my head from the toilet and clutched the pregnancy test in my hand, unwilling to face it. “I’m so sorry.”
August knelt behind me, his chest pressed against my back as he held my hair out of my face. “Why are you sorry, baby?”
Charlie sat on the edge of the tub on the other side of the toilet, a damp rag in his hand that he used to dab at my face each time I came up. “Finished?”
“I ran and I didn’t answer your calls and you came here anyway. I’m sorry! I just—” I jerked forward and threw up again, going limp against the side of the toilet halfway through.
“I called Ben. He said she’s been like this pretty consistently. No wonder she looks thinner.” Theo leaned over us and flushed the toilet. “Come on, baby. We’re going to get you tucked into bed so you can rest.”
I fought to keep my eyes open as I was carried to bed. “Scared. You didn’t want me before. What if you don’t want me now?”
“Hush, Rea. We’re here. We came to get you and we’re not leaving without you. Rest now.” Theo stroked my face and then pressed his lips to my forehead. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
I fell asleep thinking there was no way that I was going to be able to sleep when they just showed up. I woke up terrified that I’d dreamt everything. That quickly, I worried that I was going to find the house empty and be crushed.
I made myself take the time to brush my teeth before racing through the house. My heart soared when I found them in the living room, sitting around on the uncomfortably low couches. Over the moon happy to see them, I flew over the back of the couch, into Charlie’s lap.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I peppered his face with kisses and took in his impossibly blue eyes and deep dimples. “Charlie!”
He grunted as I climbed away from him and crawled into Theo’s lap, repeating the process with him and then again with August. I mumbled excitedly, uncaring that I probably seemed out of my mind. It didn’t matter. They were there. I hadn’t been able to process my pure joy before throwing up earlier, so I was making up for it.
August kept me in his lap, letting me turn so I could face them all. “Is it normal for you to bounce back so quickly?”
Theo grunted. “There’s no such thing as normal.”
That was when I made eye contact with the pregnancy test on the coffee table between us. I stiffened and looked away quickly, like it was just my imagination if I didn’t stare at it for long.
Charlie chuckled and raised his eyebrows at me when I looked at him. “Why are you avoiding the test, baby?”
August stroked my back and heaved out a giant sigh against my shoulder before laughing. “Sorry. Sorry, I just… I’ve spent the last couple of weeks as tense as I’ve ever been in my life and it’s starting to fade away. Feeling you tense up over that test just about gave me a heart attack, though. Do you not want kids, Rea? With us?”
I gasped and captured his face in my hands. “It’s not that, at all. I’m scared. Why are you three not shocked or scared? Or anything?”
Theo grinned. “Lisa accidentally told us. We were plenty scared, Reagan. We were scared shitless that our woman was just out in the world without us, vulnerable and pregnant.”
I whimpered as more tears filled my eyes. “I don’t even know that I’m pregnant for sure.”
“You’re pregnant, baby.” Theo nodded to the test. “You can take it if you need to feel sure, but I’ve seen it with Iris’ birth and all my brothers’ wives.”
August rested his big hand over my stomach and stared at it, blinking away a tear of his own. “We want this. More than that, though, we want you. The bet was just some stupid thing we did. It was never serious, Rea. We’re crazy about you. All of us. We love you… I love you.”
Crying harder, I kissed him. “You mean that? You love me?”
Charlie cleared his throat. “We love you more than you can imagine, Rea. I love you so much that I felt like I was falling apart without you.”
Theo nodded. “I love you, too, Rea. I realized somewhere along the way that you’ve had a place in my heart for so long that it wasn’t hard and it took no time for me to fall in love with you.”
“We’re in love with you, Rea. You’re it for us. We’re in this for good if you’ll have us. No matter what comes our way, no matter how much work it takes to figure out a…quad-couple…we’re in.” August made a face. “I’m deeply sorry for saying quad-couple.”
I pressed my face into his neck and breathed in his scent. “I love you. I love each of you so much that it’s been hell without you. I missed you so much. I missed your moodiness and overprotectiveness. I missed your silliness and your smiles and your touches. I’ve felt lost without them. I don’t want to be here. I want to be home. Please tell me you came to get me and not to tell me I’m terrible for running away or that you want me but can’t choose me over Russ.”
Charlie sank down next to us and pulled my face to his so he could slowly kiss me. “We’re here to get you, baby.”
Theo easily lifted me into his arms and grunted unhappily. “You’ve lost weight, Rea. Clearly, you need us around to force food on you and coddle you into a round, happy pregnant lady.”
I wrapped myself around him and held on tight. The past two weeks of sadness came seeping out as I cried into his shoulder. The panic I’d been barely holding off overcame me, as well. “I drank. I don’t know when we got pregnant and I drank that night at the chip. Maybe after. I can’t remember. I just know I got drunk and I was pregnant. Maybe. I’m going to be a terrible mother. I probably hurt the baby and then I left town like a chicken. I’m so scared. I’m so scared I hurt her. Or him.”
They surrounded me, their hands stroking and soothing as I sobbed. Theo made comforting sounds until I quieted enough to hear him. “The baby is going to be fine. We’ll go to Dr. Sarah when we get home so she can tell you that for sure, but people a lot dumber than us have had children and done it perfectly fine.”
“Like Jenny.” I sniffled into his shirt and pouted. “That was rude. I’m sorry.”
August snorted. “Don’t be. You’ve earned several hundred shots at Jenny.”
“Never in front of Iris, though. I would never do that.” I scrunched up my nose as my stomach turned. “I have to go.”
Theo moved like an Olympian as he rushed me to the bathroom and got me over the toilet just in time. “We’re going to have a long drive home, baby. And we’re leaving as soon as possible. Let me tell you. When you’re feeling better and we’ve managed to convince you of how much we love you and that we’re never leaving, we’re going to have a long talk about you leaving us to hide with your ex.”
“Kara said something about spanking.” Charlie laughed at the way I stiffened, even with my head in the toilet. “Your friends were all too happy to help us set you up, baby. And encouraged us to show you why you should never run from us again. I think Kara might be a sex addict.”
“Pregnant.” Theo smoothed a hand down my back. “You’ll see.”
I slapped his leg, thinking of how he knew that.
“Yep, spankings seem like the answer.”
August coughed and then grunted. “Maybe we keep the conversation PG for a while. Until we’re home and Rea can keep her head out of the toilet for more than thirty minutes.”
I took the rag he held out as I lifted my head. I thanked Theo for flushing and then tried to smile at August. “I can do plenty in thirty—”
Theo chuckled and continued rubbing my back. “Sure you can, baby.”
Somewhere else in the house, I heard Hunter bark. August swore. “In here, asshole!”
“Jeremy didn’t learn any bad habits while Rea stayed with us. That’s all I’m saying.” Charlie sounded smug until Hunter came running into the too-small bathroom. “Oh, god, Hunter. Come on, man.”
I finished up and managed to move to sit on the closed toilet seat after rinsing with mouthwash. Hunter wedged himself against my legs and stared up at me. I scratched his ears absently and looked around at them, settling on August, who was scowling at his dog. “What’d he do?”
“He’s not even pretending to be a guard dog anymore. He’s just a crappy search dog. Only he only searches for you. He’s perfectly the mournful howl of a bloodhound over the last two weeks.”
More tears filled my eyes and I wrapped my arms around the big dog’s neck. “I might love him the most.”
Theo growled. “Let’s pack your bags while you’re feeling okay. I’m ready to get you home.”
August ran his hands through my sweat-dampened hair. “Our home, by the way, will be my house until we can build something bigger on Charlie’s land.”
“Really?”
Charlie knelt in front of me, fighting Hunter to get closer. “Really. This is it for us. You’re our world.”
“You all want this? And…a baby?”
They all looked at each other and shared some silent communication between themselves before Charlie pulled a box out of his pocket. My lungs stopped working as he held it out in front of him and looked up at me. Then, with a silly smile on his handsome face, he opened the box and showed me a plastic potato chip ring from the souvenir shop in Lunar.
“Be our little potato chip, Reagan.” He started to laugh and then straightened his face. “Play your cards right and there’s more where this came from.”
I laughed and tried to grab the ring, but it shifted and I saw another ring under it. My eyes went wide as I watched Charlie pull out the real ring, a beautiful, vintage band with diamonds encircling it.
“Sure, it’s fast, baby, but we know. You, this baby, we want it all. Be ours.”
August knelt next to Charlie, followed by Theo, and they wedged themselves in with Hunter and the toilet. “We’re never leaving without you. And if you go, we’ll always follow, Rea.”
Theo grinned. “Come home with us and make us the happiest fucking men ever.”
I squeaked. “I just threw up! We’re in a bathroom!”
Charlie pretended to pull the ring away and laughed when I grabbed his hand.
“Yes! I want it all. I want to go home. I want the same thing now that I wanted ten years ago. I want forever with the three of you. And this baby.” I caressed my stomach and blinked back more tears. “I’m going to be a good mom and partner. I have some bad news, though.”
Charlie lowered the ring and raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“I lost a bet to Russ when we were kids. He’s supposed to get to name my first kid. Whatever he chooses. And if I refuse, he gets to transfer the win to anything else he wants.” I winced. “I would say it isn’t a big deal, but you know Russ. And now we’ve given him a reason to be mean.”
August lifted Charlie’s hand and growled. “We’ll beat the shit out of that bridge when we get to it. Take the damn ring, woman. We’ve got about twenty minutes before you start upchucking again and I’d like to kiss the hell out of you after you put our ring on your finger.”
I lifted my hand for the ring, beaming with happiness, but just before they could slip it on my finger, the back of my mouth soured. Trying to fight it, I pressed my lips together and pushed my finger out farther.
“Jesus, you just went green. Out of the way, everyone!” Theo, who might’ve been having too much fun as vomiting director, lifted me and put me in front of the toilet after lifting the lid. “We’ll revisit the ring later, yeah?”
Before I threw up, I held up my thumb. “Yes, please.”
