I watched her brows shoot up. “Someone’s looking to get put in the cuck chair tonight, hm?”
Charlie’s cheeks reddened as Jesse “oh’d” loudly like we were in grade school.
I couldn’t help it—fat tears rolled down my face again. It felt like I somehow cried even more than I did before, and I used to cry a lot if I was honest.
At least Cameo had gotten sort of used to it. He no longer looked like he would crawl straight out of his skin if it meant getting away from my snotty face. But he didn’t pull me in for a hug either.
That seemed to be Marcus’ cue to come around and hold me, letting me cry right into his shoulder, snot and all.
“I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you,” I said through my sobs.
“You never need to, tesoro,” he assured. “You gave me everything I could ever want.”
After I was done sobbing and mostly together, Tara and her pack left, and we went to Marcus’s restaurant for lunch. Though I’d called it pretentious and a lot when we first came here, I’d grown to really love it.
Especially since Marcus started slowly but surely rotating my favorites onto the menu. The seafood pasta was my current favorite, and he brought it home for me almost every day.
Once we were done, I was whisked to one of my favorite baby clothes boutiques. Did I go overboard? Maybe, but I had a pack that fed my obsession with all these cute, tiny clothes.
By the time we were done, I was exhausted. Cameo said he wanted to take me to that maternity clothing store I liked, but I told him I just wanted to go home. He agreed, but drove us the long way. I didn’t mind—this direction had a long stretch of trees that had recently regained their green, which was beautiful.
When we finally got home, Marcus opened the door and helped me out, holding my hand the whole way to the door. He jiggled the key more than normal before slipping into the house.
I toed off my shoes, ready to go relax downstairs, maybe asking them if they wanted to watch a movie with me.
But loud steps thundered down the stairs, and I looked to see Indi and Joon all but tripping over each other to get down them.
I stared, eyes wide as they looked like a cartoon. “Hey,” Joon said, trying to sound casual.
He was dressed weirdly. In a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that looked worn, like he’d had it in high school or something.
“Hey?” I said, question in my voice.
“We’d like you to come upstairs,” Indi said, sounding at least a bit normal. “We have something to show you.”
“O-okay.” I followed them up, Marcus and Cameo not far behind me.
All of the doors were shut like normal, even the new one at the end of the hall. They insisted on building an addition for the nursery. It fell a few weeks behind, so it wouldn’t be ready for some time yet, but I was excited to see it when it was.
I walked down the hall to where the unfinished addition was, my brows knit in confusion.
“We sort of lied,” Joon said.
“Lied about what?” I asked, worry knotting in my stomach.
“Nothing scary,” Indi assured, probably feeling my nervousness.
All of them gathered in front of the closed door as Joon pushed it open. I was expecting a single room, but was instead led to a hallway addition with a door on either side.
“What’s this?” I asked. “I thought you got behind?”
“We did,” Marcus said. “But not as behind as we said.”
“Those contractors said two weeks ago,” Cameo grumbled.
I walked down and turned to the room on the right first. “Can I open?”
They all nodded, looking a bit anxious; everyone but Cameo, who never looked anxious.
