“How are you, Mia?” I asked my sister, who followed me to the kitchen, everyone else trailing behind us.
“Better.” She smirked when Pierce stood behind her with his hands resting on her shoulders. It was still freaking weird. “I finished school last semester, so I got to enroll at Portland University for next fall. I don’t want to rush things.” She winked, making my skin itch.
Getting a woman I hardly knew pregnant was the very definition of rushing it, but I asked, “And getting married in the fall isn’t rushing things?” to keep the focus off me.
“A fall wedding will be perfect!” Mom added her two cents while getting some things from the fridge. Dad headed out back with what she handed him after kissing her on the cheek. Lucky bastard was escaping the wedding talk. “That’s when they got engaged. Plus, the colors will be so pretty.”
“Yeah. The colors.” Mia nodded but rolled her eyes at me, as if she couldn’t really care less about the details of the wedding.
“I’m taking my stuff upstairs,” I announced. “I don’t want to get into any wedding planning.”
“I’ll help you,” Pierce told me, giving Mia’s shoulders a squeeze before following me up the stairs.
Seeing him and my sister and my mom and dad so comfortable in their relationships made my chest hurt for no damn reason. Except that the chick I wanted that with, who was carrying my baby, didn’t want anything like that with me. Maybe now that I could talk to her in person, she would at least listen.
“How you been, brother?” Pierce asked me when he tossed one of my bags on the floor in my old bedroom. He leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest while I looked through my bag for a pack of cigarettes. I desperately needed one if I was going to make it through the night, even if I had been trying to cut back.
I shoved it in my pants pocket and met his steady gaze. “So, there’s some shit I need to tell you about before it all explodes tonight.” With a heavy breath, I ran my hands through my hair. His eyebrows shot up before he nodded for me to go on. “Kate and I got together the day after Thanksgiving, when we were all here.”
A smirk tugged at his lips. “Knew something was going on between you two.”
“Yeah, that’s not it.” I shook my head, curling and uncurling my fingers into fists at my sides. “She’s pregnant.”
Eyes about popping out of his head, he muttered a curse. “And you know it’s yours?”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “Yeah. But you better not say that shit to her when we announce it.” I jabbed a finger at him.
“Well, shit. What are you going to do?”
“That’s why I reenlisted. I’m going to take care of her and the baby, obviously.”
He nodded his understanding. “Good for you. You care about her?”
“’Course I do.” I gripped my neck with both hands, tilting my head back to stare at the ceiling. “She doesn’t seem to want anything like that, though.”
He snorted, and my gaze jerked to his. “How can she not if she was willing to tumble in the sheets with you?”
I shrugged. There was no explanation that made sense to me. We’d talked so much before Thanksgiving, at least emailed, and we had good banter going between us. But it never got any deeper than that.
“Well, this all makes sense now,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.
“How’s that?”
“Your mom told Mia she doesn’t understand why Kate is coming here again now that she and Ava aren’t roommates. Is that why they aren’t roommates anymore?”
Now I snorted. “You have no idea the drama that’s gone on since she told me.”
“What are you schoolgirls muttering about up here?” Mia showed up at Pierce’s elbow. He looked down at her with amusement and pure adoration in his eyes. But she was staring at me with her lips pursed and an eyebrow raised before she met her fiancé’s gaze. “Dad says he needs some help with the grill. I said I’d grab you so Kai can get settled.”
Pierce smirked. “You could just say you want a minute with your brother.” He smiled, brushing a hand over her cheek.
When he left, Mia’s gaze landed on me, the intensity of it making my skin itch again.
“What do you want?” I snapped, my unease getting the best of me.
“You’re about to cause a whole lot of drama, you know?” She stepped farther inside my room, planting her fists back on her hips.
My stomach sank, but I realized I should have guessed as much. “Ava told you?”
“That our brother got some chick he only slept with once pregnant?” She smiled, eyes sparkling, as if the idea of someone besides herself being scrutinized by our parents was a delightful prospect. “Yeah. She told me.”
I could only stare at her.
“You could have told me, jackass.”
“There’s the Mia I know and love!” I snorted. “I know I could have. She didn’t want me to tell anyone else. She wanted to be here, I guess.”
“Yeah. I get her.” Mouth quirked, she nodded. “I’ll pretend to be surprised when you make your announcement.”
“Thanks, brat.” I went over to give her another side hug. “You look like you actually are doing better.”
“I am. There are hard days, especially when Pierce is gone for a couple days. But I love him, and for some reason he loves me enough to push me to be better.” She shrugged. I didn’t know Pierce had to be gone for days at a time. I made a mental note to talk to him about it and whether Mia was actually doing okay. “If Kate is that person for you, you should stick with her.”
That
