I watched as Zakelina clapped and cheered, all worry gone from her eyes, and knew the truth.
Crockett was going to make it.
I could see that now.
Where the other women had started to run faster, she’d kicked it up a notch.
I could see her leg muscles popping as she kicked it into the last gear. A gear that I’d never seen in anyone else but her.
She could ignore pain like nobody I’d ever seen before.
It was something that I admired about her. During races anyway.
Afterward, when she was hurting, I kind of hated that she was able to mentally turn that off.
“Oh, God. She’s really close to second,” Six, who’d come to watch the marathon with us, breathed.
“Holy shit,” Swayze and Wyett said at the same time. “She looks really fierce.”
She did.
Then, sadly, though she was close to second place, the woman from Kenya clenched it, giving Crockett third.
I erupted from my seat, screaming my lungs out.
“Crockett!” I bellowed. “Yeahhhhhh!”
It took me eight and a half minutes to make my way to her, and when I found her, she was panting, eating a banana, and looking for me despite a reporter asking her questions.
When I spotted her, her face lit into a grin that she reserved only for me.
I got close enough to hear the reporter’s next question.
“What are you going to do now?” the news journalist asked.
Still, to this day, after as many races as she’d run, she was still nervous as hell to talk to anyone that wasn’t a friend or family.
But she was getting so much better.
Her nervousness was turning into confidence, and each day that her wings spread even more, a sense of pride would hit me at being able to call the woman mine.
“Now?” She looked at me, the microphone in her face. “It’s time to have this baby.”
The reporter’s mouth all but fell open.
“You’re pregnant?” the woman all but screeched, shock leeching into her voice. “You just won third place, bronze, in the Olympics. And you’re pregnant? That’s twenty-six point two miles!”
To say that we were surprised when we found out that Crockett was expecting our baby would be an understatement.
Not only were we extremely careful—I mean, hello! The woman was going to the Olympics. As much as I wanted a baby, I wanted her to win the fuckin’ gold first—but we were very conscious of avoiding certain parts of the month.
I wanted to make sure that nothing was there to hinder Crockett’s progress.
Only, our little baby hadn’t cared how careful we were.
When we’d found out that she was pregnant six weeks ago, we’d freaked out.
But, after a long discussion with her doctor, we’d decided that since the race was so early in her pregnancy, and she’d been training for it for so long, that the risks to the baby were minimal.
That didn’t mean that I wasn’t worried as fuck for her.
Like right now, I wanted her to eat the goddamn banana that I had in my hand almost bad enough to shove that reporter to the side and give it to Crockett.
Crockett could tell that I was losing my patience, too.
Eyes sparkling, she answered the reporter’s next question, which I must’ve missed.
“I’m exactly twelve weeks pregnant today,” she answered. “And I feel great. Well, I feel exhausted and ready to fall asleep on my feet, but still great.”
I imagined that running twenty-six miles—I’d never wanted to do it or had tried it myself—that you felt like a pile of shit regardless of whether you were pregnant or not.
“Well, congratulations.” The reporter beamed, her eyes turning to me. “You’re Crockett’s husband?”
I nodded. “I am.”
The reporter, one for the UK, grinned. “Bang up job, friend. Bang up, job.”
Then she moved on to the contestant that got fourth, leaving my woman finishing her banana.
“You need this one, too,” I told her. “And I have a chocolate milk for you when you’re done.”
I pulled that out of my back pocket, and her eyes went hooded. “You say the sexiest things to me.”
And, sweat and all, I couldn’t stop myself from pulling her into my arms and hugging her close.
When she was pressed in close, I moved my hand to her belly and pressed in lightly. “How’s the baby?”
“Good.” She looked up into my eyes. “Didn’t make me pee once.”
• • •
CROCKETT
My husband.
God, he seriously had no clue just how much he did for me.
Even worse, he didn’t understand that just by being who he was, a loving and caring man, every single woman in a fifty-mile radius wanted to be me.
My hot, sexy, very supportive man was holding me tight, pressing his hand to my belly like we were the centers of his world, and he was wearing a shirt that declared me his.
Yes, nothing could be better.
“What now?” he asked. “Because you have a stand full of fans that want to say hi.”
I looked over to the stands and saw Danny, Belinda, and Nora with her family standing there, waiting patiently beside Six. Six who kept glaring at them every few seconds as if she wanted to rip into them.
Then I moved my eyes away from them to see Cleo and Rue standing there, arms around each other, Zakelina pressed between them.
As well as the entire Souls Chapel Revenants MC, members and their significant others.
Hell, there were even some Dixie Wardens there, too.
My entire crew. My family unit. My support system.
“We should probably tell them about the baby before they hear it on the news in a few seconds,” I admitted.
Zach chuckled against my throat, drawing the eyes of second place.
The tall, elegant black woman that I’d been staring at for the majority of the race looked envious of me.
I smiled at her, acknowledging that I knew how lucky I was.
She winked and said, “We have to be given our medals first. Then I think we can go.”
That was my thought, too.
I looked back at Zach. “Medals first. Then we can go.”
He squeezed me close. “How about I go break the news. Because I can already see my mom looking at something on her phone. It’s bound to get out sooner rather than later. Then, we’ll meet up after you get your medal. Sound good?”
I’d rather stay in his arms.
But Rue’s eyes snapped up to mine, and I knew that she knew.
“Shit,” I said. “You may want to head over there now.”
Zach’s eyes went that way, and he started laughing. “Maybe I’ll just stay close to you. Mom will share the news.”
I liked that idea better.
That, and he could hold me and keep me on my feet, because I was seriously exhausted.
Who knew running in the Olympics three months pregnant was so hard?
• • •
“How’s it feel?” Zach asked, his lips running down the length of my neck.
“Surreal,” I said softly. “Like nothing I ever imagined.”
When I’d skipped out on the Olympics when I was younger, I was glad that I didn’t know what I was going to be missing.