Page 59 of Stolen Love

I scream as I jump out of their way. The plastic stick goes flying out of my hand. Up, up… down.

“Shit,” I shout as I scramble to catch it.

“Is that a...” Rebel gapes as I juggle the test, almost save it, then lose it again. He takes a fist to the side of his jaw. Grunts. “...pregnancy test?”

It lands with a plop in the bathwater and sinks beneath the bubbles.

“Motherfucker.” Rogue groans as he scrambles up from the floor and dives a hand in after the test. Beating me to it, which is good considering I’m still stuck with the cast.

Rebel flops onto his back and starts to laugh. “Dude.”

“This isn’t funny,” Rogue snarls as he searches the bottom of the tub for the plastic stick.

“It kinda is.” Rebel holds his stomach and grunts. “Sorry, you don’t see this from the outside, but I did not have you knocking up our cousin on my bingo card.”

“I swear to God, bro.” Rogue has both arms in the bath now. His sleeves are drenched.

“The test?” I want to reach out and squeeze his shoulder and tell him it’s okay, but we are so far from okay. It can’t be true. This can’t be how we end. It just can’t be true.

He pulls out the sodden test. Shakes it off. The indicator paper shows nothing. “Well, at least we know the bath water isn’t pregnant.”

Rebel laughs harder and starts to wheeze.

Rogue drops onto his ass and rests his head against the rim of the tub. He stretches out a leg and manages to kick Rebel with it. “Shut up, fuck face.”

I put the test in the trash. We need another one, but it’s late now. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow. “What if we are pregnant, Rogue?”

He catches my hand. Curls his fingers around mine. “You know this is all bullshit. We’re not related, Ivy.”

His fingers on mine feel so right, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s wrong. Holding onto hope is a fool’s errand. We’re wrong. And nothing we can do can ever fix that.

I withdraw.

Rogue’s face falls. The pain in his eyes is like a knife to my heart. I’ve hurt him. But this is hurting me too.

Rebel puts no effort into moving from flat on his back, but his shoulders have ceased shaking. His blue eyes are dark with thought. “You can’t leave, Ivy. You understand that. You two might not be able to be together, at least not until we have a DNA test to back up or deny what we learned today, but you’re safe with us. With Nicole you’re not. With Alec out there I’m not sure you’re safe anywhere else.”

I sit on the edge of the tub. Brush the wetness from my eyes. Stare down at Rogue’s upturned face and wish that we never went to Sunny today. Wish that I could go back to being blissfully unaware so that my heart wouldn’t feel so shattered at the pain I see in his eyes. “I get it. I’m not going to leave. As long as you’re okay with me being here.”

His eyes shutter before he turns away. “Yeah, of course I am.”

He wears his emotions on his sleeves. I love that about him. But now he’s hiding them from me. Our connection is so far out of my reach. It’s isolating in a way I didn’t expect.

“No matter what, you’re our family, Ivy.” Rogue swallows and it’s all I can do to fight the thoughts I have about how much I love his Adam’s apple. “We’ll find a way to be okay. Besides, if you do surrender to their demands and try to marry that douche, I’m going to have to kill him to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“He’s serious.” Rebel drags himself up. “Dickhead has a gun and everything.”

“You do?”

He drags the weapon from the small of his back. Shows it to me then rests it on the tiles beside him. “Safety is on.”

“Why do you have that?”

“For emergencies.”

“Going after some hotshot asshole lawyer doesn’t count as an emergency.” Rebel snags it by its barrel and puts it on the counter above his head. “What I want to know is when did you decide owning a gun was something you needed to do.”

“Right around the time Alec tried to kill Ivy,” Rogue says.

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