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“HOLY FUCKING SHIT,” Cassie squeals, throwing herself to her feet and scaring the shit out of Georgie in the process. Cass swoops down, scoops her into her arms, and before she can even take a breath, a loud sob tears from the back of her throat, her bottom lip wobbling uncontrollably. “I’m just,” sob, “so,” snot, “freaking happy for you.”
She makes her way toward us, tears streaming down her face as Jax shakes his head at his wife’s performance. Logan though, he gapes at Carter like he must be possessed by some kind of alien life form, but Sean just grins, almost as though he knew it all along.
Carter gets up and helps pull me to my feet just in time for Cass to barrel into me. She wraps her arms around me, and we give Georgie a best friend sandwich as tears and snot start going everywhere. “Tell me this isn’t a joke? Did he really ask?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, a wide smile on my face as Elle crashes into us, joining in on the love. “He did. We’re going to be a real family.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Cassie says as the boys start whooping and cheering for Carter as they crack open their celebratory beers.
Jax steps in beside me and awkwardly tries to hug me around his wife and Elle. “Congratulations,” he says, pure happiness shining in his eyes.
I smile up at him when another shooting pain blasts through my back. “Ahh, fuck,” I wince. “That was a bad one.”
“What’s wrong?” Cass asks, bracing her hands against my shoulder and shoving me back to see my face.
“It’s nothing,” I say, pushing out of their arms and searching for my chair behind me. “I just need to sit down.”
Jax helps me get back into my chair, and I shuffle Carter’s jacket behind my back again to help ease the pain, and like clockwork, it begins to fade away.
“I must admit,” Cass says as everyone starts to calm down and take their seats on the picnic mat again. “I’m kinda shocked. After everything, I thought I was going to have to torture him before he’d finally found the balls to pop the question.”
“You and me both,” I tell her as Carter rolls his eyes, clearly not approving of our conversation. “But apparently, my ass is just too good to pass up.”
“Got that right,” Carter grunts before reaching up with an orange juice in his hand.
I bend to take it from him, and the subtle movement has another pain shooting through my back. “Fuck me,” I mutter, starting to get frustrated with this bullshit. “This shit just won’t give in.”
Carter glances up at me, his brows furrowed. “Are you okay?” he asks, placing a calming hand on my thigh and giving a gentle squeeze.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to breathe through the pain. “I just keep getting this awful pain in my back. I think the babies are using my kidneys for target practice or something. Either way, it fucking hurts.”
“What?” Carter grunts in concern. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having pains?”
“Because it’s nothing,” I say. “And it’s not like you can do anything to take the pain away. You would have just sat there looking at me with this helpless, lost puppy dog stare like you’re doing right now. I didn’t want you worrying.”
Carter scoffs, rolling his eyes. “It’s not nothing,” he says. “You could be going into labor.”
I shake my head, secretly loving how concerned he is. “Nah, I don’t think so. I’d know if it was labor. Besides, it’s just random back pain, not contractions. Not to mention, I’m only eight months. It’s too early.”
“Are you sure?” he pushes, giving me a hard stare.
“Positive.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know,” Elle says with a cringe. “I’m pretty sure back pain is a sign of labor.”
The next few minutes are spent in a massive group debate over the topic of labor pains, but it’s cut short when the pain shoots through my back again, making me groan as it starts getting so much worse. “That’s it. I’m checking Dr. Google,” Cassie declares, having enough of the back and forth.
We sit in silence, watching as she searches with Jax peering over her shoulder. Her eyes roam all over her phone as she skims through the information, her finger working overtime on the scroll. The silence kills me, and Carter takes hold of my hands, realizing the unknown is making me nervous.
“Okay,” she says, looking up at me as calm as a cucumber. “You’re having contractions. It’s time to go to the hospital.”
“What?” I grunt, my eyes widening like saucers. “Are you shitting me?”
“Fuck,” Carter grunts, flying to his feet and frantically looking around for his things.
The picnic lunch goes into a flurry of movement. People shuffle around, grabbing their phones and wallets off the ground, discussing who’s going in what car, and before I know it, they’re all rushing to the house, leaving me sitting in the damn chair I can’t get out of. “Hey, fuckers,” I call to their backs. “You guys aren’t having any babies without me.”
