“Oh, that’s easy,” Hype said. Everyone looked over at him in surprise.
“It is?” I asked, suspicious because no one had seen Hype with a woman longer than it took to fuck her and send her on her way.
“You just need to romance her.”
We were all still staring, unblinking, his way.
“...romance,” Flir said.
“What the fuck do you know about romance?” Relay added.
Hype rolled his eyes. “Plenty. Bring her flowers. Take her on dates. Make her feel special.”
It was like the Twilight Zone. Those were great suggestions, and something I already knew about—I wasn’t a complete moron after all—but to have Hype suggesting them was…fucking weird. “I know all that,” I muttered. “I’m just not sure how to get her to trust me.”
“Time,” Ruck said with a shrug. “All you can do is show up for her in the ways she needs, a day at a time.”
I sighed. “Yeah. That’s what I figured.”
“There’s no shortcut to love,” Merc grunted.
“What…is…happening?” I questioned out loud. It never occurred to me that my brothers would be so involved in all this. Or that we’d ever be talking about babies, pregnancy symptoms, or love.
“You can start by going with her to her doctor’s appointments.” Ruck suggested.
“I can do that?” I asked. “Like, I’m allowed?”
“As long as she says so, which she will,” Kilo said. “She’s going to be nervous, having you there will be a big comfort.”
“That…sounds…great, actually,” I said. And it really did. It hadn’t occurred to me that I could go to her appointments. I wanted to be as much a part of this as I could be. It still didn’t feel real yet. I was going to need more than a few days to digest that this was really happening.
“If it helps,” OD offered, “once you gain the trust of a woman like her, you’re going to feel on top of the damn world.”
My lips twitched. “Yeah, it does actually.”
“So, what’s your next move?” Merc asked.
“Move?” I echoed.
“I assume you’re going to take her on a date?” He gave me a look as though I was a dumbass for asking.
Maybe I was. “I was thinking, maybe the fair. It’s in town-”
“Baaaad idea,” Drifter said with a wince.
“Rides, games, prizes, food…” I froze then sighed. “Food.”
“Yeah, if she’s struggling with morning sickness just the smell is going to send her over the edge,” Kilo said with a nod. “It would’ve with Camila, and her morning sickness wasn’t even that bad, according to her.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Since when did this shit become so hard?”
“The minute you decided you wanted to keep her,” Relay said with a smirk.
“Upped the ante with her being pregnant with your baby, too,” OD added.
“You have a lot to lose, so you care about what you’re doing,” Ruck said.
“I guess I could use a hand figuring out a good date then. We already did lunch.”
