Smiling at her, I glanced at Ari to see that she was tearing up again. I thought I was meant to be the one who cried over everything?
“I also want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing Elijah back to us. That boy—” I snorted internally at her calling him a boy “—hasn’t been the same since we lost Cooper. I know part of it was grief, but I also know that his parents blaming him for it and throwing it all back in his face was most of why he withdrew from us. They were like parents to him, too, so hearing something like that struck him hard.” Now it all started to make sense. “He wasn’t even allowed to go into the church initially for the funeral, but in the end, they agreed, so long as he sat at the back and left before it was time for them to walk past him.”
“You can’t be serious,” I snapped. “For God’s sake, my mum was killed by a drunk driver, and him being treated like that at her funeral would be understandable. Them treating Elijah—who tried to save their son and ended up saving two other men with a fracture in his spine—like that is inconceivable. By all means, be angry and grieve, but…” I waved my arm in the air, struggling to find the words I was looking for.
I was just so pissed off that all I could think about was hitting them both with my shoe.
Lips twitching, Ronnie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it was messed up, and it did a lot of damage to Elijah that I didn’t think he’d ever come back from. Now I see he has, and I need to thank you for giving us back our boy.”
“And with the bonus of a grandchild,” Ari added.
“You’ve made miracles happen for us, Sadie. Thank you.”
And that’s when my badass self burst into tears and bawled my heart out on poor Elijah’s mum’s chest. I’d never made anything happen that I was aware of, and now this woman was saying I’d brought life back to Elijah after what he’d been through. And I was carrying a life inside me, too.
“I’ve never been pregnant,” I wailed, not realizing that the shaking chest under me was because she was laughing at the randomness of those four words. “And I’ve never made a miracle happen.”
“I’m thinking that isn’t true,” she whispered into the top of my hair. “I’ve met your family, and I reckon they’d call you a miracle regardless.”
And, fuck me, that just made me cry even harder. When I realized my tears had no intentions of buggering off, I begged Ari to say something to piss me off. Anger always worked perfectly as a countermeasure for tears.
Smiling with glee, she rubbed her hands together. “How much bigger do you think your boobies are going to get? They’re about the same size as a man’s head anyway. Do you think they’ll get double what they are now?”
A mental image of me with boobs like that popped into my head, and I couldn’t hold back the gasp of horror. “You take that back.”
“Can’t,” she shrugged. “And they’re definitely going to get bigger. Imagine what they’ll look like when the milk comes in.”
If Ronnie hadn’t been there, I’d have tackled her to the floor and throttled her. “Take it back,” I hissed. “Or I’ll pop your tits like a balloon.”
“Ah, Christ,” a deep voice groaned from the door, alerting us to the fact that we had company.
All three of us glanced over and saw Elijah’s dad, Wyatt, standing next to him, with Jackson and his brothers behind him.
“Oops,” I whispered, grinning wickedly at Ari now. “Pop, pop.”
Chapter Thirteen
Elijah
It took a while for the introductions to be completed because all my brothers had decided to join us after hearing the news from Jackson. They wouldn’t have missed celebrating the fact they were going to be uncles, even if it happened in a hospital.
Parker had come back during it all to introduce us to an OB/GYN he trusted, Ross Parks. He’d confirmed the diagnosis for Sadie and advised us that admitting her to stabilize her glucose levels and make sure she could keep food down with the anti-nausea medication he was giving her was the best thing. I didn’t know when I was taking her to Sarasota Bay, but I knew it’d be happening, so Mom was going to do some research there, and we were making sure that everything was noted in her yellow file.
If I’d been told I’d knocked someone up a year ago, I’d have been freaking the hell out. Now, though, I was reading through what’d been put in her file while looking stuff up online. I’d downloaded some pregnancy books onto my phone, but I was going to order paperback versions as well so that I could highlight essential parts and take notes.
Maybe I should buy some index cards, too, so that I could test myself?
Opening up my Amazon app, I added two packs to the cart that had the books and highlighters in it. I’d place the order once I knew where we were going to be staying when we left here.
“You know, the information isn’t going to disappear if you put the folder down,” Sadie murmured, watching me from the bed.
I’d taken a shower while my brothers were talking to her about what they all did, and because I’d still had my bags in the truck, I’d been able to change into clean clothes. I knew she wanted to have a shower, but she’d only just finished a light meal, so I wanted her stomach to have time to digest before she had one.
This gave me time to have the chat with her that we needed to get out of the way.
Standing up, I dropped the folder on the chair I’d just vacated and motioned for her to scoot over slightly. Staring at me like I’d grown two heads, she moved over and then watched as I lay down next to her on my side.
“I owe you an apology,” I started. “Actually, I owe you a lot of apologies, so you’ll have to bear with me while I get through them all, okay?”
Mimicking my position, she rolled onto her side making me frown. Were pregnant women allowed to lie like that? Would it upset the baby?
Making a mental note to look it up later, I traced the side of her face with the tip of my index finger, enjoying being able to do it after being away from her for so long.
“To start with, I’m so fucking sorry about Shonelle, pixie. That whole thing was fucked up,” I groaned. “So fucking fucked up.”
“You have a past, Elijah,” she sighed. “Everyone has a past, even if it’s not sexually. There’s no need to apologize for that.”
“Yes, there is,” I said seriously. “My past and my future shouldn’t come into contact with each other. I’m not being a dick when I say that, but I just don’t want anything to hurt you. And the fact that it was her, someone who’s bullied you and Bonnie… I’m disgusted with myself.” Rolling onto my back, I had to look away from her to say the next part. “I’m also disgusted by the fact that I don’t remember that night. I get that drunk hookups happen,”— she snorted, making me chuckle—“but I was always careful not to be too drunk because that’s disrespectful. Regardless of the circumstances, I never wanted to be that dick who didn’t remember a woman.”
“I’m not saying it’s right, but I also think you’re beating yourself up about it too much.”