Page 97 of Pucked and Pregnant

“You shady fucker,” I curse when I realize that he has been recording our conversation.

“Fuck this,” Connor says, stepping forward and stomping on the phone over and over until the screen cracks into tiny pieces.

“Hey! I’ll call the cops!” Travis shouts as he reaches for his phone, trying to grab it off the floor.

“No, you won’t,” Aiden says, shoving him back. He takes a couple of wild steps backward then falls onto a bench. Aiden leans over him threateningly. “You won’t bother Liv ever again because no matter what you think about her, we love her, and we will protect her within an inch of our lives. Consider this a little taste of what can happen to you if you keep harassing her.”

I step up behind Aiden and Connor to loom over Travis, who is bleeding all over his suit. His eyes are wide as he looks between the three of us, a sullen expression coming over his face.

“Fine,” he bites out. “I don’t have to expose her to the media anyhow. You guys have all done such a shitty job of keeping this a secret and everyone will know soon enough. No one is going to want to work with her, or you.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” I say to him. I refuse to move as he tries to push past me, glaring at him eye to eye.

“Let him go,” Connor finally says, picking up the ruined phone and tossing it into the hallway. “Fetch,” he says to Travis, getting behind him and giving him a push toward the door.

I watch the sniveling little shit leave, his hand pressed to his bleeding nose, and curse under my breath. It would have felt better to keep hitting him, but I know that I can’t afford to do that if I want to keep my spot on the team.

“Come on,” Connor says, grabbing my shoulder. “Let’s go see our girl.”

We pile into Aiden’s car. When he looks over his shoulder as he backs out, I stare at him.

“You love her?” I ask.

Aiden glances at me then laughs. “Dude, I’ve loved her since we were kids.”

I smile. “Yeah. I think I fell in love with her as soon as I met her.”

In the backseat, Connor pipes up. “I didn’t want to make things weird, but yeah, I love her too.”

We’re all silent for a moment as we digest this information.

“What does this mean?” I ask them, breaking the silence. “Can we all be in love with her and make this work?”

Aiden frowns a little as he navigates the car onto the freeway. Finally, he says, “Isn’t that basically what we’ve been doing all along?”

All I can do is nod. He’s not wrong.

“Do you think she feels the same way about us?” Connor asks, ever the pessimist when it comes to relationships and trust.

I look over my shoulder and see that he’s looking down at his hands, flexing and opening them over and over again.

“Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

Connor lifts his head and gives me a thin smile. “Yeah. We have to ask her, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” I respond, worry coiling through me. What if she doesn’t want to be with us? What will we do without her in our lives? We’ve become so close over the past few months that I’m struggling to imagine a reality without Liv in it.

“Max just sent me a text with her room number,” Aiden says as he heads toward the hospital parking lot. “Sounds like they’re keeping her overnight for observation,” he adds, glancing at his smartwatch quickly before turning into the lot.

“That’s not good,” Connor says quietly.

I shake my head. “I’m sure everything is fine. She took a nasty fall when she fainted, and she hasn’t been taking good care of herself. I bet they just want to evaluate her and get her fluids up to where they need to be, make sure she’s good to go before they send her home.” I hope I sound more certain than I feel.

“We’ll cheer her up,” Aiden says optimistically as he parks.

I’m grateful for Aiden’s sunny personality in moments like these when Connor and I tend to think the worst and get all doom and gloom. He’s the right counterweight to our more aggressive and cynical personalities.

I realize with a start that I also can’t imagine my life without the close relationship I have with the two men in the car with me. Part of the reason that I love Liv so much is because she helps tie us all together. Each of us has struggled over the years with intimacy, relationships, and closeness with the people we care about.

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