Page 31 of My Not So Wicked Stepbrother (My Not So Wicked 1)

The four of us gathered around the table where I was hanging the banner and doing my best not to spill the beans. I was so excited for Jenna and Brad to find out what they were having. Even more excited than Shelby, I might add.

Without saying a word, we all looked over at Sawyer and Shelby, who were chatting animatedly. Shelby talked with her hands in between her episodes of leaning and putting her hands on him whenever she could. Sawyer was smiling at her the entire time. Three sets of eyes landed on me to gauge my reaction.

“What?” I shrugged my shoulders before kneeling to more securely tack down my sign and my heart.

My friends congregated around me. Even Jenna—with her baby bump—knelt around me and began rubbing my back.

“I’m fine.”

Aspen bit her lip. “I overheard Shelby,” she whispered, which was unnecessary since the music was blaring in the background giving the place a beat of its own, “invite herself to the campout this weekend.”

I dropped the tape I had been using. I must have blinked a thousand times before I said, “The more the merrier.” It came out sounding like I’d sucked in some helium.

“Tell Sawyer to uninvite her.” Jenna’s face was turning bright red.

“I won’t do that. Sawyer deserves someone like her.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jenna asked.

“Look at them. They look like the perfect couple, and she seems really nice.”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Will you quit selling yourself short?”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now. Tonight is all about you, Brad, and your little . . .”—oops, I almost blew it there—“. . . your little banana.” I had been tracking the pregnancy too and the site said a baby at twenty weeks was as long as a banana.

“Men are douche bags,” Aspen growled.

“Hey, I take exception to that.” Brad stood tall and proud.

Jenna stood up and patted his flat gut. “Even you, babe, can be a d-bag.”

I stood up too. “Sawyer is a good guy. I’ve told you all along where we stand, so can we move on? We have a baby’s gender to reveal and I bought the cutest freaking outfit for my godbaby that I’m dying to give you.”

They made an Emma sandwich out of me in a group hug before dispersing. Aspen took her seat in the front row, ready to FaceTime Jenna’s parents, and the parents-to-be took center stage while I arranged the colored eggs on the table. Eleven of the twelve eggs were hard-boiled, but the one that wasn’t, revealed the gender. Jenna and Brad were going to take turns smashing the eggs on each other’s heads until they got to the raw egg. If it was purple it was a girl, black was for a boy.

“All right, all right,” Brad yelled into his mic. The music ceased to thump. “Let’s talk about sex, baby!”

The crowd went nuts.

Brad looked his pregnant bride up and down. “Maybe we should have done a little more talking and a lot less action,” he teased her.

“Oh, honey, if I remember correctly, there wasn’t a whole lot of action,” she zinged him back, making the crowd cheer loudly.

Brad rubbed Jenna’s stomach. “Now, baby, it’s not nice to lie. You know it took a whole two minutes.”

“I’ll give you a solid ninety seconds.”

Several guys in the audience yelled, “Burn!”

Jenna and Brad were good with roasting each other on stage. Off stage they were at times nauseatingly wonderful to each other.

I snatched the mic from Brad. “Save your pillow talk for bed. We’re all here to see what you two lovebirds created.” I got a lot of applause. I went over the rules while Jenna and Brad put on ponchos to protect their clothes from egg yolk just in case they were the recipient of the raw egg. I laid out a plastic tarp for them to stand on and stood back to let them do their thing. They weren’t timid about it. Jenna was smashing the black eggs on Brad, and Brad the purple on Jenna. The first few smashes they really pushed the hard-boiled eggs into their hair, but they were getting anxious and started going quicker, hardly cracking the egg before tossing it to the side. That was, until Jenna grabbed the winner and cracked that raw black egg on her hubby’s hair. Yellow goo slid down his hair into his face. Brad was so ecstatic it was a boy he didn’t care that he could have had a raging case of salmonella on his head. He picked Jenna up and swung her around.

There I watched from the outside, so happy, yet wondering if it would ever be me. I looked out into the crowd where Sawyer and I happened to lock eyes. His eyes screamed he longed for a day like this too. My eyes drifted toward Shelby, who beamed up at him. I had a feeling one of our wishes was about to come true, and it wouldn’t be mine.

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