He paused for a moment, frowning at Milkshake’s face and making me wonder if he was giving him his pissed off expression. “Where’s he looking? It’s hard to tell with his eyes where they are.”
I wish I could answer him, but I’d spent a long time trying to find out the answer to that question myself.
“Just assume he’s looking at you unless he turns his head away.”
With his eyes still on the cat, he asked, “What the fuck happened to him? Did he hit his head?”
Snorting, I wiggled my bootie on the couch cushion, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t involve my leg sticking out in the air.
“That’s what my cousin said, too. He bought him for me for my birthday two years ago, but I think the only reason Malcolm did it was because of his eyes.”
“Who’s Malcolm?” Jackson asked as he joined us, his arms encased in bright yellow gloves, a roll of paper towels under one arm, and a bottle of antibacterial stuff in the other.
“He bought her the cat,” Marcus supplied, not bringing Milkshake close to his chest, most likely because of what he’d heard he’d done to his brother’s balls. “What do you think happened to it?”
Jackson tensed at the first bit of what his brother had said, meaning he ignored the last question to ask one of his own. “Who is he?”
“My cousin. He’s a year older than me and loves to fuck around with my life. In a good way, though.”
Nodding, he squatted down to clean up the mess, gagging periodically as he did it. “I think I remember him. This is the nastiest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“She’s so cute. You’d never think something like that could come out of her,” I sympathized, wincing at his next gag.
Marcus had turned his back on it so he was facing the wall and didn’t run the risk of seeing what Jackson was doing. “I’m never having kids. Or maybe I’ll adopt one who’s seventeen and past the shittiest parts of being a child.”
“We’re only twenty. Now’s not the time to be thinking about having kids,” Jackson croaked, and I noticed he’d pulled his t-shirt up over his nose at some point.
Just then, his phone rang, and he went down onto one knee as he pulled off the glove from one of his hands so he could answer it. Because of what he was doing, he put it on speakerphone.
“Hello, Mr. Townsend-Rossi. It’s Noreen, the nurse who looked after your fiancée. I was just calling to see if she could come in for an x-ray next Friday at ten o’clock so we can check everything’s okay.”
As he confirmed it, his brother looked at me with a different look in his eye, not saying a word.
Not that he needed to, his expression said it all.
The second Jackson ended the call, though, and not on purpose, but as he rushed out a thank you and goodbye just as it cut off, Marcus moved over to sit down next to me, slinging his arm around my shoulders.
“Well, then, seems you’ve got some news to tell us all, brother. Wait ‘til Mom hears this.”
“Hears what?” Elijah asked as he came back into the room, thankfully holding a clean and freshly dressed Bronte in his arms.
“The nurse who looked after Jackson’s fiancée just rang to book an appointment for an x-ray next Friday.”
Elijah had been lowering himself into the chair he’d been in previously, but hearing the words, he stopped so he was half-squatting as he gaped at Jackson.
His wife wasn’t as stunned, though.
“Oh my God, that’s fantastic news. You’re getting married? I knew it wasn’t a friend type of thing, I just knew it.” She skipped next to her husband and smacked him on the arm. “Didn’t I say in the bathroom they were more than just mates?”
“Oh, we’re not—” I started, but Marcus cut me off with a squeeze.
“Did he knock you up? That’s what Elijah did to Sadie, too, so we’re experts at stepping in to help out the pregnant women of the family,” he said so quickly that I couldn’t have interrupted him if I tried.
“When’s the baby due? I’m the more mature twin, but he’s got the brain of a child, so he’ll be good company for it until it hits maturity—something he never did.”
We were all so focused on what was being said that none of us heard the front door opening.
We definitely heard a voice screech, “You knocked her up?” though.
“Ah,” Marcus whispered quietly to me. “Here’s grandma.”
Yeah, Ronnie Townsend-Rossi was standing just inside the door with her husband, Wyatt, beside her. She looked shocked but excited, whereas Wyatt was grinning widely at all of us.
That was until Jackson’s mom saw my casts. “What happened to her? Did it hurt the baby?”