Page 178

Jules

I opened the door with what I hoped was cat-like grace, slowly, slowly inching the thing open. Peeking around the gap, I only let it open further when I saw the coast was clear. I coiled my body like a spring, tensing the muscles and readying them for the dash that was going to be required.

“Princess! You’re back from your walk!”

Slade yanked the door from my fingers and opened it wide, then swooped in, grabbing me around the waist. He swung me up into his arms, and my eyes bugged out as the immediate pressure on my bladder compressed an organ already under strain.

I thumped on his back as he cooed some kind of lovey-dovey nonsense.

“Breakfast is all ready, and Brandon’s going to do that lymphatic massage and?—”

“Slade, darling, are you into water sports?”

“What? You want to go down to the pool?”

“No, I mean I’m going to piss on your feet if you don’t bloody put me down. I love you, but the baby and my bladder are fighting it out for dominance in my body, and the baby is winning.”

“Oh, shit!” He set me on my feet quickly, then—honest to god—turned me around and pushed me towards the nearest toilet, opening the door and shooing me in.

OK, the boys had all been ridiculously overprotective since they got the news of the baby, something that had just grown worse as I began to show.

Now I was nearly at the end of my term, and they were ridiculous, which was perhaps why he bloody followed me inside.

“Slade!” I snapped as I yanked my tights down.

Romance dies a bloody and horrible death when you’re pregnant, let me tell you.

I didn’t want to be the girl that kept the loo door open in front of her partners, I’d have rather preserved a bit of mystery.

Ha ha ha! Those days were well and truly over.

I tried to hold on and not let the massive wave of piss that was battering at my urethra out while he just stood there, wide eyed. “Out!”

“God damn it…” I muttered to myself as the door finally closed, then almost sobbed from the feeling of relief.

I’d only gone for a fifteen-minute walk, and I went to the loo before I left, but as Gigantor—as I had fondly dubbed the baby—got even bigger, her head dropping down into my pelvis, my world revolved completely around having access to a toilet.

They were all waiting when I got out, standing around the dining table, big smiles on their faces.

Well, all except for Jack. He’d been MIA a lot lately.

I smiled automatically as Buddy rushed over to my side, tail wagging, because they’d obviously been cooking all morning to make this kind of spread.

They looked so proud of the efforts, and they should be.

Hawk was a whizz in the kitchen, and Brandon had invented this amazing frittata, yet as I sat down, I forced myself to take a breath and just settle.

This banquet seemed to perfectly encapsulate our experiences with my pregnancy. For the guys, it was this long, complicated, joyous celebration. Every day was a new way to rejoice in our impending parenthood, yet through it all, I worried.

Of course, I did. I had anxiety, so my ability to find things to worry about was legendary before, when my life was relatively stress free—fighting oppressive werewolf Nazis aside.

But now I was bringing a small person into the crazy.

My arms went around my stomach, the hard weight there both centring me and adding to my fear.

My child, my daughter… A million of the different combinations I’d imagined flickered through my mind.

A little girl with long auburn hair and Finn’s grey eyes, a solemn little girl with Hawk’s and my dark hair and eyes, a bright little blonde-haired girl with devilish green eyes, a prescient girl with dark hair and grey eyes, a tomboy with Slade or Aaron’s hazel eyes and light brown hair.

It didn’t matter, but I thought of her and what she might be like endlessly, which inevitably led me to the question that plagued me—would I be a good enough parent?

That question settled in my stomach, huge and unyielding as if I’d swallowed a stone, so that as I faced the array of food prepared so lovingly by my partners, I was unsure of how I’d take even a bite.

“Here, love,” Hawk said when my hand went dutifully to my plate.