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“That she was mine,” I say.

The table goes quiet. Her mama puts her hand over her heart. Her little brother, who’s sixteen and hasn’t looked up from his phone once, actually looks up from his phone. Her daddy stares at me for a long time.

Well, he thinks. Damn.

“Pass the greens,” he says finally.

I pass the greens.

By the time we get to the pie, he’s telling me about the time he carried a grown man out of a burning warehouse in ‘98, and I’m listening to every word. Her mama has asked me three times if I’m eating enough. Her brother wants to know if I can get him into the club. I tell him hell no.

Kisha sits next to me through all of it with her hand on my thigh under the table, squeezing it every few minutes.

I can’t believe I’m sitting here with a whole baby inside me, she thinks. Mama’s going to lose her mind. Daddy’s going to lose his mind worse. We’re gonna have to tell them so soon.

I cover her hand with mine. Not tonight, I think back at her, even though she can’t hear me. Tonight, it’s ours.

Her mama sends us home with enough leftovers for a week, a kiss on each of my cheeks, and a whispered “You take care of my baby.”

“I will,” I promise her. “I’ll take care of both of…”

Kisha elbows me so hard I grunt.

“Her,” I finish. “And her new car.”

“Her car?” Her mama gives me a funny look, and Kisha drags me down the steps before I can say anything else.

The second the car door closes, she turns on me. “Both of?!”

I start the car and grin at her.

“You almost told my mama!”

“I didn’t, though.”

“You’re the worst.”

“You love me.”

She crosses her arms and looks out the window. I can feel her through the bond, warm and smug, pretending to be mad.

“Yeah,” she says, after a long time. “I do.”

I reach over and spread my hand over her belly. She puts her hand over mine, and we drive home like that the whole way.

Chapter Twenty-One

KISHA

“You’re sweating,” Nik says.

“I’m not sweating.”

“You’re sweating, Red. Your hands are shaking. And you’ve thought the words Daddy’s gonna kill me eleven times since we got off the highway.”

I glare at him across the front seat of the Range Rover. He’s driving with one hand on the wheel and the other spread on my thigh, calm as hell, looking like a man on his way to brunch instead of a man about to tell a retired firefighter he knocked up his only daughter three weeks after meeting her.

“Stay out of my head,” I hiss.