“I need to…”
“Go get her.”
I head for the door, then turn back. “Piper?—”
“Go,” she says softly. “We can talk more later. After you’ve had time toprocess.”
I nod, even though I have no idea what I’m going to say when “later” comes. My entire world just shifted on its axis, and I’m not sure which way is up anymore.
I grab a T-shirt from the dresser on my way out the door and head down the hall to Ellie’s room. She’s standing in her crib, holding onto the rail, her face red and tear-streaked.
“Fee!” She reaches for me with those cute, chubby hands.
“I’ve got you, munchkin.” I lift her out and settle her against my chest. She immediately burrows in, her tears soaking into my shirt.
“Bad dweam,” she mumbles into my neck.
“It’s okay, Bean.” For now, anyway. I carry her downstairs as Igrasp at answers to help me figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
I’m going to be a father, a role I never expected to play. But now that it’s happening, I can’t stop thinking about what it means. I’m not just going to be a toddler’s temporary guardian, but an actual dad to a tiny baby who’s half me and half Piper. The thought terrifies me.
But there’s also something else underneath the panic. It feels almost like…hope.
I’m in the kitchen, Ellie on my hip as I put together breakfast with shaking hands, when Piper appears. She’s still wearing my Grizzlies T-shirt with pajama pants covering those gorgeous legs. Her hair is down around her shoulders, and she looks pale. Exhausted. And more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen. My chest does something complicated that I don’t bother to try to understand. All I know is Piper Hart has changed everything.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” She moves toward the fridge. “Want me to make eggs?”
“Are you going to eat them?”
She rolls her eyes. “Not when there’s leftover focaccia.”
“Hart, come on. You need to?—”
The sound of a car door slamming cuts me off, followed by voices out the open window above the sink. Familiar voices.
Oh, hell no.
The front door opens, and my brother’s voice booms through the cabin. “Wakey-wakey, sis-in-law.”
“You’re going to piss her off if you wake her,” Sadie chides, but there’s laughter in her tone.
Piper’s eyes go wide as saucers. “This can’t be happening.”
“Pip loves me,” Ian answers with his usual confidence.
“Fuck,” I mutter, then quickly amend at Ellie’s curious stare, “Fudge. Fudge fudge fudge.”
Sadie and Ian round the corner into the kitchen and stop dead in their tracks. The two of them glance from Ellie in my arms toPiper in my T-shirt, and I can only imagine the rumpled, morning-after scene we must present.
Sadie’s eyes go wide. “Oh, my God.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Piper says, which might be the worst thing she could say, because it’s exactly what it looks like.
Ian’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline as he looks from me to Piper and back again. “Then what is it?”
My mouth opens and closes. For possibly the first time in my life, I’m completely speechless. Piper looks like she might pass out or throw up again. Maybe both. And this is about to be a very different conversation than the one we were supposed to finish.
