. Morgan and Damien are clearing the path behind the shed, their deep voices occasionally carrying across the property.

I lock the bathroom door, sit on the edge of the tub, and tear open the box with shaking hands. The instructions blur before my eyes, but I’ve seen enough movies to know the basics.

It takes less than a minute.

But it changes everything .

Two lines.

Two tiny pink lines that rewrite my entire future.

Holy shit!

I don’t cry as numbness spreads over me like a rash. I exhale slowly—my fear mixed with a strange joy that catches me by surprise.

I don’t plan how to tell them. In fact, I spend twenty minutes sitting on the closed toilet lid, test clutched in my hand, mentally rehearsing different scenarios.

Should I wait until dinner? Plan something special? Blurt it out the moment they walk inside?

Instead, I find myself standing on the porch, the test still in hand, watching them work together in the yard. Rhett directing, Damien measuring with his eyes, Morgan lifting things that should require machinery. The sight of them—my men—working in perfect harmony settles something in my chest.

They sense me before they see me. Rhett turns first, as if pulled by an invisible thread connecting us. His eyes drop to my hand. Then to my face.

“Aria?” His voice carries across the yard, causing the other two to look up.

I meet his gaze, then Damien’s, then Morgan’s as they approach the porch. The words come without rehearsal or preamble.

“I’m pregnant.”

Silence.

No one even breathes as they stare at me.

Then Damien steps forward, breaking the spell. He takes the test from my hand, stares at it for a second, then lifts his eyes to mine.

“I told you,’ he murmurs, voice rough with awe. “I told you I’d fill you.”

I let out a half-laugh, half-sob at the memory of his promise.

Morgan blinks repeatedly. “Wait. You’re serious?”

I nod, unable to find more words.

“I... Holy fuck.” He runs a hand over his head, his dark eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I whisper, and I mean it. Despite the fear and the uncertainty, I’m okay.

More than okay.

Rhett looks stunned.

Wrecked .

Like someone has simultaneously punched him in the gut and handed him the keys to the universe. But his hand reaches for mine anyway, warm and steady as always.

“It doesn’t matter who the daddy is, right?” he asks, his gaze sweeping over Morgan and Damien before returning to me. “Unless you want that, Aria.”

I shake my head, eyes brimming with tears of gratitude. In our arrangement, paternity could be a complication.

“Then there’s nothing to talk about,” Damien says, tossing the test onto the porch railing like a challenge to the universe. “Aria’s ours. So is the baby.”

Morgan pulls me into his arms, and the others follow until I’m surrounded, enveloped, held by all three of them at once—a tangle of arms and hearts and shared breath.

“I love you,” I whisper into this circle of belonging. “I love all of you.”

Damien presses a kiss to my hair, his lips lingering. Morgan squeezes my hand, thumb rubbing circles on my palm. Rhett cups my jaw with those hands that have held me through so much already, his eyes fierce and soft all at once.

“We’re not just building a life anymore,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “We’re building a real family.”

That night, they treat me like I’m made of glass.

Morgan cooks my favorite meal—pasta with the creamy sauce that usually makes Damien complain about calories.

Rhett builds a fire that turns the living room golden and warm.

Damien disappears for an hour and returns with a stack of books on pregnancy and parenting, already dog-eared like he’s been reading them in the car.

“I’m not sick,” I remind them as Morgan insists on serving me on the couch instead of at the table. “Just pregnant.”

“Humor us,” Rhett says, settling beside me with a gentleness that makes me roll my eyes.

“At least for tonight,” Morgan adds, placing a plate in my hands.

Damien says nothing, but his eyes haven’t left my stomach all evening, like he’s trying to see through skin and muscle to the miracle happening beneath. He’s so cute.

After dinner, we curl together on the oversized sectional Rhett ordered last month—“Because we need something that fits all of us,” he’d insisted.

Morgan pulls my feet into his lap, massaging them with skilled hands.

Damien sits on the floor, leaning against my legs, occasionally reaching up to touch my knee as if reassuring himself I’m still there.

Rhett’s fingers thread through mine, his thumb tracing the lines of my palm.

“Are you scared?” he asks quietly.

I consider lying, then remember who I’m talking to. These men who have seen me at my most vulnerable, who have held me through nightmares and ecstasy and everything in between.

“Yes,” I admit. “But not in a bad way. More like...standing at the edge of something enormous. Something beautiful but overwhelming.”

Morgan’s hands pause on my feet. “We’re scared too,” he confesses with unusual seriousness. “But we’re here. All the way.”

“Every step,” Damien adds, turning to press his lips to my knee.

“Whatever you need,” Rhett finishes, squeezing my hand.

And I know they mean it. These three men who found each other before they found me, who opened their circle and pulled me into the center of something I never knew could exist.

Later, when we move to the bedroom, they touch me like I’m a goddess. They undress me slowly, each piece of clothing removed with care, like they’re unwrapping something precious.

Morgan kisses my belly first, his usual playfulness replaced with something that looks suspiciously like prayer.

Damien’s hands map my body with an architect’s precision, lingering on the places that will soon change, memorizing me as I am now.

Rhett watches them, then me, his eyes dark with emotion. When he finally touches me, it’s cupping my face between his palms.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and I know he means for more than just tonight.

We make love differently than we have before. Not the wild passion of our beginning, nor the playful exploration of our recent days. This is something deeper and slower.

They take turns, one, then another, while the third holds me, cradles me, whispers love against my skin. They move together with the synchronicity that still amazes me—passing me between them like something beyond valuable, ensuring I’m never without touch, never without connection.

When it’s over, we lie tangled together, sweat cooling on our skin, heartbeats gradually slowing to match each other’s rhythm.

Morgan’s head rests on my stomach, as if listening for changes that won’t be audible for months.

Damien curls against my side, his arm draped protectively across my hips.

Rhett lies above us, one hand in my hair, the other reaching across to touch the others, completing our circle.

“I never imagined this,” I murmur into the darkness, not sure if any of them are still awake.

But Rhett’s voice comes back to me, steady and sure. “I did. Not exactly this, but...something.”

“We’re your home now,” Morgan mumbles against my skin.

Damien’s hand tightens slightly on my hip. “Always.”

Outside, snow begins to fall—light at first, then heavier. I listen to the soft patter against the windows, remembering another snowfall that stranded me with three strangers who became my world.

I close my eyes, surrounded by the men I love, carrying the future we’ve created.

We’ve all found our way home.