Brooke pried her gaze from the gorgeous sparkling band she couldn’t even see because of the tears blurring her vision. Man, this wasn’t falling into the right fairy-tale order of progression at all, yet that didn’t make her want any of it less—no matter what order it came in.
“You bought her a ring,” Wes accused, “and you didn’t tell us?”
“What the hell?” Jax wanted to know.
“Girls, girls,” Rubi told the three of them in her sweetest tone, “don’t get jealous. You’ll all get yours when the time is right.”
Wes spun around and picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Then smacked her ass. Rubi squealed and laughed, and as the other twittered with teasing and excitement, Brooke leaned in, pressed her cheek to Keaton’s, and said, “We need to talk.”
Rubi pushed against Wes’s back, struggling to shoot a glare over her shoulder at Keaton. “You, mister, had better get that fine ass of yours out of that chair and drop to your knees. As in now.”
Wes spanked her again. “Who’s ass are you calling fine? Those words have my name stamped all over them, so don’t be applying them to another guy. Understand?”
Brooke laughed at their antics, but everything inside her vibrated and jumped and snapped. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, utterly overwhelmed, whispering, “Oh my God, Keaton…”
“My knees are busy at the moment,” he told Rubi without looking away from Brooke. “What’s going on, beautiful? Talk to me.”
“Do you feel those daggers piercing your skull?” Jax asked Keaton. “’Cause I’m pretty sure Rubi’s eyes are registered as lethal weapons with every branch of special forces in the military.”
“It’s true,” Lexi agreed. “You should really just do what she says. Besides, it’s a photo op, and you know we always need promo material for the website.”
“Hell no,” Jax disagreed. “Don’t you dare let our groupies know Keaton’s off the market. We’re droppin’ like flies.”
“And what, exactly,” Lexi wanted to know, “is the problem with letting ‘groupies’ know you’re off the market?”
“The more you’re around them,” Keaton said, referencing the other Renegades and their girls, “the easier they become to ignore. But the natives are getting restless, so you’re going to have to tell me pretty quick, because the girls can only play smoke and mirrors for so long before those guys cut themselves loose again.”
“Oh my God…” She curled his T-shirt into her fingers. “I don’t think doing that here is a good idea. I’m not sure how you’re going to react—”
“To you being pregnant?”
Brooke’s breath caught. Her eyes locked on his. No one else seemed to hear what he said. They continued to chatter and tease, but it faded as a bubble seemed to close around Brooke and Keaton. Then her heartbeat grew really loud in her ears. And every breath she took sounded like a rasp across sandpaper.
“You…? How did you…?” Her stomach flipped so hard, she winced and covered it with her hand.
“That’s one of the ways,” he said. “Your exhaustion was another one. All these tears spilling out of you—when you’re happy, when you’re sad, when you’re mad, when you’re confused. The way you forget your keys and your phone. The way you keep knocking over your drinks at restaurants.”
“That doesn’t… How the hell do you…?”
“My sister is pregnant,” he said. “I may not have mentioned it because I only found out about two months ago and I only remember it when I call home, which is usually when I’m on the road, because that’s when I have time, hanging out in the hotel room. And every time I call home, all I hear about is the misery she’s going through, which sparks tales of how hard my mother’s pregnancies were with us. That, along with the way you’ve been feeling for going on two months, adding in that broken-condom episode about three months ago… Yeah, I’ve been suspicious for about three or four weeks. I’ve been pretty damn sure for about two.”
“Jesus.” She squeezed her eyes closed and rubbed her forehead. “I didn’t even figure it out until yesterday.”
“You’re juggling a shitload of stress, Brooke. Your mind is in a dozen other places, and you always put everyone else first. It doesn’t surprise me that your own needs weren’t on your radar.”
When she opened her eyes, the
first sight that registered in her brain was his soft smile. “You’re…not, I don’t know, upset?”
“Hell no.” God, his eyes sparkled with excitement. “I can’t fuckin’ wait.”
Relief washed in. Only to be followed instantly by the realization that his proposal had been prompted by the pregnancy.
Fuck. This. Roller coaster.
“Well,” she exhaled and pulled her whiny, pansy ass back into line. “That’s good news.”
“So…” He lifted his brows. “You’re happy about it too?”