Page 73 of The Devil's Pair

“Yeah, no.” Silver shook his head. “I’ve known you boys a long time, and your hearts haven’t been in anything for weeks, not even sexy teasing. I’ve seen you at Satan’s, with all your regular fuck buddies hitting on you left and right, and you haven’t so much aslookedat any of them twice, let alone gone to the crash rooms with them or brought them home. So I’ll ask again: what’s going on with you?”

The other men exchanged glances, then sighed in unison.

“Is it Briley?” Jo asked quietly. “Are you guys worried about her and the babies?”

“No,” Dux said. “I mean, yes, it is Briley and the twins, but no, we aren’t worried. We’re – actually I’m not sure what we are.” He turned to his brother. “What are we?”

Drake sighed again. “I think we’re – we’re sad.”

“Because you’re away from them?” Jo said.

“Yeah,” Drake said. “I mean, partly. But mostly, we’re – well, look. We didn’t have a Dad growing up, like not at all, and even though we’re not going to be totally MIA from our babies’lives, we’re going to bemostlyabsent. And that’s… well. That’s not sitting great with us.”

“It never did,” Dux added. “But it’s been especially eating away at us for the past month.”

“Why this past month?” Silver asked, immediately worried. “Did something happen with the pregnancy?”

“Yeah, something did.” Drake fished into his jeans pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper. “But nothing bad.”

He held out the ultrasound image, and Jo and Silver looked at it in utter cluelessness.

“Is it – are they OK?” Jo asked in a hesitant voice. “Everything is developing as it should?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally.” Dux took the image from his brother, stared down at it. “What this shows is that Briley is carrying a healthy little boy and girl.”

“But that’s great!” Silver exclaimed, then paused. “I mean – isn’t it?”

“It is,” Dux said heavily. “But this ultrasound kind of… I don’t know… it really slammed home that we’re going to be long-distance Dads who visit every weekend, maybe less if something’s going on over here. And we’ve come to realize that we just can't do it.”

“Well, wecan,” Drake interjected. “But we don’twantto. We want to be there for every minute of their lives, and we mean frombeforethey’re even born.”

“Yeah.” Dux shrugged, put the ultrasound image in his pocket now. “We’re missing so much already, like feeling them kick, or helping Briley get up from a chair, or cooking for her. And all that’s going to happen is we’re going to miss so muchmoreonce they’re actually here… like, what are the chances that we’re there for their first smiles? First words? First steps?”

“And not just the good stuff, the milestone stuff,” Drake said morosely. “Briley will be doing everything by herself, allthe night feeds and diaper changes. She’salreadydoing all the furniture shopping online and we’ve begged her to not assemble anything without us – but it means she has to wait. If we were right there, we’d be the ones going to the store in person, bringing everything home, getting it set up on the spot. It just feels like – like everything is in a holding pattern, all the time. And we fuckinghateit. She’s almost seven months pregnant with twins, for God’s sake, and she’s doing it all alone. She’s a fucking rock star about it, she’s kicking ass, but still… she’s on her own, and that’salsonot sitting super well with us.”

“Is this just about the babies?” Jo asked them. “Or is it also abouther? Briley?”

“Uhhh.” Drake blinked at her. “How did you know that it’s not just about our son and daughter?”

She smiled. “Because, you idiots, I haveeyes… wealldo, and we all see how much you miss her.”

“Yeah. Well.” Dux looked at his brother again. “We – we have feelings for her, that’s for sure. And I don’t mean just as the mother of our babies… like, we want to be with her. The truth is that we’d want to be with her even if shewasn’tpregnant.”

“We wanted to before,” Drake said. “The night that she showed up out of the blue, we were being mercilessly teased by Cole and –”

He broke off.

“By Rebel,” Silver finished for him. “I know, man. Cole told me.”

“Yeah.” Dux gave himself a shake. “So… me and Drake realized that night that we’d fallen for Briley, fallen hard. Then she justappeared, you know, and it felt like a fucking sign. Like… like it wasmeantto be. And despite all that’s happened, westillfeel that way about her.”

“So,” Silver said quietly, already knowing what his brothers were driving at; the twins’ eyes told him exactly whatthey werereallysaying. “When are you going to talk to Wolf about leaving us?”

Jo jumped, stared at Silver. “What? I thought that nobody could leave the MC once they were patched in? Like, not without severe punishment and having the club tattoo ripped off their skin, or whatever?”

“People can’t usually leave, that’s true,” Silver said, his moonlight gaze nailed on the twins’ faces, knowing that he was right about their plans. “But if Wolf says it’s OK, that’s his prerogative.”

“Ohhhh,” Jo breathed. “Is that – do you guys want that?”

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