Chapter 15

Kin

By the end of the shower, Lucy’s house was flooded with new baby essentials and furniture. Harris enlisted all the Tainted Knights guys to help him carry everything up to the nursery, while Kassa and I hung up all the new outfits and put away all the other items so Lucy could remain in the chair her father had refused to allow her out of.

Downstairs, Layla and Natalie were busy cleaning up, and Lucy was still sitting where I’d left her. She had a pained expression on her face, but when she noticed me watching her as I came down the stairs, she gave me a bright smile. “Thanks. I could have done it. Apparently I’m on lockdown.”

I kept my eyes fastened on her as I moved closer, not wanting Jesse, who was just a few feet away talking with Zander Brockman and Nik Armstrong, to hear what I was about to ask his daughter.

Reaching her, I bent so I could speak close to her ear. “Are you having contractions?”

She was quiet for a moment but finally nodded. “It’s okay. Nothing to worry about. It’s just Braxton Hicks. They come and go. I’m fine.”

I leaned back, watching her face. She looked uncomfortable as hell, but that just as easily could be because she was so close to her due date and her stomach was huge. I rubbed my hand over the baby bump, felt Hayat kick at me as if she didn’t want me to bother her mother, and grinned. “I’m not going home,” I told her. “I’ll crash in the guest room. I have this strange feeling things are about to get very, very interesting very, very soon.”

She shifted restlessly. “Just don’t tell my dad,” she whispered. “He will lose his mind.”

“He nearly lost your mom when she had the twins early. Of course, he’s worried.” I picked up her empty water glass. “Need anything? I’m going to help out in the kitchen.”

“My back is killing me.”

Since we were no longer whispering, Jesse heard what she said and was on red alert. “Lu? You okay?”

She rolled her eyes at me but smiled warmly up at her dad. “My back is hurting from sitting in the same spot for so long, Daddy. I think I just need to stretch.”

“Go lie down, Lu,” he urged. “Stay off your feet.”

“Yeah, okay. Love you, Daddy.”

“Love you, baby.”

I set down her glass and offered her my hands, helping her stand. As she did, she gasped, her face twisting in pain. I moved to block her from Jesse’s eyes, keeping a hand around her back as I walked with her to the stairs.

“Tell Harris,” she said with a groan as I helped her sit on the edge of the bed in her room. “Wait. Don’t tell Harris. Just ask him to come here. I don’t want him getting hysterical. It’s just a few contractions. Even if this is labor, it could take forever before I’m even able to go to the hospital. The contractions have to be so far apart before they will even consider me in active labor.”

I backed out of the room, worried about her. “I’ll be right back. Okay?”

“Yeah,” she said nervously.

The nursery was only across the hall, but I sprinted the short distance. Inside the baby’s room, Jace and Harris were setting up the dream glider and a few other things with Cash and Gray’s help, while Kale and Sin unboxed several other items.

I didn’t want to make a scene in front of all of them, so I tapped on Harris’s shoulder. “Your wife is asking for you,” I told him. “She’s in your bedroom, about to lie down.”

His head snapped around, worry and concern already shining in his aquamarine eyes. “Is she okay?”

I forced a smile. “She just wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, okay.” He straightened to his full six-and-a-half-feet height and dusted off his hands. “You got this?” he asked Jace.

“How hard can it be, right?” Jace said with a laugh.

“You would be surprised,” Harris said with a snort, his long legs eating up the distance to the door. “If you can’t figure it out, see if my dad is still around and get him to help.”

I went to follow him, but Jace caught my hand, stopping me in my tracks. “She okay?”

“I don’t know,” I told him, keeping my voice quiet. “It could be nothing. She’s just uncomfortable, I guess.”

“Yeah, she’s been pretty miserable lately. Keep me updated?”

I nodded, smiling down at him. “Good luck with that.” I nodded toward the glider he was trying to put together, and his lips twisted in grim amusement.

“For some reason, I feel like you being one of Lucy’s birthing coaches is the easier of the two jobs.”

Laughing, I walked away.

Back in Lucy and Harris’s bedroom, I found Lucy lying in bed, body pillow cradled around her while Harris rubbed her lower back. His face was pale, but Lucy was smiling with contentment.

“Feeling any better?” I asked as I shut the door.

“I think today just drained me,” she said with a sigh as Harris rubbed what must have been a particularly tender spot. “I feel so much better now.”

“What can I do?”

“Tylenol is in the bathroom medicine cabinet,” Harris instructed. “Can you grab her two? Them maybe go down and pretend like everything is okay so her dad doesn’t freak out and make things more stressful for her?”

“You got it,” I assured him as I went into their huge bathroom and found the bottle of Tylenol.

There was a bottle of water already on Lucy’s bedside table, so I uncapped it and handed over the two tablets. Harris helped her raise up long enough to swallow them as I made my way to the door. Closing it behind me, I headed downstairs and went about everything like nothing had just happened.

Only a few people remained in the house now. Lucy’s brothers were out on the beach with a few of the other kids, and I could hear them screaming and laughing through the open back windows. I picked up stray glasses, paper plates, and balled-up napkins on my way to the kitchen.

Layla was putting away the last of the food and Natalie was doing the dishes when I walked in. Lucy’s mom beamed at me as I came into the room. “Hey, sweetheart. Haven’t had time to talk to you much today. How are you?”

I handed Natalie the two glasses I’d found and moved to help Layla wrap up the last of the platters with cling wrap. “I’m good. How about you two? Today must have been exhausting for you both.”

“We wanted this day to be perfect,” Layla said with a smile. “After we fucked up so abysmally with the wedding, throwing this shower for Lucy was the least we could do.”

“You guys did a great job,” I assured them. “I’ll have to enlist your services when I throw a baby shower for Amara.”

“Cash’s girlfriend?” Natalie asked as she closed the dishwasher and wiped her hands on a dish towel.

“Yes. She’s actually one of my new roommates.” I lifted two of the wrapped platters and slid them into the huge fridge. “I don’t know if you met the other one or not, you two were so busy. She came with Nate.”

“Pocket Venus with the black bob haircut?” Natalie asked.

I beamed. “Yes, that’s Riley.”

“Angie isn’t living with you now?” Layla asked with concern.

“Oh no. She moved in with Jenna…” Natalie gasped, her jaw clenching as she turned away. “You didn’t know they are dating? But they were both here earlier.”

“We… We don’t talk,” Harris’s stepmother muttered, busying herself with wiping down all the flat surfaces in the kitchen.

I looked at Layla. Her brown eyes locked with mine, and we both sighed. Natalie and Jenna used to be really close. But then the Tessa thing happened, and Natalie hadn’t forgiven her sister. Everyone else was willing to let it go, especially Lucy and Harris, but Natalie loved Harris like a son, and she couldn’t get over what her sister’s ex did to him.

I got it, but at the same time, I loved Jenna. It wasn’t her fault she had a psycho ex. She’d just fallen for the wrong person and gotten in over her head. Between rehab and staying clean for two years, she’d worked hard to show everyone she was someone they all could rely on now.

“So they’re serious?” Layla asked after another minute passed without Natalie speaking.

“Very. Angie came out to her dad, which was really hard for her. She’d never told him or my mom before, although I’m pretty sure Mom suspected. But she never asked her, and I don’t know if they ever talked about it before Mom died.”

“Has Jenna told Stella and Clyde?”

I glanced at Natalie. From the set of her shoulders, I knew she was listening intently. “Not yet. I don’t think either of them is ready for that kind of crazy in their lives yet.”

“Of course not. Dad probably won’t care. But Mom will never accept Jenna’s sexuality. Every time she’s ever tried to come out to them in the past, Mom always cut her off.” Natalie tossed her cloth in the sink, her jaw clenched angrily. “She knows, but as long as no one says the words out loud, she doesn’t have to face the fact that her daughter is a lesbian. God, I hate that bitch.”

“Your mom?”

Natalie looked at me with pained eyes. “Stella Stevenson is a narcissistic, manipulative cunt. I hate her. She still hasn’t accepted that I’m married to Devlin. She’s only met my daughter twice, and that was because Dad forced her to when we were in Ohio for a concert. It doesn’t matter to her that I’m happy and in love. It won’t matter that Jenna is either. She has her standards, and neither of us has ever or will ever meet them in her eyes.”

“I’m sorry, Nat,” I told her, crossing to her and hugging her.

She hugged me back. “It’s her loss,” she said after a moment, giving me a small, tight smile. “That’s why Jenna and I have always had each other’s backs. We don’t need Mom if we have one another.”

I met her gaze, hoping she would realize what she as saying. Her chin began to tremble, and she bit her lip, hard. Swallowing, she glanced at Layla. “Uh, Lay, could you maybe…”

The other woman smiled. “No problem. We got this, don’t we, Kin?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

She grabbed her purse. “Could you tell Dev that I don’t know what time I’ll be home?”

“Dev knows,” a deep voice said from the kitchen doorway. We all turned to look at the rocker, a loving smile on his face making his dimples pop. “Go on. Trinity and I can walk home from here. That’s a perk of living so freaking close to our son. Just drive carefully, baby.”

She rushed across the room and kissed him. “I love you.”

“Love you, Nat.” He stroked his hands over her hair. “It’s about time you two cleared this up.”

“Yeah,” she whispered a little shakily. “I’ll be home later.”

“Take your time. Don’t rush on my account.” He kissed her again. “I know you’ve missed her.”

Natalie hugged me on her way out the door. “Thanks, Kin,” she breathed.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You did more than you realize,” she said with a laugh, dashing tears off her cheeks. “I owe you one.”