Page 95 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

I felt heat crawl up my neck. The kind that came with helpless fury.

“And my dad didn’t even talk to me. He never does.”

“Riley,” I said, rougher than I meant to. I didn’t want to scare her. But hearing all that? Watching her sit here and fall apart alone?

She blinked. Slowly. Finally looked at me.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered. “Everything’s spiraling. And I can’t seem to hold any of it still.”

Without thinking, I reached for her hand. She let me take it.

It was cold. Shaking.

She didn’t pull away when I leaned in, she let her forehead rest against my chest. Her breath came in soft, uneven bursts, warming the front of my flannel as she tried to calm down.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, tugging her closer until she was half in my lap, half still curled in the driver’s seat.

My other hand moved without thinking, fingers brushing through her hair in slow, steady strokes.

I didn’t speak. Didn’t rush her.

I held her.

Let her be small for once. Let her fall apart if she needed to.

The wind outside whistled low across the lot, the windows starting to fog slightly from our shared breath and body heat, but I stayed still, stayed quiet, even when it started to press hard against my ribs, that knowing that something big was coming.

Her voice broke the silence, raw and trembling.

“Beckett,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” I said, brushing my thumb across the back of her neck.

She pulled in a shaky breath, as if it took everything in her to say the next part.

“I’m pregnant.”

The world stilled.

My hand paused in her hair.

Not because I was angry. Not because I was leaving.

But because the ground had just shifted beneath us, and I wanted to make damn sure I didn’t move in the wrong direction.

“Is it ours?” The words slipped out before I could stop them. I needed to know.

She hesitated. Then nodded once. “Yeah. For sure.”

I swallowed hard. Let it sink in.

She was pregnant. Riley was pregnant.

And it wasours.

A life growing inside her. A future neither of us had seen coming.

“Okay,” I said.

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