Page 73 of Christmas with my Three Best Friends

“Jeez, Richard,” she grumbles but her thumbs are already tapping away on her phone screen as I escort her out of the building.

Jax and Marius are right behind us. They know what this is about, but they’re not doing a good job of holding back their ecstatic grins, so I make a point of keeping Shay’s eyes off them for as long as I can. “You get to ride shotgun,” I say, opening the passenger door of my silver Lexus for her.

“At least it’s a nice car,” she giggles.

I motion for Jax and Marius to get in the backseat, half-smiling as I climb behind the wheel and give Shay a loving smile. “Buckle up, princess.”

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“Home.”

I bought a new place—a generously-sized townhouse with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a sprawling kitchen and dining room, a modest den, and one hell of a living room space that can be easily broken into a lounge area and a home office to fit all of our needs. Shay stands in the middle of the living room, staring at the empty white walls as she struggles to take everything in.

“You can style this place however you like,” I tell Shay after having already presented her with the main specs of the house. “Of course, the guys and I will do our own rooms as we wish. Home office, home gym, whatever works. We’ve got space for everything here… but the common areas, the bathrooms, the kitchen, the dining room… all of it is yours to handle as you see fit.”

“Richard, what is this?” Shay finally speaks, her voice barely a breath.

“Home, like I said. You can stay at your place, or you can live here with us. I wanted us to have a home, a house where the four of us can live together as many days in the year as we’d like, and no one could ever bother us here,” I tell her. “A safe haven of sorts. Our little corner of paradise.”

“Oh, wow,” she manages, unable to take her eyes off me. “You bought us a house.”

“The three of us pitched in,” Marius says. “You deserve a home, Shay. You deserve a good life and three reliable men by your side. We had to prove it to you, somehow, that we were ready and serious about this.”

“I can’t… Wow, I’m sorry, I’m just at a loss for words,” she says, blinking rapidly.

Jax frowns slightly. “Don’t you like it?”

“Oh, I love it, God, I love it!” she exclaims, but we can all see the tears gathering in her eyes. She quivers underneath her loose, navy-blue linen dress. “It’s beautiful and big and I just can’t believe you did this.”

“You don’t have to live here,” I reply, though I’m not sure why I’m angling for a defense at this point.

“No, no, but I do. I’m totally on board with the four of us living together,” Shay says, and happily so.

“So… Why are you crying?” I ask.

“Because I’m happy. And also terrified,” she chuckles nervously.

Marius takes a step forward. “Terrified?”

Shay thinks about it for a moment, then heaves a sigh and caves in, shoulders dropping in utter defeat as she looks at us.

“I’m pregnant.”

Three simple words, yet the impact is undeniable. The floor vanishes from under my feet. The air gets knocked out of my lungs. My heart’s thudding a million miles a minute as I try to register the words, to comprehend the message, to adjust to a sudden, new reality. I’m not the only one who’s in shock, either. Both Marius and Jax are speechless, their eyes wide and filled with wonder while their jaws are in a tight race for the floor.

“You’re what now?” I mumble.

“I wasn’t sure how to tell you, but since you want us moving in together, I figured this is the reasonable moment. I’m pregnant,” Shay says.

I can almost sense the fear in her voice. She must be terrified. We’ve only been together for what, a few months—Chappaqua included. We’re barely getting a sense of one another. It’s way too early to start a family.

“I can handle it on my own if—”

“No!” Marius cuts in. “No, we’re in this together.”

“I wasn’t planning on being a father anytime soon, but hey,” Jax adds, still stunned but quickly adjusting to the new situation.

Where am I? What does my heart tell me? It doesn’t take long for the answer to find its way to the surface, for my resolve to bubble upward until the words reach my lips. I walk over to Shay and take her in my arms, kissing her lips softly.

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