Chapter 14

Kin

Lucy’s five-bedroom house felt suffocating with all the people there to attend her baby shower. Every member of her father’s band, as well as Harris’s father’s band, were in attendance, along with their wives and the majority of their children. I knew most of them, considered them all family.

That was what I loved the most about Lucy’s misfit family. Each and every one of them had taken me in without blinking. I was Lucy’s friend, and that made me special. It meant I was family to them. With the Demons and OtherWorld, you didn’t have to be blood to be a part of their inner circle. You just had to love at least one of their own, and you instantly became one of them.

“Daddy, Devlin,” Lucy said with a laugh as she stood still so both grandfathers could touch her stomach. Their hands were so big, they swallowed up most of her expanded stomach. And it was so damn cute, I melted a little.

A look of wonder crossed both drummers’ faces as they stood there, feeling their granddaughter kick against their hands. I’d only been there an hour, but it wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed them doing this. It was like they were moths and Lucy’s pregnant stomach was the brightest flame in the universe, too irresistible not to be drawn to.

“Let’s get her into karate,” Devlin suggested. “Then we won’t have to worry so much about anyone messing with her. She can just kick their scrawny asses.”

“Good thinking,” Jesse told him with a grim nod. “Don’t they have classes near the gym?”

“We should check it out tomorrow. Maybe have Emmie do a background check on the people who run it.”

“It’s okay, I’m not really here,” Lucy said with a roll of her eyes. “Please continue mapping out my daughter’s future karate career.”

Jesse’s gaze finally landed on her just as Devlin’s name was called from across the room and he went over to speak to them. “How are you feeling, Lu? Maybe you should sit down. You look tired.”

Her smile was warm, but she shook her head at him exasperatedly. “I’m fine, Daddy. I’ve told you that five times already. How about getting yourself a drink? Kin helped me make some punch earlier, and it’s really good.”

“Please sit down for a little while,” her dad urged, concern lacing his voice. “It’s your baby shower. Let everyone pamper you. You still have a week before your due date. Here, sit down.” He grabbed one of his sons by the back of his shirt and jerked him up out of the chair where he was talking to one of the other kids.

“Jesus, Dad,” Lyric complained, straightening his shirt and moving to sit on the arm of the couch beside his twin. “You could have just asked me to move.”

Lucy started to move toward the chair, but apparently she wasn’t waddling fast enough, because Jesse picked her up and deposited her in the now-vacant chair. Grabbing a decorative pillow off the couch, he pulled the coffee table closer and propped Lucy’s feet on the pillow.

“Mom!” Lucy called out. “Daddy’s freaking out again.”

“You sit here. If you need anything, someone will get it for you,” Jesse instructed her. His dark eyes landed on me. “Won’t you, Kin?”

Unable to hide my amusement, I nodded. “Of course, Mr. Thornton. That’s why I’m here.”

“Daddy, could I have some ice water?” Lucy asked him with a flutter of her lashes.

“Of course, baby.” He kissed the top of her head and practically sprinted into the kitchen.

Lucy fell back against the chair. “This pregnancy is going to give him a heart attack.” She rubbed her hand over her stomach. “Hurry up cooking in there, little one. We have to get you out into the world so Poppy can stop freaking out so much.”

“Poppy?”

Lucy grinned up at me. “They have all picked out the names they want Hayat to call them. Daddy is Poppy, and Mom is Gammy. Devlin is Pop-Pop, and Natalie will be Nana.”

“It feels really weird to me that Natalie is only in her early thirties but will be called Nana,” I told her, glancing across the room to where the woman was currently standing with both her brothers. She was gorgeous with her long dark hair and those killer blue-gray eyes that seemed to be a Stevenson trademark. Every one of them, including the children, with the exception of Violet, had those same eyes, even Drake’s newborn son, Damien.

“Everything about my family is weird,” Lucy said with a laugh. “I mean, my sister’s sister-in-law is my mother-in-law. But it’s perfection to me.”

“Here, Lu,” Jesse said, appearing as if by magic, and thrusting her glass of ice water into her hands. “Your mom needs my help in the kitchen. Kin, I’m trusting you to make sure she stays right here and wants for nothing. You hear me?”

I patted him on the arm. “Of course, Mr. Thornton. You go on and help Layla. I’m going to be right here with your daughter.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.” He dropped a kiss on his daughter’s head, then one on mine.

I closed my eyes, savoring the love of the Demon for a moment. I adored Lucy’s parents, even if her mother had become a bit much for a little while during the wedding planning the year before. But they had always treated me like one of their own children, and it was something I would always cherish.

“Don’t stand there,” Lucy complained. “It’s making my neck hurt looking up at you.”

I glanced around, looking for somewhere to sit in the large, yet overcrowded living room, but finding none.

“Here, baby,” Jace’s deep voice murmured as he produced a folding chair and placed it beside Lucy’s.

My heart contracted as I looked at him. In dress pants and a black button-up, he looked beyond yummy. The skin on my forehead where he’d kissed me the day before tingled and burned with the imprint of his lips at the memory, and I had to quickly avert my eyes before he could see I was still replaying our last meeting over and over again.

“You two need anything?” he asked, glancing at Lucy before turning his attention back to me. “You want more food?”

“We’re good,” Lucy answered for us, and he nodded before heading back to the side of the room where he’d been for the last half hour talking with Harris and a few members of OtherWorld.

“So, you two talked yesterday,” Lucy whispered, leaning closer to me. “That’s all you would tell me before everyone started arriving.”

I blew out a frustrated breath and nodded, leaning in a little. “I helped him shop for a gift for today, and it was nice, you know?” She just stared at me with curious brown eyes. “It felt like we could be friends. And that’s exactly what I want. You and Harris appointed us both as Hayat’s godparents, and I want to take that seriously. Which means Jace and I need to get along.”

“Friendship is a step in the right direction,” she agreed.

“But then he wanted to talk about what happened. About the breakup and…everything.”

Lucy’s brows lifted slightly. “And?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Lu. What’s done is done. We can’t go back.”

“But maybe if you talked to him, you could find some middle ground. Maybe you—”

“No, Lucy,” I whispered fiercely, stopping her before she could finish. “I let him break my heart twice. I don’t have the courage to let him do it again.”

“He told me he bought a ring,” she confided after a tense moment passed between us, earning me a glare from the twins who sat just a few feet away. Those two baby Demons were just as fiercely protective of Lucy as their beast of a father was. They couldn’t possibly have heard our conversation, but that didn’t matter. They could feel their sister’s tension, and obviously, I was the cause of it.

“He mentioned that yesterday.” And my heart had been doing funny things ever since. I honestly didn’t know how I felt about him buying a ring, or him asking me to marry him the day before. Everything was jumbled in my head, and I didn’t know how to clear it. My heart was doing cartwheels in my chest just thinking of his proposal, even if it hadn’t been romantic in any shape or form. He still said those words, and they weren’t because he was distressed and throwing it out there to try to appease me like he’d done the night of our breakup. They seemed sincere.

But marriage was a million miles away from where I wanted to be with him or anyone else right then. I needed to focus on myself, learn to love and respect myself all over again before I would ever be ready for a relationship of any kind with anyone, least of all Jace.

“And?” Lucy grasped my hand, squeezing.

“And nothing,” I hissed, shooting Jace a look to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, only to find him looking straight at me. There was no way he could hear what we were saying, and from the look on his face, he didn’t.

That look was hungry, and I felt like I was starving. I wanted him…so fucking badly, damn it. But sex wasn’t going to fix anything. Certainly not my aching heart.

I looked away from him before he did and met Lucy’s hopeful eyes. “I want him to want to marry me because he can’t live without me. Not because he’s sorry or thinks that’s the only way to get me back. I want him to… Fuck! I don’t know what I want from him, but I do know I don’t want it like this. It feels like he’s paying a ransom to get me to be with him again, that I’m holding myself hostage from him, and he’s negotiating with a ring to get me back.”

“Yeah, I get it,” she released a sad-sounding sigh. “But you shouldn’t give up, Kin. He loves you and—”

“And I still love him,” I told her honestly. “But loving someone isn’t enough sometimes, babe. This is one of those times.”

“I’m sorry, Kin.”

“It’s fine. I’m dealing with it and trying to move on.” I turned my hand over in hers, interlocking our fingers. “I know you love us both, and I’m sorry you are stuck in the middle. Just stop trying to push us back together. Okay?”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “Yeah, yeah. Fine. I’m done. I won’t do it anymore.”

“Promise,” I commanded, knowing if she didn’t promise, I couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t stop.

Another sigh left her, but she nodded. “Yeah. I promise.”