Chris sat on the counter in the corner of the kitchen farthest from me.
He’d probably be moody with me for the next couple of days, but I knew he wouldn’t leave me here alone…just in case Grayson decided to show himself.
I decided that I still wanted strawberry cheesecake cupcakes, so I kept my hands busy with that.
“So…” I said as casually as I could. I looked at him as the stand mixer did its thing. “Are you going to stay mad at me for not telling him?”
He sighed and looked over at me. He was thinking about his answer, which meant that he could still be too mad at me to make conversation.
“No.” He looked away from me again.
“Then why are you trying to ignore me?” It was awkward when Chris was mad at me. He was never mad at anyone. Knowing he was mad at me made it that much worse.
“I’m not trying to ignore you.” He muttered.
“Just don’t have anything to say to me?”
He sighed again before looking at me. “I know why you did what you did. It’s just hard for me to wrap my head around it.”
“Because you’re a werewolf.”
“It’s not just that.” He shook his head. “You kept this a secret from all of us. You took off on all of us. I know Connor was your real brother and that his death hit you hard, but it affected all of us. He was a brother to me too. Then you bailed without saying anything to anyone with the vampire that bit you.” The hurt in his voice brought tears to my eyes. I would love to blame it all on the pregnancy hormones, but I knew that wasn’t the case.
“It was like we lost our brother and our sister all in one blow.” I wiped away the tear mark left over from a tear falling from my eyes. “Come here.” He said gently.
I didn’t feel like I deserved to go near him since I hurt him so much. I didn’t know my absence would bother our original pack members so much.
Chris got off the counter when I wasn’t advancing on him quickly enough. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead. “I didn’t want to make you feel bad, or guilty. You just forgot that you’re not alone here. You still have a family that loves you.”
“I wasn’t trying to run away from you guys. You’re the only family I have left. I just…” I wiped my eyes with a huff. “I feel like a child.” I muttered sourly as I tried to completely dry my face.
Chris just smiled at me and wiped a spot that I missed.
I pulled myself together just in time, a few more seconds of all these emotions and I’d be a pool of tears at Chris’ feet.
“I just couldn’t be here when I knew that Grayson would just have that…” I couldn’t call the dead woman a whore anymore…it just didn’t feel right. “chick… here anymore. I could cope with everything and have their relationship shoved in my face.”
He nodded. “I know. I told you I understood why you had to leave, even if I didn’t agree with it.”
“How did she die?” I muttered into Chris’ chest. I wasn’t ready to let go of the hug he was giving me. It has been months since I’ve gotten a hug from someone who really cares for me, no matter what. I really didn’t want to talk about her, but I had to know if the rogues got her. If they did, her death would be my fault too.
“She was terminal.”
“What’s that mean?”
“She had cancer.” Maybe I felt guilty for calling a whore now. “Her cancer was in the liver. It spread to her lymph nodes and spread all over. She was content to just die with her family at Finn’s estate.” I felt obligated to hear the whole thing. “But Connor brought up the idea of giving her more time with the motivation of having a boyfriend.”
“Grayson.” I muttered.
He nodded. “Grayson couldn’t be a massive dick to Finn’s granddaughter who had terminal cancer. If he left her, Finn would have raised hell for her. Finn wanted to see her happy during the final stages of her life.”
“If she was Finn’s granddaughter, how’d she get cancer?”
He shrugged, “Like everyone else who gets cancer. She wasn’t a werewolf and had no latent genes that would give her a superior immune system. She was the last of Finn’s lineage from when he was human, that’s why she was so special to him.”
“So she caked on that makeup to look like she wasn’t sick?”
Chris nodded, “When he walked around without the makeup on, she looked sickly. If you were a werewolf, you’d smell the rancidness in her scent.”
I sighed, “Does it make me a horrible person if I only referred to her as a whore?”
Chris chuckled. “I don’t think it makes you a horrible person.”
I looked over at the mixer that was still mixing away. “I should finish that.”
He nodded, “Probably.”
-------
Grayson stayed in his room until the others got home, the next afternoon. I wasted no time getting to them. I knew Amanda had to be ready to pop, if she hadn’t already.
I was searching the cabinets for something to eat (I couldn’t possibly have any more of those cupcakes, the very thought made me want to gag) when I heard the front door open. First I heard the little footsteps of Matt running into the house. He was coming towards the kitchen.
I instantly planned on catching him and smothering him in kisses…and I did exactly that. He squealed when I caught him. I made sure to lift his kicking shoes away from my belly. I planted tons of kisses on his neck while he tried to wiggle away from my tickling kisses.
Matt was lifted away from me. I didn’t even notice anyone come close until Matt was lifted out of my reach.
Mason shook his head, “No little kicking feet near my niece or nephew.” He chastised. Nothing ever shocked or surprised him. Maybe he was informed in the car on the way home. What else would they have to talk about on the long ride home?
“Oh, yea. How do you know who my baby’s father is?”
He didn’t seem very surprised that I was pregnant.
“My room is next to my brothers, and you’re not exactly quiet.”
I gasped and hit him quickly before turning to the door, where everyone was coming through. Mason smirked and started walking away with Matt, who was dangling upside down and giggling like crazy.
Carlos, Jack, Eddie, and a few other pack members who I couldn’t name came through the door. I gave them hugs and accepted congratulations for the baby. They all were happily surprised. Though, they didn’t dare ask who the father is. Either they knew, or they were afraid to hear that Grayson isn’t the father. They knew how pissed he would be.
Brian and Amanda were the last ones to come into the house. Brian pushed Amanda in. She was in a wheelchair.
My eyes widened and my heart dropped at the sight of her. “Oh my god! What happened to you Amanda?” How could I have been gone for so long and miss whatever put her in a wheelchair?! I was a horrible person!
She rolled her eyes, “I have an overprotective husband.” She said spitefully. Her tone told me that nothing was seriously wrong. Brian was just being the overprotective guy that he is. “I told him I didn’t need this, but noo, he’s the doctor.”
Brian rolled his eyes and pushed her completely into the house. Another pack member came into the house holding a baby car seat.
“You had her?”
Amanda and Brian both smiled and nodded as they looked over at the baby. “She’s two days old.”
“I’m so sorry I missed it!” I gave the new parents a hug. “I’m so happy for you.”
Brian scooped the baby out of her car seat. She was so tiny. “Her name’s Willow. Willow Ileana Muse.”
I took the small baby in my arms, “She’s so beautiful.”
“So,” Amanda said expectantly, “as bad as I want to know what happened while you were gone, first I need to know how Grayson finding out about your bump went.”
“Eh.” I said, avoiding the question by gazing at the little angel in my arms.
“What does that mean?” She got up from the wheelchair with protests from Brian. “Oh shush!” She gave him a look that was meant to kill him where he stands. He sighed, but kept his ground. He was going to take care of his wife whether she liked it or not.
She turned her attention to me, “What’d he do?”
I shrugged and rocked the sleeping baby side to side. “Nothing that wasn’t completely unforeseeable.”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “You guys didn’t really talk about anything did you?” I winced and avoided her gaze. “I’m going to guess that you two hollered and did a bunch of name calling and finger pointing?”
I huffed. “At least he knows that he’s going to be a father soon now.”
She shook her head disappointed. “If you weren’t holding my daughter, I’d smack you. I wanted to come home to a peaceful house. With you two going at each other, there’s going to be no peace.”
I looked at Brian hopefully, but they were all against me. The only one who felt sorry for me was Chris.
Amanda took her baby from my arms. “Go talk to Grayson. You’re both so damn stubborn. At least get to the point where you don’t want to kill each other.”
I rolled my eyes. “What is this? Everyone’s on Team Grayson all of a sudden. Did you forget that he’s the asshole in this situation?”
Amanda narrowed her eyes on me. She felt more like she was my mother than anything else. “Get your ass up those stairs and talk to the father of your child!”
“You’re so bossy!” I turned and made my way up the stairs.
“I want to do an ultrasound on you tonight.” Brian hollered to my backside.
I nodded and turned to face him. I’d take any opportunity to procrastinate talking with Grayson. “There’s a binder on my bed with all the ultrasound pictures if you want to look at them.”
He nodded, “I’ll get them after I get these two upstairs.” He motioned to Amanda and baby Willow.
Going upstairs felt like I was marching closer and closer to my death.
I knew it was nothing that extreme, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was going to puke when I got to Grayson’s door.
Go figure that when I finally knocked on the door and let myself in, that he wasn’t actually there…
I knew I couldn’t go down stairs because that meant walking past Amanda, and I knew she wouldn’t let me go without a tongue lashing.
So I waited for him. And when I say waiting for him, I mean I snooped around. This guy was with a girl for 4, maybe 5 months. There had to be some evidence of their relationship somewhere.
I had enough time go to through his entire room. I didn't find anything that pointed to Miranda living here. I'll admit that I wanted something I could hold over his head if I felt he was staring to win the argument that was inevitable.
There were no condoms in the trash or in his bedside table. That's where all the guys were taught to keep them. When we were in middle school they'd sprint to that drawer to make sure I couldn't see what was inside. They'd never admit it, but they were embarrassed if they were caught.
There were none of her clothes in his closet or any of his drawers, though it did look like there had been a space for them. Maybe he was getting rid of everything now.
When I finally gave up my search, I sat on his bed. Of course in hadn't seen the photo albums on the bed when I walked into the room. There were two.
One was of all the guys when they were younger, before I had come to the pack, before any of them had been changed. I liked to compare how they looked now to when they were all kids.
They never told me any of the details of how they were all brought together, Connor used to say that it didn't matter because they were all happy now.
The other album I really didn't want to look through. It had a picture of Grayson and Miranda on the front sleeve. But I had nothing to do anyway. There were no naughty pictures or anything I had to worry about finding that could potentially hurt my feelings.
They looked like an averagely happy couple. Maybe Grayson was happy that I had been gone. Maybe he fell for the cancer ridden woman he'd been sharing his bed with.
That thought had me close the photo album.
I laid back and took a nap. Grayson would probably come back right when I fall asleep. That's just how my luck is.
One chapter left and an epilogue, then it's done. Look for both of them on Tuesday!