Page 14 of Hot Chicken (Sunday Brothers #6)

I tipped my chin to my chest to hide my smile. Luke wasn’t just the perfect man for me ; he was also the perfect stepfather for Aiden. One who never missed an opportunity to show Aiden how important and loved he was. I couldn’t wait to see him with our daughters.

“So your dad and I decided you might want to, ah… level up.” Luke smiled. “From only child to big brother.”

For a moment, Aiden’s eyes widened, and his mouth formed a perfect, shocked circle. Then he cracked.

“Oh my God, are you serious? ” he exclaimed, his voice high-pitched with excitement, all traces of preteen cool obliterated. “We’re having a baby?”

“Two babies,” I corrected as Luke pulled the ultrasound pictures he’d printed out of the envelope. “Twin sisters, dude.”

Aiden ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that reminded me of… well, me . “This is epic! When are they coming?” he demanded, looking around the room like we might’ve been hiding actual infants behind my office chair. “What are their names?”

“We’ve got a few months to prepare and decide that stuff. You’re the first person we’ve told, of course.” Luke shrugged fake-casually. “Since they’re your family too. Big brother privilege and all.”

Aiden stood a little straighter. “Yeah. I mean… obviously. I, ah, don’t have to change diapers, do I? ”

“Of course not,” Luke said at the same moment I said, “Only the really stinky ones.”

Aiden grinned wildly.

“We figured you might want to help us tell everyone out there our news during dinner.” I nodded toward the chaos in the kitchen. “So we got you this.”

Aiden reached into the gift bag I handed him and pulled out a T-shirt. When he read the groan-worthy slogan splashed across the front of it, he rolled his eyes. “You mean you got me this, Dad,” he countered. “Luke would never.”

Luke covered his mouth with his hand, but his eyes danced.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “It was all me.”

In truth, I’d bought the shirt months ago, right after Josie had told us she was pregnant.

Because despite the fear that nearly choked me whenever Luke tried to talk about it, those babies had twined themselves around my heart from the first minute.

I’d already loved them and wanted them fiercely.

And deep down, I hadn’t stopped hoping because…

“ Because you’re their dad ,” Luke had told me last night with tears in his eyes when I’d pulled the shirt out of the box I’d kept hidden at the top of my closet. Then he’d pushed me onto our bed and kissed me passionately.

Double-underline passionately.

“I’m gonna go put this T-shirt on under my other shirt, and you can give me a signal when you want me to pull it off for the big reveal,” Aiden said, catching on immediately. “Don’t tell ’em without me, okay?”

“Obviously not,” Luke agreed.

Aiden hesitated only a fraction of a second, then threw himself into Luke’s arms and gave him a quick, hard hug. “I love you, too, you know,” he muttered. He turned to me and repeated the gesture. “Both of you.” Then he ran out of the room, clutching his new shirt.

“Wow.” Luke blew out a shaky breath. “That was… ”

“Amazing? Even better than I’d expected? Yes, to all of it.” I pulled him into my arms and buried my face in his neck. “By trying to keep my fear to myself, I almost cost Aiden and everyone the chance to feel this joy.”

“But you didn’t. Because you’re brave. And good .” Luke wrapped his arms around my neck and lowered his voice to a whisper. “And really, really hot, too. In case I haven’t mentioned that today?—”

“Yeah?” I nipped at his jaw. “Because I was thinking, after everyone goes home?—”

“Hey, Webb? Luke?” Hawk called as he came down the hall.

He appeared in the doorway a second later.

“Uncle Drew is nearly done at the grill, so—oh my God, Pecky ?” He goggled at the rooster, which Luke had moved to the table by my office door during our frenzied tidying earlier. “What are you doing here?”

Then his gaze swung to Luke and me, locked together, and he pointed at us accusingly. “I knew it was real! You’ve fallen under the rooster’s spell, haven’t you? And to think, Jack nearly had me convinced it was just a cookie jar!”

Luke and I exchanged a glance, and I noticed he was fighting not to laugh at Hawk’s histrionics.

“No spells, Hawklet,” I said mildly. “Just embracing my husband. Fully clothed. In our home. It’s a thing we do from time to time.”

“Oh, sure, you’re fully clothed now .” Hawk rolled his eyes. “But tell me you weren’t both thinking sex thoughts.”

I opened my mouth to argue but found that I couldn’t. Luke blushed.

Hawk grinned. “Ha! The Cock of Good Fortune is real . Wait until I tell Gage.”

“It wasn’t the rooster—” I began, but when Luke started laughing, I gave up and decided to kiss my husband instead.

By the time we got to the kitchen, everyone had taken their seats at the big farmhouse table, which had been expanded with an extra leaf to accommodate everyone, and Hawk was already in the middle of recounting his story.

“—and Webb was smiling , for no reason whatsoever,” Hawk said. He thrust a hand in my direction and smiled smugly. “See that big, goofy grin? That’s Cock-induced.”

“Actually,” I stood by my seat with Luke at my side. “For your information, I happen to have a lot to smile about. Like an incredible husband.” I lifted Luke’s hand to kiss his knuckles. “An amazing son. And a supportive, if somewhat gullible, family. And…” I took a deep breath.

“Now, Dad?” Aiden whispered from down the table.

“I want it noted that I’ve been willing to believe from the beginning. He was good luck for us.” Gage tapped his ring.

Drew brought a large platter of chicken to the table. “What are you talking about? What was good luck?”

“Yeah,” Porter demanded. “That’s what I want to know.”

Luke squeezed my hand and cleared his throat. “Ahem! Speaking of good luck,” he began loudly.

“We didn’t get engaged because of the rooster, Goodman!” Knox insisted. “I’ve been planning to ask you to marry me for years, and you know it.”

“Sure, but you might’ve kept right on planning for another four years if the Cock hadn’t helped us, ah…” He darted a glance at Aiden, who was practically vibrating with excitement and hardly paying attention. “Initiate the conversation.”

“Right?” Hawk grinned dreamily. “It initiated like four conversations for me and Jack. That’s the most we’ve had in a while.”

“Jesus.” Jack ran a hand over his face.

Porter elbowed Knox in the ribs. “Seriously, what are you guys talking about?”

“To be clear.” Jack addressed himself to the table at large.

“There’s no such thing as a Cock of Good Fortune, and even if there were, I wouldn’t need it in order to…

to… initiate conversations . Okay? Because Hawk and I converse regularly.

All the time. Consistently. It’s just been a busy summer?—”

I made a retching noise. “Oh, God, don’t make me have to bleach my brain.” I held up a hand. “If you guys would freaking listen, we’re trying to tell you?—”

“I’m with Jack,” Knox said, ignoring me. “There’s no such thing as a Cock of Good Fortune. It can’t perform magic , for heaven’s sake?—”

Aiden jumped to his feet, unable to wait any longer. “Dad and Luke are pregnant! With two babies!” he announced. Then he pulled up his T-shirt to reveal the T-shirt beneath, which read “BIG brUH” in large red letters.

For a moment, there was a silence so profound the room rang with it. No one moved. No one spoke. Ten pairs of eyes goggled at Luke and me.

At length, Knox cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “I stand corrected.”

Luke laughed out loud. “Aiden means our surrogate is pregnant,” he clarified. “Our twin daughters are due in early December.”

“Ahhhh! Even more luck!” Hawk jumped up and came around the table to hug Luke, then Aiden, and then me. “Have you considered naming them Marianne and Eleanor?” he wondered. He shot Luke a wink. “We’ll talk.”

Knox stood and slapped me on the back, grinning broadly. “I’m starting their college funds immediately.”

“Could someone please explain—?” Porter began.

“Merciful. Heavens,” Drew whispered. Then he burst into loud, drenching tears. “Did you hear that, Marco? More babies to love!”

“I know, honey.” Marco pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, ready as usual to dry Drew’s tears, and planted a quick kiss on the side of Drew’s head. “It’s wonderful.”

“You owe me five bucks,” I whispered in Luke’s ear.

“Ha. I didn’t take your bet, Sunday,” Luke reminded me, laughing. “I’ve been around for a while now, and I know all of you too well.”

Later, after we’d finally eaten dinner and then dessert, after Luke had broken out the ultrasound pictures and gotten everyone to agree that yes, one daughter definitely had my nose, after we’d cleaned up and put the leftovers away, Aiden began yawning and slumping in his seat, and the rest of the family got to their feet and began the ridiculously long process of saying goodbye.

Luke and I, along with Emma, Aiden, and Bear, followed them out to the front yard.

After a few false starts while Drew ran inside to grab a box of Christmas decorations he’d been storing in the basement, and Gage ran inside to use the bathroom before his arduous, five-minute walk home, and Porter remembered that he’d wanted to take his old hiking backpack from the front hall closet, we waved them off.

When we got inside, Aiden didn’t protest going to bed—a sign he and Porter really had stayed up most of the night before—Emma left to spend the evening with friends, and I finally got to be alone with the man who’d been filling my life with ordinary miracles for three and a half years.

“Looks like the weather’s finally cooling off a bit, huh?” Luke said. He stopped in the living room to plump the pillows and turn off the lamp. “Though I checked my app, and it says we have another five days of— oh !”

I grabbed my husband by the waist and crowded him against the wall by the front stairs.

“Luke Sunday, have I told you recently that loving you is the greatest gift of my life?”

Luke blinked. “I… well, not in so many words, but?—”

“Our life together is worth every meddling Hollowan trying to commandeer our hand fasting, every icy dunk in the pond?—”

“Easy for you to say when I was the one who got dunked,” Luke laughed, though his eyes were shiny .

“Every pint of my ice cream you stole from me?—”

“It was at the grocery store, Webb! By definition, it wasn’t? —”

“Every scroll-reading we endured, even the one that used the word ‘borderethed’—”

Luke laughed harder.

“Because you love me as I am, even when I’m not strong, even when I’m terrified.

And you make me feel safe. You make me feel free.

” I kissed him gently, then pulled back and smiled.

“And right now, I’m going to show you exactly how much I appreciate that by taking you upstairs and doing something you really love to do. ”

“Yeah?” Luke grinned through his tears. “You gonna show me your bugle, Webb Sunday?”

“Who, me? No way. I figured I’d watch you crochet while we ate ice cream and talked about baby names.”

Luke made a noise like a pterodactyl and launched himself into my arms, twining his arms around my neck and kissing me until I forgot my own name.

“Why, Luke Sunday!” My dramatic impression of Hawk was a bit breathless since Luke continued peppering my face and neck with kisses. “This is so unexpected! I can’t imagine what’s gotten into you! You must be under the influence of the rooster!”

I pointed at the table by my office door, where Pecky sat.

But to my surprise, Pecky wasn’t there.

“Uh, Luke.” I pulled away just slightly, though Luke gripped my neck harder and kept kissing me. “Baby, where is the rooster?”

“What?” Luke glanced at the table and blinked uncomprehendingly. “Dunno. Someone must’ve moved it, or maybe Hawk took it home.”

I frowned. “Hawk didn’t have anything with him when he left. And I swear it was right there when we went outside?—”

Luke gripped my face with two surprisingly firm hands and forced me to look at him. “Webb, do you want to find the Cock of Good Fortune right now? Or can we go upstairs and make another cock really happy?”

Luke’s voice suggested there was only one good answer to this question, and as usual, my husband was right.

“Lead the way, baby,” I said.