When Life Throws Curves (Mason Brothers Book #3)

Chapter 36

DAMON

I’ve got her favorite cheesecake, plus a side of chocolate cupcakes, and a milkshake ready for backup. I just hope that this is all enough to ensure that she isn’t too pissed off at me at the end of the day. Lizzie is “helping” Alice with the boys tonight while Eden has an event at the reception hall and I got Adam to cover my night shift so I could have this very serious conversation with Eve, a conversation that could change the course of our future and that scares the shit out of me.

I find her sitting in the living room when I come inside, she looks at me, obviously surprised that I’m home. “Oh, I thought you were working tonight.”

“I am, I mean I was,’ I correct myself. “Adam is covering my shift.”

“I see, is there a reason why?”

“Kind of, but hey I brought home dessert,” I hold up the bag of goodies. “Do you want anything in particular? Cheesecake?”

She puts down her phone and sits up a little straighter, “What kind of cheesecake?”

Happy that I caught her curiosity, I pull it out of the bag and set it on the coffee table, “Strawberry, your favorite.”

“Sure, I’ll take a piece. What else you got there?” She looks over at the bag with anticipation.

“Some things,” I tease, “I know you've been having a sweet tooth lately.”

“Lately? I’ve always had a sweet tooth, it is just magnified by like seven million with this little girl. She may be born with a cupcake in her mouth.”

“I feel like that goes against the APA recommendations for feeding.”

“You’re a giant nerd.”

“I know, I love you. I’ll be right back.” I take the cheesecake and the bag into the kitchen to properly serve it to her. Not that she wouldn’t go at it with just a fork. The other two items get put away and I put a generous slice of cheesecake onto a plate and a smaller slice for me and head back out and sit next to her. She props her feet up onto my lap and just looks at me, smiling.

“What’s going on?”

Nothing,” I try to play off her acquisitions a little bit.

“You’re just being super sweet tonight and I’m trying to figure out if this is good or bad. Maybe you just feel bad for your super duper huge pregnant girlfriend?”

“First of all, you are stunningly beautiful when you’re pregnant and every time I realize that your stomach has grown, I get a deep heavy feeling in my chest that just reminds me how real this is and how in a month and a half you’re going to give me the more precious gift that anybody ever could.”

She starts wiping her eyes and sniffling. “Jesus Damon, now you’re making me cry.”

“I’m sorry baby.”

“No, it’s okay, just stupid ass emotions. Okay, I’m serious though, what’s going on? Why are you here right now?”

“So…do you remember how we had the conversation about Lizzie and her dad.”

She puts her cheesecake down and frowns, “Yeah, I remember that conversation and the arguments that have come from that. Why are we doing this again?”

“Because I did something and I need you to hear me out.”

She sits up quickly, as quickly as a woman almost 35 weeks can sit up, and stares me down, “What did you do, Damon? God help me if you did something behind my back that could hurt Lizzie.”