Gage rises from his seat. “Don’t worry, Skyla. I’ll order food after we deal with this. I’m starving anyway. But Chinese can wait. The end of the world apparently can’t.”
“I’ll get it,” I say, racing past them both, padding across the hardwood floors in my socks as silent as a ninja, as I reach the massive oak door that’s withstood more celestial drama than most celestial courthouses.
To my surprise, the peephole reveals Wesley and Laken wearing matching expressions of doom, looking as if they’ve misplaced something far more substantial than an order of Chinese food. And yet the sight of them fills me with relief. At least it’s not Candace.
“It’s just Laken and Wes,” I say, swinging the door open, and there they stand. Wesley Edinger is the carbon copy of Gage, yet somehow carved from slightly harder stone. Same face, harder lines, like life decided to use him as a punching bag a few more times. Demetri’s genes hover over both him and Gage like a ghost.
Next to him, Laken somehow manages to look gorgeous despite the obvious new-mom exhaustion. Baby Cooper is strapped to her chest, completely zonked out with his mouth doing that tiny baby-breathing thing that makes ovaries explode.
“Let me guess,” I say, waving them in. “Cooper’s not sleeping, and misery loves company?”
“Close,” Wes says. “We lost his blanket. The one he literally cannot exist without. Not only that, but Cooper’s entire life support system seems to be missing.”
Laken sighs, shifting Cooper slightly. “The diaper bag. Please tell me you’ve seen it.”
“You bet I did,” I say. “Only I wasn’t sure who it belonged to. I meant to take a picture of it and put it in the group chat, but my brain was fried. I was just about to crash.”
Logan holds the expensive white bag up like a trophy. “Looking for this?”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Laken says with a laugh. “I was so afraid we’d have to go hunting on the beach with flashlights.”
“You mean I would go hunting for it,” Wes says, dropping a kiss on her temple.
“Technically, it was me who did the hunting.” Gage nods over to them. “I grabbed it on the way back to the house. Take a seat.”
“We shouldn’t,” Wes starts, but Laken is already moving past me, the siren call of a comfortable couch too powerful to resist for a woman who likely hasn’t sat uninterrupted in months. Not that she will tonight either, but still.
“Just for a minute,” she says, carefully lowering herself onto the sofa with a sigh. “Oh wow, that is so comfortable. Wes, we either need a new couch just like this or we need to move in.”
We all share a laugh at that one.
“I vote for the latter,” I’m quick to tell her. “We wouldn’t even charge you rent. We’d just make you bake us those cinnamon rolls every single day,” I say, taking a seat next to one of my best friends in the whole world and peering over at that cute little angel in her arms.
Cooper is Laken and Wes’ brand-new son, who is just four months old. They also share October and Maleficent, the girls Wes had with Chloe, and a son, Eli, who Wes had with Kresley. Suffice it to say, Wes has been more than prolific. And, of course, there’s Charlie, the daughter Laken shares with Coop. And little Wes, whom she shares with Wesley.
Laken had Cooper on the heels of baby Wes, Jr. His full name is Wesley Cooper. And this time, they went all the way with just Cooper, whom they named after Laken’s first husband, who was lost in the faction war.
Once upon a time, Wes and Coop were best friends, too.
The tiny tot punches the air as he squirms and scrunches his face as he closes his eyes, and I can’t help but coo. “Oh, wow, he just gets sweeter.”
“He’s in his milk coma.” Laken laughs. “We have approximately twenty minutes before he remembers he has lungs.”
Wesley takes a seat on the edge of the couch like a man ready to flee at the first sign of trouble, a habit he’s never quite broken despite a year of relative peace. I’ll admit, I spend more time on the edge than I’d like to admit myself.
“Heads up,” Logan calls out as he reappears with a tray holding four glasses and a bottle of something amber that looks expensive. “I figured as long as you’re breaking into our evening programming, we might as well do it right.”
“No, thanks,” Laken says, gesturing to the baby. “I’m still a one-woman dairy farm.”
“Same,” I say, and he quickly lands a glass of something bubbly in my hand despite it.
“It’s cider from earlier for you girls,” he says with a grin. “I’ve got the leaded version for the rest of us.”
“I knew I liked you,” Laken says, taking the drink.
“More of the good stuff for me,” Wes says, accepting a glass with a nod of thanks, as does Gage.
Nobody talks for a minute, and it’s perfect. We’ve been through enough hell together that silence feels like a conversation. Plus, with kids? Silence is basically currency.
