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“Do you want me to send Sig back here?”
“No!” Both Tessa and Stella yelled at the same time.
Thank fuck. The last thing Easy needed was the other half of the Temper Twins to get involved. He’d be on the losing end of that meeting, especially since he was already beat to fuck. His reflexes were slower than shit right now, his brain was foggy, and his joints and muscles struggled to move freely.
And, for fuck’s sake, now he couldn’t breathe through his nose.
Stella spun on Trip. “No matter how pissed you are right now, you need to remember that Easy’s still family.”
“Family don’t fuck over family.”
“Yeah, right.” Stella responded dryly. As soon as Crys walked out the back door with Rush’s diaper bag, Stella headed over to the fridge while keeping a wary eye glued on her ol’ man. “We all know that’s bullshit since we’ve all been fucked over by family. All of us in this very kitchen.” She grabbed a bag from the freezer. “Thank fuck I still have frozen bags of corn from the Amish.”
Still wound tight, Trip crossed to the opposite side of the kitchen. But at least from that distance Easy would be able to prepare somewhat if Trip rushed him.
With both eyes barely slits—made worse with a broken nose—Easy stared across the table at Tess.
He needed to touch her, make sure she was okay. But he waited, since the tension in the room was still snapping and crackling like a downed power line.
It was killing him, though, to see her like that, with her face ravaged from crying. Her eyes were puffy, her nose red as she stared back at him, her face pale and her eyes bloodshot. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed.
Before he could respond, Stella was standing in front of his chair with a dish towel and the frozen corn. “Tip your head back slightly.”
She hissed at the same time Easy did when she placed the corn against his nose.
“Goddamn,” he murmured.
“Hold that while I clean off some of this blood,” Stella announced. Easy held the bag of frozen kernels to the bridge of his nose as Stella wiped away the blood from his face.
The sound of a chair scraping back pulled Easy’s attention from Stella but before Tessa could get to her feet, Stella told her to sit back down.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Let me help him.”
“Tessa, you passed out and should rest,” Trip’s ol’ lady reminded her. “It’s bad enough that you’re still injured from the crash two weeks ago. We need to protect my future niece or nephew at all costs.”
Future niece or nephew?
“Wait a fuckin’ minute…” He dropped the bag of corn on the table and pushed Stella’s hand away from his face. “You are pregnant? I figured you just said it to stop Trip.”
Even though he didn’t see tears, she sniffled and shook her head. “I wasn’t lying. Sorry for the bad news.”
Sorry for the bad news? If anything, she should be sorry for not telling him sooner. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? Why the fuck did I have to hear it at the same time everyone else did?”
“Because I… I wasn’t… I didn’t find out until the night of the crash—”
“That was two fuckin’ weeks ago!” Goddamn, it hurt to yell.
When he saw movement just beyond his line of sight, he knew it was Trip moving closer but he ignored him. Right now he needed to focus on what the hell Tessa was saying.
“And I wanted to wait until after my appointment with Carly because—”
Appointment? “What fuckin’ appointment? When was that? And why the fuck wasn’t I told about it?”
“I wasn’t sure if the baby would survive after the crash. I’d been spotting and I wanted to make sure there would actually be a baby before I told you. If something happened…” She rolled her lips under, then finished with, “There wouldn’t have been any point.”
Could his day get any more fucked than it already was?
He was struggling to wrap his head around what the fuck was going on. But now it sort of made sense why Trip had lost his shit a few minutes ago.
“But how? We…” He glanced over at where Trip was standing. It might not be the best time to get into details about their method of birth control or remind the president he’d been having sex with his sister for months. He needed to get Tessa out of there and to somewhere they could have a discussion without Trip breathing down their necks.
Or breaking his.
Though, death might relieve some of the agony he was currently dealing with.
“We… need to talk,” he finished. “Somewhere else. Not here.”
“She ain’t goin’ anywhere with you.”
Bullshit. “With what I just heard, it’s you who has no say in this.”
As Trip’s head snapped up and his shoulders pulled back, the screen door was flung open and slammed shut behind Jemma. Jesus, the bang of the door exploded through his muddled brain like a gunshot.
