“Highly doubtful.” And I say that with extreme politeness because there is no fucking way Hendrix Knight and I will ever be friends.
“I’m going to thoroughly enjoy rubbing your pessimism in your face when I’m proven right.” Cocky Bastard lets out an obnoxiously loud crow from the coop on the other side of the yard, startling a laugh out of her. “He’s such an attention whore.” She rests her cheek flush against my chest, and I hold her a little tighter because I know this is as much of her that I’ll ever get. “Thank you for coming. I’m really glad you’re here.”
“I almost didn’t,” I reply truthfully.
“Why not?”
Because I’m in love with you.
Because I didn’t want to watch you belong to someone else.
“I figured I’d be a distraction. I didn’t want to ruin your wedding.”
She stops us mid turn and scowls. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or if you really believe the bullshit you just spewed.”
I love how she is never afraid to call me out. Or stand up to me. I look sideways at someone, and they shit their pants in fear. But not this woman. She directly challenges me every chance she gets.
“Aleks,” she says with a bite to it. Syn never calls me Aleks. Always Aleksander. “You’re here because we want you here.”
“Your husbands would disagree.”
“Okay, smartass.Iwant you here. Alana wants you here. So does Tristan—don’t you dare say what you’re about to say,” she cuts in when I open my mouth to contest the latter. “And you’re coming to the farm to spend Christmas with us.”
She catches me off guard with the invitation, and it takes a second for me to wrap my head around it. “I don’t think that’s a?—”
“Hush. You’re coming. End of story.”
Happiness shoots through me like a magic bullet, and I dip her low until her hair grazes the grass. “Yes, ma’am.”
If eye rolls could smirk, the one she gives me would. “That’s a much better answer.”
Her lithe body is soft weight in my arms, her breath brushing my collarbone. The quartet shifts into another song, this one slower, sadder, more final, and something intangible shifts between us.
“Why do you always look at me like that?” she whispers.
I falter bringing her back upright. “Like what?”
“Like I’m about to disappear.”
My fingertips dig into the back of her dress, like if I can grasp on tightly enough, I can keep her. “You did once.”
Constantine approaches, clears his throat. Even though he can talk now, he’s still a man of few words.
Knowing I need to let her go, I hold Syn for a moment longer than I should, then step back, my hands falling reluctantly to my sides.
Looking right at me, she says, “Never again.” Rising on her tiptoes, she puts her mouth to my ear. “We haven’t made the official announcement yet, but I wanted to tell you that you’re going to be an uncle. You’re stuck with us,” she whispers and goes to Constantine, who intimately takes her in his arms and presses a kiss to her lips.
Blink.
Blink.
Wait.
Syn’s pregnant?
I’m going to be an uncle?
How does she even know which guy is the father?
