Page 102 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

Slid off the stool. Snatched my coat. Mumbled something half-assed to Todd on my way out.

The second I pushed through the door, the cold slammed into me, but I barely felt it.

All I saw was her.

“Riley!” I called out.

She stopped as if she’d hit a wall. Real slow, she turned, like she wasn’t sure what version of me she was about to face.

Her eyes widened a little when she saw me, but the rest of her face didn’t move. No smirk. No sass.

Just tired. Worn down to the wire.

“Asher,” she said, flat as the sky in February.

I walked up, hands shoved deep in my pockets to keep from doing something reckless. Like touching her. Pulling her into me and pretending I could fix it.

“You okay?” I asked, softer than usual. “You looked… I don’t know. Like maybe you could use a drink.”

She shook her head, barely a motion at all. “I’m good. Just walking.”

“Still,” I said, giving her the closest thing I had to an olive branch. “If you want company, I’ve got time. Lucky’s makes a damn good whiskey sour.”

There. A flicker of a smile. Barely.

“I can’t,” she said.

I tried to tease it out of her, defaulting to charm as I always did. “What, did I finally lose my magic touch?”

That got a laugh. Sort of. More the ghost of one.

“No,” she said. “It’s not that.”

I was about to say something else, something light and stupid to keep the mood from crashing.

Then she dropped it.

“I can’t drink, Asher,” she said. Too fast. Too stiff.

I frowned. “You?”

“I’m pregnant.”

What?

No.

No, no. She didn’t just say…

The words hung there between us like they were still deciding if they were real.

My heart stopped. Literally skipped a goddamn beat.

The sounds around us, the cars, the wind, fell away as if someone had hit mute on the world.

I stared at her. “What?”

She winced. “I didn’t mean to tell you like that. Not likethis.”

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