Inked in clean black-and-gray lines, small but sure, sitting right above my heart. My skin was still raw around the edges, the red tenderness only making it look more permanent.
I braced my hands on the sink, staring at it while its inspiration slept not six feet away, and despite the hangover trying to split my skull, a grin crept across my mouth.
I could still hear the guys chanting, their playful gibes, Dani’s laugh when I rolled into bed around two in the morning. Andnow? I had a kitten over my heart, her nickname etched into me forever, exactly where it belonged.
Dani
Roasters 63–41
“Your dagger misses,” Nessa announced, smirking behind her Dungeon Master screen. “Bounces, actually—plink—clean off the ogre’s breastplate.” She mimed the motion with both hands, complete with sound effects.
“Rude,” I said, leaning forward in my chair to adjust the maternity bike shorts that were riding up my ass. Ogres were one thing, but going through my third trimester in the middle of summer was a level of hell I hadn’t been prepared for. “Okay, who wants to help me with this wedgie?”
June snorted. “Girl, you have a bearded bear of a man at home for that.”
“I can’t just tote him around with me everywhere I go.”
“Something tells me that Brooks wouldn’t have a problem with that,” Clarke said around a devilish grin.
I smoothed a hand over the swell of my stomach, which looked more like a beach ball each day. In fact, just last week, duringCarolina’s back-to-school field day, one of the parent volunteers had pulled me into the face-painting station and decided my belly was fair game. Ten minutes later, I’d been wandering around the blacktop with bright stripes painted across my bump, officially transformed into a fleshy beach ball.
Carolina had howled with laughter. Brooks had taken a page out of my book and pulled out his phone to snap some photos. It had been a good day—one of those rare ones where everything felt easy and carefree, made easier by Brooks clasping my left hand and Carolina’s sticky, snow cone-covered fingers gently squeezing the other.
Allie had handed me sunscreen without me asking, and her fiancé, Mitchell, had made sure I got the shady chair when my feet had started to swell. It hadn’t been perfect, but we were all learning how to belong to Carolina together, each in our own way. And the fact that they had welcomed me into their orbit so easily had hit me harder than I’d expected.
“Settle down, BB,” I whispered to my belly. “Your mama is trying to avenge the villagers.”
Clarke pushed a curl out of her eyes. “Mama is going to have to roll a lot better than a four to even have a chance.”
Jo laughed, the kind of deep laugh that made his shoulders shake under his T-shirt. “Careful,mami.With your luck, she’ll pop out abrujainstead of a baby.”
I didn’t even bother rising to the bait—just reached for my sweating glass of iced tea, too hot and too pregnant to waste energy on comebacks.
The five of us were all tucked into the back room at Thorn Tavern, the one with thegoodair conditioning, arguably the most magical part of our entire campaign. Outside, Portland simmered in ninety-plus-degree August heat, the sidewalks glowing like stove burners—hot enough to fry an egg. Inside,we were cocooned in coolness, surrounded by the faint smell of fried food and spilled hops.
Nero had taken pity on us the second I’d waddled in, plying us with endless pitchers of iced tea and baskets of his famous “Totchos.” Between the air conditioning, the food, and cushy club chairs, it was basically heaven.
“Okay, but for real,” June cut in, stretching her long legs out under the table. “How are you feeling? Like, body-wise. You’re what, thirty weeks?”
“Thirty-three,” I said with a groan. “Baby girl is the size of a bunch of celery, which feels very wrong because I’ve been eatinga lotof celery lately. Like, am I committing some kind of prenatal cannibalism? Is this how my horror movie starts?”
Nessa snorted into her tea. “Relax, Hannibal. She’s fine.”
“Yeah,” Jo added. “If anything, you’re just training her to like ranch dressing.”
“Aside from that, my feet hate me, my back hates me, I peed myself when I sneezed yesterday, and apparently, my ankles have gone on sabbatical without telling me.”
“Hot,” June said dryly.
“You asked.” I pointed my pencil in her direction. “Be nice before I cast an eldritch hex on you.”
The table broke into laughter, but underneath it, I felt that same warmth I always had with these people, like no matter how messy or terrifying this whole becoming-a-parent thing felt, I wasn’t alone.
Eventually, their laughter quieted, and Clarke took her turn with the dice. I let myself lean back, one hand resting on my belly which had become second nature.
Seven months in, I still didn’t know if I would be a good mom, but I did know one thing for sure. I was in love with Brooks—madly, stupidly, terrifyingly in love. Coach Daddy was all mine.
And it wasn’t just because he smacked my ass whenever he slid past me in the kitchen or whispered filthy things against my neck with his hand spread over this belly. Don’t get me wrong, those things still had the power to make my pulse race even after all these months.
