Page 107 of The Grump I Loathe

“THE BABY!” Grace cried. “YAY!”

“What do we…Uh…Breathe!” Liam said, clutching Mia’s hand. “Like they taught us. In. Out.”

Mia lifted her hand to touch his face. “Sweetheart, I love you, but we’re not at that point yet.”

“Right,” he said. “The go-bag!”

“In the car,” Mia assured him. “We’re good.”

“We’re good,” Liam said. “We’re having this baby.”

Mia laughed under her breath. “We’re having this baby.”

Liam’s eyes widened suddenly. He turned to his brothers. “I’m gonna be a dad!”

Cheers erupted again. Grace ran around the island, laser blasters in hand once more, pretending to fire off celebratory shots. “I’m gonna be a cousin!”

“Um, is the turkey supposed to smoke this much?” X called, wafting dark smoke away from the oven.

“The bird!” Cathleen shrieked, darting after him.

Connor snagged the front of my sweater and pulled me close in the midst of the chaos. “Welcome to the funhouse,” he murmured against my cheek as Liam and Finn raced out to start the car. “You’re sure you want this?”

I released a laugh of disbelief that this was allmine. “More than anything.”

“It was sweet of Finn and Sierra to still take Grace,” I said, hours later, my head pressed against Connor’s bare chest as he held me close. The sound of his breathing had lulled me to sleep once already.

“She’ll probably be passed out all day anyway,” he said. “It’s the easiest babysitting gig ever. She’s never stayed up so late before.”

I chuckled. “It was a worthy cause. She’ll have a great story to tell her cousin one day.”

Mia had been in labor for eleven hours, but at about four in the morning, we’d all finally gotten to meet Cameron Jacob Lockhart. Grace had immediately dubbed him Baby CJ. The name had stuck, and there was already a dedicated family group chat to pictures of that adorable face. A group chat Cathleen had added me to.

My chest still warmed whenever I thought about it.

After we’d left the new little family to their privacy, Finn and Sierra had whisked Grace away, and Connor and I had returned to his place—tohis room, not one of the guest rooms—and we’d immediately…passed out.

“I don’t know how they waited that long to find out the sex,” I said. “I don’t think I could.”

“No?”

I lifted my head, grinning at the contentment on Connor’s face. “I’d want to know right away. I’d be so impatient, there’s no way.”

Connor chuckled softly, running his hand down my bare arm, tracing lazy patterns. “We found out with Grace accidentally. The sonogram operator let it slip without realizing.”

“Were you upset?”

He shook his head. “No, I think it made it more real for me, though. I mean, I’d known from the start I’d take responsibility for my baby. It’s why I proposed to Ali right away. But in that moment, it really hit home that I was going to have a little girl who’d bemine.Mine to take care of. Mine to make happy, and to keep safe.”

“And you’ve done a great job of that,” I whispered.

Connor’s hand drifted up my arm and across my collarbone, tapping at the hollow at the base of my neck. Then, slowly, his hand drifted down my chest, over my ribs, sliding along the curve of my breast before thumbing a nipple to attention.

I sucked in a sharp breath, a throbbing pulse starting between my legs. “What time is it anyway?”

Connor circled his thumb several times, catching the peak of my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing gently. “Not sure.”

Was it noon or past dinner? Had we slept away an entire long weekend? It was sort of hard to care with the waves of desire spreading through me. I leaned into the touch, sighing his name as he kissed his way down the side of my face, sucking at my neck.