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“Holy shit, Lucy,” Aunt Caroline breathed. Then she shook her head. “That’s quite a story. Was he any good?”
“Mother!” Teagan cried in horror, then she elbowed her mom and grinned. “I was totally going to ask that.”
When half the room gave them funny looks, Teagan said, “What? The guy was a month away from death. I’m impressed he was still able to get it up at all.”
“Well, I’d say he was in fine working order,” Aunt Eva announced, rubbing a hand over Lucy’s stomach. “Since he got a bun in our girl’s oven, over here.”
Lucy Olivia snorted acerbically. “Knowing Duke, he probably died with a hard-on. Except....” She hugged herself and winced. “What if being with me is what, you know, killed him?”
“No,” Sarah reassured her. “Not possible. If someone was honestly that sick, they weren’t going to survive long anyway.”
“She’s right.” Aunt Zoey patted Lucy’s arm sympathetically. “You were going to lose him, anyway, I’m afraid.”
“But...” Lucy shook her head, unable to accept their explanations. “That’s the problem. I’m not upset about losing him. And that makes me feel like a terrible person because I’m not mourning him, and he’s probably dead because of me.”
The entire room started to protest. “He isn’t dead because of—”
But Lucy had more to say. “He wasn’t the love of my life and we weren’t even that close of friends. I probably would’ve ended up hating him if he’d been healthy, and lived, and we’d had this kid together. He was so irresponsible and careless, he would’ve made a horrible, always-absent father. But I feel like I should’ve been closer to him, anyway. I mean, I’m the one who’s supposed to carry on a portion of his legacy. And I’m not—I don’t know. It’s just so weird that he’s gone. Just like that. And it was even weirder doing it with a guy I knew was dying. That was…” She cringed and shook her head. “He was going downhill by that point. I had to do most of the work.”
“Oh my God, so it was bad?” Teagan cried.
Looking completely guilty, Lucy covered her face with both hands and admitted, “So bad. And I feel absolutely heartless for even admitting that and for not being torn up about his death, even though I probably helped speed it along.”
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” Haven pulled her into a big hug. “But you didn’t kill him. We swear.”
Lucy started crying then. “And what am I supposed to tell this kid whenever it asks about its dad someday? All I know was that he never turned work assignments in on time, he thought fart jokes were hilarious, he always threw the bottom bun away whenever he ate a hamburger, and he liked to chase women, like indiscriminately sleep with anyone willing to have him. And that’s it. But who could tell a child that?”
“My turn,” Aunt Remy said, taking Lucy away from Haven so she could pull her into a hug next. “Sweetie, you just tell this kid that Daddy died before you got to know him because that’s the truth.”
While all the others set about the task of making Lucy feel better, I backed up to stand next to Bentley, who would’ve usually been right up there in the thick of things, trying to soothe her sister-in-law as much as everyone else was.
Don’t make it obvious I’m fishing, I silently ordered myself, right before I murmured, “Bent?” And then blurted the whisper, “Did you have a miscarriage?”
Her eyes went wide. She gaped at me in open-mouthed shock for a good five seconds before she snagged my arm in a death grip and hauled me down the hall to my bedroom.
“How did you know that?” she hissed as soon as she shut the door and turned back to face me, her face pale and cheeks a bit sunken.
“Oh, darling,” I cooed in sympathy, reaching out to smooth some of her hair out of her face. “It’s written all over you. You’re hanging back, not talking to anyone, going white as a sheet whenever the mere word baby is mentioned, and you look like you’re going to pass out any second. Here. Sit.”
I led her to the bed, where she sat and immediately frowned at something in the tangle of sheets beside her.
“Hey.” She picked up a jersey and turned toward me. “This is Fox’s.”
I swallowed, momentarily freezing, before shaking my head. “Uh, no. I think that’s Gracen’s old shirt.”
“Gray has a shirt like Fox’s? Huh. That’s weird.”
“Boys,” I muttered with a roll of my eyes and a nervous flutter of my hand. “That’s probably why Gray got his.”
Lord, I couldn’t believe I was lying to her so hard right now.
Trying to move us past that topic so I didn’t have to come up with another untruth, I took the shirt from her hand and chucked it toward my bathroom before she went and sniffed it or something and smelled her brother instead of mine on the fabric. Then I took her hands and squeezed sympathetically. “Seriously, how are you doing?”
“I’m—oh, you know.” She lifted a hand and tried to laugh but her eyes welled. “I’m just…” Her shoulders trembled, and she sniffed back more tears. “I’m—”
“Miserable?” I finally supplied for her.
She slumped and leaned heavily against me. “Yeah.”
