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“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked, tugging lightly on my hand.
It was in that moment that I realized I’d been kidding myself.
I couldn’t make the decision for Carolina. I had to tell her everything and let her decide for herself.
Which was why I tightened my grip on her hand and said, “If you’ll follow me after the way I’ve treated you the last couple of days.”
She smiled at me softly. “You will tell me everything after we get home tonight.”
The thought of going home or anywhere with her sounded like my idea of heaven.
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t really know what a white elephant exchange is, and the entire team and their wives make me really uncomfortable.”
Carolina rolled her eyes. “They’re a lot to get used to. But they’re lovable, and the greatest group to have at your back when you need it. Let’s go.”
The SWAT team had decided to do a white elephant exchange at the Christmas party, and honestly, I couldn’t say that I was all that excited about it.
I did, however, buy a present.
It was supposed to be funny, and I’d had to rely on Amazon telling me it was funny to really know if it was funny or not.
When we arrived at where the SWAT team had gathered, I pulled Carolina down with me into a seat that was, sadly, right next to Louis and his wife, Calloway.
Carolina immediately leaned over and started to talk to Calloway, which reminded me that the lot of them had all been known as the first-generation SWAT kids.
Rowen, Derek, Ares, Louis, Calloway, Booth, Bourne, Samuel Adams, Sierra and Carolina had all been children of the original Kilgore Police Department SWAT team—Luke, Downy, Nico, Bennett, Miller, Foster, and Michael.
Sometimes, when I was around the kids, or hell, even the adults, I felt like I was on the outside looking in.
The other men on the team generally seemed to just understand each other better. Louis, Derek, Booth, Bourne, and Samuel could practically talk to each other through telepathy.
“Carolina!” Ares called out, clapping her hands. Then her eyes widened into what resembled saucers. “Are you two together?”
Her eyes bounced from me to Carolina and back again.
Carolina looked at me, almost as if she was unsure what to say.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s been brewing for a while. Yes, we’re together.”
Ares squealed and clapped her hands.
“Now, if you just get pregnant like me, we’ll have our babies at the same time, and we’ll raise them to be best friends like we all talked about.” Ares fist pumped the air.
Louis groaned. “Y’all are such fuckin’ weirdos. You, Sierra, Calloway, and Carolina always used to talk about having babies together. It was annoying as fuck then, and it’s annoying as fuck now.”
Calloway pinched her man on the arm.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Calloway drawled. “But isn’t everyone here pregnant, has a newborn already, or in a seriously committed relationship? That’s how you get babies at the same time, dummy.”
Almost every eye turned to us.
They were right.
We were the only ones left that would complete the circle.
I swallowed hard, thinking about what we’d done in the bathroom about fifteen minutes ago, and what we’d done for ten out of the twelve days that we were quarantined.
We’d talked about it but decided subconsciously to ignore the possibility of pregnancy.
And, the really weird thing was, I kind of hoped that she was.
I wished that she would get pregnant just so I could stop second-guessing every fucking decision I made.
I needed something to anchor me.
That sounded like the perfect thing to make that happen.
“Let’s get this show on the road. Everyone heard of the white elephant gift exchange?” Derek asked as he pulled a gift from behind him and placed it on the table.
Mine was already there, along with a few others.
Soon the entire table was filled up with the presents, and Derek was passing out numbers to the twelve of us on the SWAT team.
“No,” Malachi said. “Never done white elephant before.”
“Derek will hand out numbers. Whoever has number one gets to pick a gift, open it, and that’s it. The second person can either choose to take the gift that number one opened or open his own. Number three can take either person one or person two’s gift or open his own. And so on,” Derek said as he opened his number. “Number twelve, bitches. Oh, yeah!”
I opened my number and laid it on my left leg nearest Carolina. She glanced down at it and looked over at me. “One’s actually the best. You can see all the presents get opened, and then you get to choose which one you want if your gift was stolen at the end.”
My number was seven, so it didn’t matter either way.
“Who’s number one?” Derek asked the group as a whole.
