“Everyone.” Flipping her phone around, Fern showed Renata’s face off to the room. “Can someone take this for me?”
“Hi guys!”
Able stood from the couch opposite theirs and stepped closer. “Is there a reason for this call?” he asked, looking between Elliott and Fern.
“Yep,” Fern replied.
With a soft smile half hiding behind his beard, Adam reached for the phone. “I’ve got it.”
“Adam, hi!” Ren called. “Thanks for everything.”
He nodded.
“Gimme, I need to see my lovey.” Olivia snagged the cell away from Fern before Able had the chance, and he returned to his seat.
“It’s announcement time,” Noa said excitedly, clapping from the other sofa.
“Are we that obvious?” Fern asked, sliding off Elliott’s lap to stand.
He joined her, resting his chin on her head and bringing his hands around her hips, the tips of his fingers touching over where his child lay.
“Yeah,” Noa confirmed. “You’re really obvious.”
A solid sense of rightness settled over Elliott in that moment, the type that only came with time and couldn’t be captured by a two-and-a-half-week bonding frenzy.Thiswas his life. It had settled into place slowly over the past year, and it was more perfect. More fulfilling than whatever “good enough” thing he’d had going before.
“AmIright?”Noabounced up, rushing toward Fern.
“You better talk fast,” Liv said through a laugh.
Heart already overflowing from the general happiness of her life, Fern shouted out her news before the moment totally got away from them all, “We’re having a baby!”
Congratulations rang out around them, and Ben and Adam approached Elliott to clap him on the back.
“Figured,” Adam chuckled.
“It’s exhausting, but it’s so fun. You’re going to love it,” Ben said honestly, then yawned, equally as genuinely.
“When are you due?” Liv asked, plopping Autumn back in her mate’s arms so she could wrap Fern in a happy embrace.
“Group hug!” Ren yelled through the phone, somewhere near Fern’s ass.
“Sorry, lovey!”
“December, if we’re not off on dates,” Fern replied as Liv embraced her too tightly, hurting her tender breasts.
“Can I make your baby shower cake?”
“Of course.”
“I think I want to do it full time,” Liv said wistfully.
“Make cakes for me?”
Pulling Fern down on the couch, Olivia said, “Yeah. I keep thinking—between babies, birthdays, and weddings in Beckett Falls, there’s room for it. We’d need a new teacher, though.” Strategically—Fern realized—Liv’s eyes flew to meet Ren’s gaze through the phone.
“Wait, what are you talking about?” Renata asked.
“Liv wants to start a cake company, and we need you to come here and be the teacher so she can get back in the kitchen,” Fern explained succinctly, earning a smack and a side-eye from Olivia.
