Page 146 of Chaos at Westbrook High

After peeking inside the bag, Travis whispers, “Awesome,” before running off.

“Travis!” Callie hollers at her son. “No candy before breakfast.”

“Okay, Momma!” The kid keeps on running toward his little brother and his cousins in the living room. His momma didn’t say nothin’ about no cookies.

“Hey!” Callie shouts, tipping her chin at Travis. “Give me one of those.”

The boy laughs as he runs back, shoving a cookie into her open mouth.

Frozen in front of the stove, Damon stares at his wife and son. Callie does a double take at him, her brows pulled in as she chews. “Are you burning those?”

Cursing, he quickly takes the pan off the stove.

“What is it?” Callie asks.

Damon shakes his head with a smile. “Nothing.”

Done with my hair, Blakely accepts the cookie from Travis and takes a bite out of it, crawling across the counter to push her face into Quinn’s.

“You called Uncle Wren your daddy,” Blakely says.

Levi’s eyes widen as he looks between Quinn and Wren. Wren hides a laugh behind his knuckles.

Quinn raises a brow, thanking Travis for the cookie before turning her attention back to my daughter, their noses almost touching. “I did no such thing.”

“You liar. You said Dad. I saw you.”

“You’re a perceptive little thing, aren’t you?”

Blakely squints her baby blue eyes into thin slits. “Asshole is a bad word.”

“Asshole’s a great word.”

“Is it your favorite?”

“No.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re six,” Quinn whispers.

“Okay!” Blakely says excitedly. “Travis! Let’s go give my mommy a cookie!”

Oh, shit.

As she hops down and runs toward the stairs, Wren catches her and Travis before I can and picks them up, holding one on each shoulder. “Nope.”

“Why?”

“Mommy’s sleeping.”

Leaving Wren to entertain the kids in the living room, I gratefully take the two iced coffees Levi picked up from Valerie’s on his way home. Subtly tilting my head at the one with Hailey’s name written on it, I whisper, “This is decaf, right?”

He nods, smirking at me as he sets Wren and Callie’s coffees on the counter. He knows Hailey’s pregnant again because I told Wren, and naturally, Wren told Levi. Damon knows because Damon knows everything that goes on around here. We found out last night, but none of us have had the balls to tell Callie yet. Every time Hailey gets pregnant, Callie gets pregnant within the year. Travis is ten months younger than Blakely, and Sawyer, Damon and Callie’s two year old son, is only four months younger than Maeve. We didn’t plan that. Callie thinks it’s contagious. I think it’s fucking hilarious. Kind of. I won’t be laughing when Callie’s kicking my ass when she finds out.

Callie was certain she didn’t want children when she and Damon first got married, but somewhere along the way, she changed her mind. She wanted to bring a child into this world and give them something she never had until she met us. A home. Unconditional love. A family they could fucking count on. Always.

Still, when she got pregnant with Travis, she wasn’t expecting it, and she cried for so long that I didn’t think she’d ever stop. Even setting a ten minute timer like our mom used to do for us didn’t work. She couldn’t speak. Damon panicked. She threw up. Damon almost tore his own hair out. He was sure he’d forced her into it, that she’d only agreed to make him happy, and now that it was really happening, she was regretting it.

---