Page 102 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

Killian’s gone very still, the kind of stillness I’ve learned means he’s working through something faster than he’s letting his face show. Asher’s hand finds the back of his own neck, rubbing at it the way he does when he’s trying not to let his face do anything at all. Maddox just blinks at me, slow, like he’s running the math twice to make sure he heard the timeline right.

But something in all three of their shoulders eases, just slightly, like they were each bracing for a different sentence than the one they got, so I keep going, because I’m feeling steadier the longer I talk and I’m not about to question why.

“And I don’t know if any of you want kids, or more kids, but I know I’m keeping it. I haven’t gone to the doctor yet to actually confirm the home test, because I wanted to talk to all of you first, before.”

I trail off.

I’m aware of how that sounds. Like I’m asking permission, which isn’t what I mean at all, except some smaller, quieter part of me knows it’s not entirely untrue either, that some piece of this decision has always been waiting on what happens in this exact room, with these exact three men, before I let myself believe in any version of what comes next.

“Before what, mon coeur?” Asher asks, quiet.

I take a breath, steel myself, and look at him.

“Before I know if I’ll be doing this on my own.”

Maddox is the first one to actually move, setting his glass down slow this time, his eyes on me like he’s trying to recalculate something that isn’t adding up the way he expected.

“Do you want to do this alone, sweetheart?”

“I don’t want to. But I will, if it’s going to be a problem.” My voice wobbles and I push through it anyway. “I don’t want this to break what the four of us are, what we’ve become, what I think we could be. But that doesn’t matter.”

I press a hand low against my stomach, under the hem of Asher’s hoodie, and feel the warmth of my own palm against my skin, and something in my chest softens even with everyone watching me.

“They matter more than what I want. I don’t know which of you is the father, and finding out might influence some decisions when we get there. I truly hope that when we learn who their biological father is, the four of us are still together, that it doesn’t change my relationship with any of you, or your relationship with me, or the relationship I hope all three of you have with whoever’s growing in here. Learning who it is isn’t about ranking anyone in their life, or in mine. It’s for actual reasons. Genetic history, medical stuff, all of that. But I won’t ask any of you to stay if this isn’t what you want.”

I look down at the floor, my fingers picking at the edge of Asher’s sleeve where it’s bunched at my wrist.

“I love each of you too much to ever make you fit into a life you don’t want.”

Nobody says anything.

The quiet stretches long enough that I start preparing myself for the version of tonight where I end up alone in this with someone’s baby and no one standing in this room beside me, and I already know I’d survive it. I know I would. I’ve survived worse with less. That’s the only thing keeping me upright while I wait, the quiet, stubborn certainty that whatever happens next, I’ll still be standing on the other side of it.

I make myself look up anyway, because hiding from their faces won’t change what’s on them.

Asher’s jaw is tight, his blue eyes fixed somewhere just past me like he’s still catching up. Maddox has gone unreadable in a way I’ve genuinely never seen from him, his usual easy expression replaced with something careful and contained. Killian hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken, his muted green eyes locked on me with an intensity that makes it impossible to tell whether he’s about to say something gentle or walk straight out the door.

Then I see his shoes.

Killian’s standing in front of me before I’ve even registered him crossing the room, and his finger finds the underside of my chin and tips my face up, and that’s when I feel the tears that have been building finally spill over, hot down both cheeks, my throat too tight to do anything but meet his eyes.

He cradles my face in both hands and wipes the tears away with his thumbs, slow, and leans down to press a kiss to my mouth so soft and so chaste it somehow carries more weight than anything either of us has said all summer. My eyes fall shut. He pulls back just far enough to rest his forehead against mine, breathes in once, long, breathes out, and I catch the scotch and mint on his breath underneath the spice and amber and cedar that’s just him, and it makes me smile even with my face still wet.

“I love you, Harper. And I’m not going anywhere.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding since the elevator doors opened earlier tonight, and something in my chest finally unclenches all the way.

I kiss him, both arms looping around his neck, and I don’t notice Asher’s moved until our mouths break apart and I’m being pulled straight into his chest instead, his arms wrapping all the way around me, holding me there long enough that I feel my own pulse start to settle. When he finally lets me back enough to look up at him, he’s grinning, and there are tears running freely down his face, catching in the stubble along his jaw.

It’s my turn to wipe someone’s tears for once. I do, both thumbs under his eyes, and he laughs through it, rough and wet.

“I’ve never been so happy, mon coeur. Of course I love you. And I already love the baby growing inside of you. How could I not, when you’re their mother?”

I kiss him too, and when we finally break apart I look past him to where Maddox is still sitting on the sectional, his now empty tumbler set carefully back on the table like he needed something to do with his hands.

He doesn’t look happy.

He looks scared. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Maddox St. James look scared in my entire life, not once, not even when Sophia called him crying at two in the morning from some party gone wrong, and seeing it now stops me cold for half a second before I make myself move.