“Stop trying to set it on fire!” Kay snapped from across the room as she stormed over, grabbed my hand, and snatched the lighter right out of it.

“Rude,” I hissed at her. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to steal?”

“My mother told me that you shouldn’t try burning wallpaper off with a lighter just because it won’t come off easy!” Kay retorted, grabbed the scraper thing I’d tossed to the other side of the room, and planted it in my hand.

“That’s a rather specific thing for your mother to say to you,” Jax quipped from his end of the wall, making both me and Mallory, who had been quietly trying to remove her corner of ugly flowery wallpaper, snigger.

“You,” Kay growled, waving her scraper at him, “get back to your own corner before I pinch you.”

Jax winced even without Kay touching him, quickly scurrying over to the other corner of the sitting room to have at it again.

“And you,” she said, pointing back to the wallpaper behind me, “need to put a bit more elbow grease into it.”

“Elbow grease?” I seethed. “This piece of shit paper is stuck to this wall tighter than hoes are to Jax!”

“Hey!” Jax yelled from his corner, not daring to come any closer as he glared his pretty brown eyes in my direction. “Hoes hold me way tighter than this wallpaper!”

“Shut up, Jax,” Hunter grumbled, smacking him upside the head as he made his way into the room. He had his shirt, which was supposed to be over his chest, thrown over his shoulders as sweat dripped down his skin, his dark hair slicked back by his hand, and his jeans hanging low on his waist as he gave all of us something pleasant to look at while he moved over to his wife tucked into the corner.

I had to admit, one of the only benefits of this godforsaken, piece of shit house was the tall ceilings, allowing the boys, who must have all been raised on steroids, to move freely around my little white-picket fenced house without having to duck under doorways. Wolf, at his tall six foot seven, only just made it underneath, however, which was a miracle in itself.

Hunter’s arms went underneath Mallory’s as he lifted her to stand, her rounded stomach looking massive against her small but curvy figure as he helped her into the old but surprisingly comfy rocking chair in the room before handing her a bottle of water and pressing a peck against her lips.

I almost awed but feared I’d throw up at how disgustingly cute they were before I felt two huge, hot and sweaty arms wrap around my own stomach. Mine wasn’t anywhere near as round as Mallory’s was becoming, but the small bump was showing at eighteen weeks and suddenly, all my favorite, tight-fitting clothes didn’t fit, forcing me to wear long, flowy tops that instead of giving me a motherly glow made me look even shorter than I already was. Not to mention, I couldn’t even wear my boots anymore, since my ankles had begun swelling early at week twelve.

“You need to let me burn this place down,” I growled as I felt the brush of Wolf’s beard against my neck, the heat radiating from his body tingling against my skin as he pulled me into his also bare chest, I realized as I felt the back of my shirt dampen with sweat. Gross.

“Okay,” Wolf answered, his kisses moving up the corner of my neck, underneath my hair, which was desperate for a haircut; it was tied into a ponytail on the top of my head, further making me look like some kind of troll character.

“I’m serious, Wolf. This place is going to burn.”

“Uh-huh.” Wolf then grabbed me by the hips as I heard Kay bickering with Jax, and Pretty as well when he walked in a second later, looking for the two escaped men to help with fixing the roof and replacing the rotted wood in our little house that was a door slam from falling apart. What on earth let Wolf convince me selling my old place for this one would be a good idea was beyond me.

“You better not be agreeing with me to pacify me,” I growled, turning to look up into his amused brown eyes as he leaned down, and with the taste of the nicotine gum fresh on his tongue, he pressed a deep kiss to my lips, demanding entry into my mouth. His hand reached up to my hair, tugging free the tie and letting my blonde strands fall against the back of my neck, his fingers threading through them and pulling to grant him extra entry.

I moaned against him, causing him to pull back, and with an annoying smirk, he said, “Of course not.”

I glowered at him, but Wolf held up his innocent façade and passed me a bottle of water as well. “Where’s Ash?”

“Bitch was supposed to be here an hour ago,” I growled, looking over my shoulder and around the room as if I might have overlooked her, which in Ash’s case, would be impossible with all her bitching and complaining the last few weeks about her injuries, despite her release from the hospital—so long as she took it easy. But Ash just figured “taking it easy” was a pass from the doctors for being a lazy piece of shit.

Not that she’d be able to pull the wool over my eyes. She’d been roped into doing this damn chore of helping remove the wallpaper as us women and Jax had been assigned to do, while the boys did the “heavy lifting” for only the manliest of men. Utter misogynistic bullshit if you ask me.

“Want me to ask Lamb to go pick her up?” Wolf offered, but the bitter look on his face already told me all I needed to know about how much he wanted Ash around.

The two of them might have a mutual understanding when it came to me, and God forbid the times when they teamed up for the sake of “what was best” for me—not that either of them had a clue about that—but they didn’t like interacting with each other at the best of times. I figured it was an underlying case of jealousy between the two of them. Best friend versus boyfriend and all, though it could just be that Wolf hadn’t really forgiven her for shooting him in the leg.

“No, I’ll—” My phone cut me off as the device buzzed in my pocket, the factory ringtone almost deafening my ears as I dug it out and saw the name. “Speak of the devil,” I growled, hitting answer.

“Bitch, you better be on your way, because if you're not here in ten minutes, I don’t give a crap if you were shot six times or twenty, I will burn your hair off.”

There was a pause of silence on the other end of the phone before I heard Ash’s amused but cautious voice. “Is it just me, or has pregnancy enhanced your darker nature?”

“Darker?” I scoffed. “I’ve been pitch black from the very beginning. So, where are you? You on your way?”

Another pause followed my question, and with it, I could hear the rush of traffic as it rolled by in the background of the call, and it only took a second for the dread to flood my system.

“Ash? You’re on your way, right?”

“Anna…” Ash’s voice came softly from the other side, and having known Ash for over twenty years, I didn’t need to hear any other words.

“No,” I snapped. “No!”

Everyone in the room spun around to face me, flinching at the sound of my voice as I hugged the phone closer to my ear. “I’ve gotta go, Anna.”

“No, you don’t, Ash!” I yelled, my voice cracking on the words as my throat tightened as if a hand had reached out and was trying to squeeze it shut as I forced the words out. “You can’t do this! You can’t keep walking into my life, turning it upside down, then walking out again! You can’t keep leaving me on my own like this!”

“You’re right. I can’t.” Her voice was soft, almost wistful, and when I heard her next words, I felt my heart drop. “So, let’s make a promise. Like we used to when we were little.”

“No,” I pleaded, “Ash, I—” But Ash continued.

“I promise no more walking into your life, turning it upside down, then walking out of it again,” Ash promised, and I could almost feel the smile on her face. “Never again.”

“Ash—”

“And I promise to never ever leave you on your own again,” she said softly. I heard the rush and beep of a horn as it raced passed on the other end of the line. “So turn around, Anna.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”

“Turn around, Anna,” Ash repeated. “Turn and look at all the people around you. You’re not on your own anymore, Anna. You don’t need me.”

“If you do this, I’ll hate you forever!” I hissed but couldn’t stop my feet as I turned toward the room, looking at the faces of each and every person I loved.

“I was never meant to be liked, anyway,” Ash said, the line beginning to crackle.

“Don’t you dare say it!” I whispered. Wolf’s brown eyes looked at mine, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet them, couldn’t bring myself to think further than her voice on the other end of the line.

“I won’t,” Ash whispered.

“You promise?” I demanded. “Ash? Tell me your promise. Tell me you won’t say it. Ash!”

There was a long silence, but I could hear the soft whispers of her breath as I stood there, holding on to the phone with my strongest grasp, fingers clasped around the plastic.

Please, I begged, please don’t say it.

Don’t say it.

“Goodbye.”

The phone clicked off, and just for a moment, everything was quiet.

And then I felt the softest, foreign touch as I looked down to the tiny, beaded dot on my hand. It slipped over my skin and down my hand, the water gone. And then a second fell onto my hand, and I knew. As I reached up and felt the dampness on my cheeks, as I saw the way Wolf’s brown eyes widened in painful sympathy, I knew.

I was crying.

And like a pin in a bubble, my world broke into sound, my sobs wracking through my body as Wolf’s arms dove around me, not knowing what had happened but pulling me to his warmth, holding me with all of his strength as my world was rocked around me.

The phone dropped to the floor, but it didn’t matter now. Its use was over.

She was gone.

Gone for good.