Page 83 of What About Now

“Aww, Mags, you need me to snuggle you?” Lachlan asks her.

Maggie crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out at him, and we all snicker.

“How are you feeling?” Emerson asks Briar.

“Good. Really good.” Her eyes meet Forrest’s, and I swear his smile lights up the night sky.

Not that I can blame him. If my wife were pregnant, I’d be beaming too. Speaking of. “When can we do that?” I whisper to Brogan.

“Do what?” she whispers back.

“Have a baby.” I slide my hands under her shirt and rest them protectively on her belly. Fuck me, the thought of my wife growing a part of us is an aphrodisiac.

She sits up from where she was leaning against my chest so that her eyes are level with mine. “A baby?” Shock is written all over her face.

Keeping one hand on her belly beneath her shirt, I raise the other to rest against her cheek. “Yeah, we both want a family.” I pause. Has she changed her mind? “That’s still what you want, right? To have a family? With me?” Even I can hear the worry in my tone, and if this woman sitting on my lap didn’t mean the world to me, I might feel a little ashamed of the fear that’s simmering in my veins.

“I want a family.”

I swallow hard. She wants a family, just not with me. That’s a kick to the gut that I wasn’t expecting.

“With you,” she says, leaning in close. “Only with you. I could never imagine being… intimate like that with anyone but you. I know you’d never hurt me, Maddox.”

Fear instantly fades to my heart, throwing a rager in my chest. “Never. I only want to love you, Brogan.”

“So, you’re ready? To have a baby?”

I nod. “When you are. You tell me when.” I slide my hand behind her neck and pull her lips to mine. “In the meantime,” I murmur, “we should practice.”

“You know we can hear you, right?” Lachlan asks.

Brogan giggles, burying her face in my chest. “Then you heard me and the love of my life, my wife, Mrs. Lanigan, discussing when we’re ready to add to the Everlasting Ink family.”

“Well, hurry it up,” Lachlan tells us. “We need one more, so we don’t have to fight over the ones we have now.”

“Hey, we’re almost there,” Forrest speaks up.

“Babe, I’m barely pregnant.” Briar laughs.

“Yeah, but the deed is done. We’re ahead of all of them,” Forrest reminds her.

“Baby girl, you hear that?” Roman asks. “Are we going to let them win?”

“Well, first of all, they already have us by one, and one on the way, so yeah, I think we are.” Emerson snickers.

“What if you have twins?” Monroe asks.

“I think if anyone is having twins, it’s us,” Brogan speaks up, and immediately slaps her hand over her mouth.

I hug her tighter, because my fucking wife, she’s a fighter, and it’s so damn good to see her living this life with me, and not fearing what-ifs. “Yeah,” I say, backing her up.

“What ifwe’rehaving twins?” Forrest asks.

Brogan gasps. “Are you?”

“No.” Briar shakes her head. “Not that we’re aware of.”

“I need to call my parents,” Legend says, playing with Monroe’s hair where she sits in his lap.

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