Chapter Forty-Six

Harper

 

I lowered the phone back down again and let it rest on the table as I waited to feel something. Sadness, anger, confusion? Which emotion was the right one to feel at the moment your career was over?

"Harp?" Cal was right there. He was always right there these days, hovering, ready at a moment's notice to drop everything and wait on me hand and foot. I kept telling him to pace himself. That we were only twenty weeks in, and not to exhaust himself before I was even halfway there. "What's going on? You're standing weird."

I had to grin in spite of what had just happen. Turning slowly, I looked at him there looming in his kitchen. My work was all spread out on the kitchen table, leaving no room for meals or for Grayson to make his elaborately messy dinners. It amazed me that the addition of one more person to this house could make it seem exponentially smaller, but then again, I guessed I counted as two people these days. "I'm standing weird?" I repeated, smiling. "How exactly am I standing weird?"

Cal started to shrug, but Gray was suddenly behind him, adding his two cents. "You are though," he piped up, running a towel through his thick, dark curls. He was showering off after another long day at the demolition site, and the smell of his body wash was making me weak at the knees.

"Okay," I shrugged. "I'm standing weird," I relented. "Probably because I'm completely fucked?" I tried like hell to make the words match my feelings on the matter, but all I could feel was numb acceptance.

"How are you fucked?" Cal prompted.

I sighed and ran my hand over my belly, feeling the little fluttery shifting motions popping under my fingers. "Well, you know how I've been hanging out here for the past few months and doing everything via teleconference?" I reminded him. "And your internet is shit, by the way, you'd said you'd upgrade for me."

"I did," Cal reminded me gently. "It's just Reckless Falls," he sighed.

"Yeah, I know. It's not like it even matters anymore. Pretty sure I just lost my job."

"What?" Gray said, stepping into the kitchen. "How?"

I chuckled and ran my hand over my belly again. "I had a Skype call with Cecily today and, well…" I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. "I guess I wasn't thinking about it, because I stood up to grab something from the counter and she saw."

"Saw?"

"This." I pressed my hand into the bump that seemed to expand by the hour. "Our little peanut is refusing to be discreet."

"So she knows now?" Cal said softly, sounding a little deflated and also a little...excited? Why would that be?"

I shrugged and laughed. It all seemed so absurd now. "I don't know exactly what my plan was. It's not like I could hide out forever and just...give birth without someone finding out." I spread my hands. "But yeah. She tried to find out for me, and actually she did go to bat for me much more than I expected but..." I looked up into the two pairs of eyes watching me. "That's it. They're going to invoke the morality clause in my contract and let me go."

"Oh honey..." Gray said, moving to me at once. I rested my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat for a moment as he stroked my hair.

But Cal stayed still, something strange working over his face. "What exactly are you breaking?"

I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. "Uh, pregnancy outside of marriage." And all at once I started laughing and sat down heavily on the kitchen chair. Gray looked alarmed but I waved him off. "It's okay. I'm fine, actually. I'm actually really fine about it. I guess I knew it was coming and I've started working on some commercial illustration stuff I could use to keep going in the meantime but..." I trailed off and looked at them. "Um, you guys are being really scary silent." I glared at Cal. "I would at least expect you to tell Cecily to go fuck herself."

"Well she can for sure do that," Cal said slowly...significantly. Gray stepped back and I felt something pass between them. "But what if she's got it all wrong?"

Then suddenly both of them lost their minds. Or at least that's what it seemed like as I watched Gray do this weird curtsying bob, then look at Cal who bobbed and then Gray ducked his head and then they both bobbed and then both burst out laughing.

"Fuck it," Cal rumbled. "Here." He extended his hand.

I stared, uncomprehending at the piece of metal in his hand. "Look," he said softly, brushing his fingers over the twisted, multicolored braid. "White gold, yellow gold and rose gold. It's very symbolic or something. Three pathways diverging and coming together to run the same course." He grinned a lopsided grin. "Mrs. Feathergill would not shut up about how unique it was. Trapped me in her dusty antique store for damn near an hour. I almost had an asthma attack."

"Cal," Gray warned. "You're getting off topic here."

"Right." Cal cleared his throat and looked at me and something sank and then rose in my stomach like I was riding a roller coaster and I was already starting to cry even before he started. "Right, well, um, Harper McCabe? It's not what I expected, but it's everything I wanted." He dropped to one knee in unison with Gray. "Will you marry me? Um...us?"

I was laughing so hard that I was crying and then I was kissing them both, and clapping my hands and laughing again and I might have gone on doing all of those things forever if I didn't catch sight of Gray's slightly worried expression and then I clapped my hands to my mouth. "Oh shit!" I remembered. "I forgot to say yes!"

"None of this is really going according to plan, is it?" Cal rumbled, but he was smiling as he slipped the ring onto my finger.

"Yes!" I breathed, and then said it again and again for good measure. "Yes, of course, hey wow it fits! I'm so swollen and it still fits? How'd you do that?"

Cal tapped his finger against his head. "I took that into consideration. We'll have it resized after the baby comes."

I was still shaking my head and staring at the beautifully intricate band. "I don't think that being married to two guys at the same time was what Cecily was imagining for me."

"Fuck Cecily," Gray declared with startling vehemence. "And fuck everyone. We're in love."

I looked up at him, taken aback. He looked down and I swore I'd never see his brown eyes so serious. But it could only last a moment before they crinkled at the corners and he shot a grin at Cal. "Does that mean I'm married to you too, dude?"

"Jesus Christ, Gray," Cal sighed, exasperated. "Way to ruin a goddamn moment."

"No," Gray prodded, socking him in the arm. "I think I need some clarity here."

Cal clapped his hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face as I doubled over laughing. "You fucking... I'm engaged to Harper and you're engaged to Harper and I guess that means you're living in my house and leaving my milk out for all eternity," he declared with a ferociously exasperated sigh.

"So long as Harper is there? I'm in," Gray said, taking my hand.

"I'm in too," I grinned, looking at them both.

Cal's eyes softened. "Me too," he said, taking my other hand. The one with the ring on it.