Page 106 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

Beckett stepped toward him, but Garrett flinched. Even kindness was too much.

He looked around the room as if he didn’t recognize it anymore.

He wanted to disappear into the walls.

“Are you sure?” he asked, voice trembling. “You took a test or…?”

I nodded again. “I found out at the doctor’s office.”

He pressed his hands over his face, voice cracking with something broken underneath. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“I’m not expecting anything from you—” I started.

But Garrett shook his head, quick and desperate. “It’s not that. It’s not pressure. It’s—” His hands fell to his sides. “You don’t know what happened the last time we tried something like this. You don’t know what it did to us. What it did to me.”

Beckett moved again, more carefully this time. “Garrett.”

But Garrett’s voice rose—not in volume, but in urgency. Panic.

“And Lucy…” he said suddenly, eyes wide. “God, Lucy. What happens when she finds out?” His voice cracked again. “She’s going to hate us.”

That one hit. Right in the gut.

“I didn’t want it to happen like this,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to drop this on you all.”

“And you live in LA,” Garrett said, softer now. Almost dazed. “You’re not staying here forever, right? So what does that mean?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” I told him, voice thin. “I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep it.”

The words dropped like a boulder.

Beckett froze. His jaw clenched, but his face stayed neutral. He was fighting the instinct to fix something he couldn’t fix.

Asher’s eyes closed. His shoulders slumped, and he let out a breath as if he’d been punched in the ribs. When he spoke, it was quiet.

“That’s your choice,” he said, voice rough. “We don’t get to decide that for you.”

Garrett turned away, hands on the back of the couch like he needed something solid to hold him up. He let out a shaky breath, then another.

“This is too much,” he whispered. “This is too much.”

No one moved.

The only sounds were the soft hum of the heater and the quiet, uneven breathing of a room that suddenly felt much too small.

Beckett finally spoke, setting his coffee aside like he was laying down a shield. “We can’t solve it all tonight.”

Garrett’s shoulders twitched. His voice came small and tired. “Yeah? Well, that doesn’t make it go away.”

But then his gaze flicked to me, and whatever panic was still flickering behind his eyes seemed to drain out all at once. His body slumped, the fight going out of him.

He scrubbed both hands over his face, a shaky breath escaping, and slowly, like he wasn’t sure his legs would hold, he sank onto the couch. Elbows to knees. Head down.

The room stayed quiet. Still heavy, but not as bad as before.

This wasn’t tension. It was waiting.

Breathing.

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