Page 118 of Beg Me

I listen to them argue like siblings, which is always amusing, and then, in the distance, I spot Hartley’s truck coming up the drive. Gianna notices it, too, and grows suspicious.

“Guys, what’s going on?” she asks, with a hand on her hip.

The truck comes around the back of the house making a wide circle around the firepit. Gray, Mira, and Hartley get out of the front, and Drake gets out of the back … with a piglet.

“Oh, my gosh. No, you didn’t!” she squeals, making a beeline for Drake. “That better be mine.” She stops a few feet away. “You’re so cute. Look at you.”

“Do you want to hold her?” Drake asks, smirking.

“No. Not even a little bit.”

“Then why did you want one?” Astrid asks, laughing. “I don’t understand the logic.”

“Because it’s cute and we can form a friendship. And it can eat our food waste. And … stuff.”

Nettie and I exchange a smile.

“What’s that around its neck?” Audrey asks. “It’s blue, I think.”

Drake pretends to try to find the box that’s secretly in his hand. “I don’t see it.”

“It’s right there—no.” Gianna covers her mouth, jumping backward. “You are not.”

Drake hands the pig to Hartley, then he drops to one knee.

“Drake …” Gianna says, bouncing on her toes. “It took you long enough.”

We all laugh at her reaction as Drake opens the box.

“You, Miss Bardot, are the love of my life,” Drake says. “I love the life we’re building together, and the way you can destroy a kitchen, and how I never know what art supplies will be all over the floor in the morning. You keep things interesting and beautiful, and I’d be honored if you’d be my wife.”

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes!” She squeals, throwing her arms around Drake’s neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, taking the ring out and slipping it onto her finger.

I clap, and the others follow along.

Something else is going on, and I can’t figure out what it is. But Mira is smiling a little too big. Hartley is a little too close to her, and Brooks is grinning like a loon with Audrey on his lap.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Gianna and Drake look over as we all kind of watch each other suspiciously.

Audrey and Mira exchange a smile.

“Mira and I have something to say,” Audrey says.

“Excuse me?” Brooks asks, shaking his head.

Mira laughs. “Hartley and I, and Brooks and Audrey have something to say.”

I gasp. “You’re pregnant!”

“No!” Gianna wraps Mira into a hug. “You’re pregnant?”

“We’re due a month apart,” Audrey says. “That’s why we got married so quickly. I wanted to do it before we got too far along.”

I point at my sister. “And you didn’t tell me first?”