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JADE
If I thought high school was exhausting before, now that I was really dragging my ass due to early-stage pregnancy fatigue, it was nearly unbearable. And it didn’t help that I was still struggling on the inside with how things went down when I told the guys about the baby.
Xander and Bryce hadn’t been unkind to me, at least, though they’d been reluctant to talk in any real way while Dane was AWOL. Of course, he’d been missing from class today, too, leaving me to fret endlessly about him, whether he was okay, whether he’d ever speak to me again after this.
But as I was heading out at the end of the day, resigned to take the bus to Aunt Lynette’s house, a familiar classic black beauty of an Impala pulled up next to me. The passenger side window rolled down, and maybe it was the hormones, but I wanted to weep with joy at the sight of Dane’s face. He leaned across the seat, looking up at me with those beautifully complex, dark eyes. “Can I give you a ride home, beautiful?”
My heart stuttered in my chest, my breath catching at the endearment. But now that he was here and my initial relief at seeing him had faded, I wondered if I should go with him. MaybeI should be pissed off at how he’d abandoned me at the first sight of trouble.
“I can take the bus,” I told him coolly, and Dane sighed.
“Look, I know I have a lot of explaining to do, and about a dozen apologies to make. But this isn’t the best time or place to do that.” He looked behind him as another car honked at him to move out of the narrow drive in which he’d stopped. “So would you get in the car? I just want to go somewhere and talk. Make things right.”
I only hesitated for another moment, and then I climbed into the Impala with Dane, an idea of where we were headed already forming in my head.
Sure enough, when we pulled up to Xander’s house and headed to the basement, bypassing his parents who were actually home for once, all three of my guys were waiting for me on the same couch where we’d had mind-blowing sex more than once.Our kid might have been conceived on that couch,I thought, an anxious laugh bubbling out of me.
“Hey, Jadie.” Bryce’s sweet voice greeted me first, moving over so I could sit between him and Xander. I gave him a sheepish “hey” in response and did as he asked, having a vivid flash-forward to when it would be hard for me to sit down because of my huge belly. “Thanks for coming to see us.”
As if I really had a choice. Rationally, I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet with this whole pregnancy situation. But emotionally, I was still theirs, and maybe I always would be.
“What’s this about?” I asked, genuinely wondering, though I had an inkling. The guys exchanged a look among themselves, then Bryce cleared his throat, deciding to step up to the plate first.
“Jade,” he started softly, taking my hand into both of his. “We know you’re going through something really big and fucking terrifying right now. And since we’re the reason you’rein this mess in the first place, we feel it’s our job to… I don’t know. Lighten the load, so to speak?” He winced at the potential innuendo, but he relaxed again when I laughed.
“Christ, I love the sound of your laugh,” Bryce said then, taking me by surprise, and then more lovely, sweet words spilled out of his mouth like he’d broken a dam. “That’s what this really is, Jade. It’s love, right? Everything’s been so crazy since you came into our lives, and the only thing with the power to wreck stuff like that is love. Not that you’ve wrecked anything!” he hurried to add, and then he laughed at his own fumbling. “Sorry, I’m so bad at this. But what I’m trying to say, Jade, is that I love you. I love what we have, all of us together. I want to keep you, stand by you for as long as you’ll have me, and I wanna be there for you and your mini me whenever they’re out of the oven, if that’s what you want, too.”
His confession tore through me, leaving me lost for words and breathless. I gaped at him, but then Xander’s voice joined the fray, and I turned to look into his crystal blue eyes.
“I love you, Jade. I’m not sure I was even capable of real love before I met you. I’m still not sure I’m well-equipped to do it now,” he said, his serious face softening just enough for a tiny smirk to form on his lips. “But all I want, more than anything in this world, is to love you the way you deserve. I want you to be as happy as you make me whenever you walk into a room.” The smile that broke across his face now was beautiful, softening and highlighting his classic handsomeness until I could hardly believe my luck. I looked between Xander and Bryce, disbelieving the tentative joy threatening to explode through my chest.
Finally, Dane cleared his throat, coming to kneel in front of me so he could lay his hand over my knee. Just the touch of his hand was enough to make me start to cry, and his dark eyes softened to rich, dark chocolate when he noticed my tears.
“Don’t cry, baby,” Dane whispered, bringing his hand up to wipe the tears away with a featherlight touch. “I owe you an apology, and I want to make it as perfect as you are.
“Jade, you know this is hard for me. Hell, I have a habit of making a lot of things harder than they need to be, and you’re a saint for giving yourself to me, to us, despite that. I’m sorrier than I can ever express for running away from you in your moment of need. I promise, if you forgive me, if you’ll keep me in your life, I’ll never abandon you like that again.”
Was I seeing things, or were there tears forming in his eyes, giving the deep color an extra layer of sparkle? That just made me cry harder, and Dane shushed me calmingly as he went on.
“I don’t have to tell you that shit hasn’t been easy for me. I’ve never really had anyone care for me the way you do, and it’s scary to let that love into my world for the first time. You’re the best thing that’s happened in my entire fucked-up life. All of you,” he said, looking around at his best friends on either side of me, too. But then he met my gaze again and said, “I love you, Jade. Christ, I love you so much I could burst. And if you decide to have this baby, I’ll love it, too. It’ll be all of ours. Fuck the genetics.”
Xander and Bryce nodded along, breaking my heart and putting it back together all at once. Each of their speeches was so perfect, exemplifying their differences and the reasons I loved each of them on their own, much less together, this magical foursome we’d never meant to find. The words burst out of me before I could even pretend to mull things over.
“I love you,” I gasped, looking at Dane, who broke, letting a single tear fall free. I turned to Xander and said it again, watching him melt as I said it. “I love you.” Finally, Bryce’s smiling face filled my vision, bright and warm as the sun, and again, I told him the truth. “I love you all. God, I love you guys so much. And… I think I already love this baby. Even though I knowit’ll be hard to figure out the details, with all of us graduating and maybe going off to different schools, I really love the idea of raising a child with the three of you, seeing what great fathers you all would be…”
“And how cute a little Bryce would be,” Bryce butted in, making us all laugh and Dane shove him. “What? I’m right!”
Thanks to Bryce’s humor and all of our delirious happiness, our serious conversation devolved into more laughter, loving kisses from each of my boys, a warm group hug that wrapped me in safety and warmth. I sighed, marveling at the perfection of my life now that there were no more lies, only trust, affection, truth. It was so easy. There in the basement where I’d first given myself freely to these three wonderful men, I gave my heart to them again, secure in the knowledge that this was what it was like to be truly loved.
EPILOGUE: JADE
Almost Nine Months Later
The early-summer sun dipped low on the horizon, casting a warm glow over the local park where my high school graduation party was in full swing. Laughter filled the air, fun music played on Xander’s fancy smart speaker, a symphony of celebration for the four of us and our achievements. It had been a hell of a year, full of doctor’s visits and attempts at assembling baby furniture and fielding judgmental looks from people who didn’t matter, and there was love at the heart of it all. Through everything, Bryce, Dane, Xander, and I had actually done it, and we had the diplomas to prove it. We had officially crossed the threshold into the next chapter of our lives.
While I sat in the shade and nursed a glass of lemonade, resting my swollen ankles and soreeverything, Aunt Lynette was manning the grill, turning over hot dogs and hamburgers of the real and vegan varieties to feed us all. Always taking care of me, taking care of all of us, in ways that our parents had largely failed to. My mom and dad were here somewhere, but theyhadn’t been by my side constantly for the past thirty-some-odd weeks the way Lynette had.
Leah, Aiden, and a host of other school friends milled about, too, chatting in happy clusters, their smiles echoing the joy of the occasion. I watched Aiden play badminton with some of his friends, taking Leah’s aggressive sideline-coaching in stride. Bryce was throwing a football with one of his brother’s kids, running around in the yard and shooting me winks whenever he got the chance. Dane and Xander both sat near me, less extroverted than our other half—er, quarter?—but still enjoying the party for my sake. They’d do just about anything for my sake, I’d learned. Mine, and our baby girl’s.
