Page 167 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

Riley. Us.

Not perfect. Not normal.

But ours.

And maybe that was all we ever needed.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Riley

The waitingroom smelled of lemon cleaner and anxiety.

I shifted in the stiff plastic chair, tugging the hem of my sweater down as subtly as I could. It barely reached the curve of my stomach now.

Something hadchanged. I could feel it in the way my jeans pinched, in the way strangers started to glance, not at my face, but at my middle.

I pressed my palm to the swell of my belly, the fabric warm beneath my touch.

There was no hiding it anymore. I was showing. Not just bloated, but undeniably, unmistakablypregnant.

And every day, the weight of it became more real, both physically and emotionally.

A little life growing inside me. One I hadn’t planned for but now couldn’t imagine being without.

“Are you cold?” Garrett’s voice rumbled beside me.

I blinked up at him. He was sitting so close our knees brushed, his large hand resting on my thigh like it had a permanent home there.

He looked calm on the outside, composed, sturdy, but I could feel the tension rolling off him.

“No,” I said, offering a smile. “Just thinking.”

Across from us, Beckett sat slouched low in his chair, arms crossed, one foot gently tapping. He wasn’t looking at me, or at anyone, but he was listening to everything. That was how he always was, quiet, butsopresent.

On my other side, Asher flipped through a copy ofParenting Monthly, his brow furrowed like he was trying to memorize a foreign language.

He looked up suddenly, holding the magazine toward me. “Did you know babies can hear your voice starting around week sixteen? That’s, like now.”

“Maybe they’ll come out already annoyed with you,” Beckett muttered.

Asher smirked. “Then they’ll fit right in.”

I laughed, and for a second, the nerves lifted.

It was insane, really. How far we’d come. A few months ago, I was a burned-out influencer in a mountain town I didn’t understand, trying to rebuild a life I’d nearly lost.

Now I was sitting in a fluorescent-lit waiting room with three ridiculously handsome men who all looked as if they’d walked out of a lumberjack fever dream… and they weremine.

“You’re doing that thing again,” Asher said, nudging my shoulder lightly. “Where you disappear into your head and start making that face like you’re about to bolt.”

I gave him a look. “I’m pregnant, not being chased through a horror movie.”

“Same energy,” Beckett muttered.

Garrett’s hand came down to cover mine on my stomach. “You’re allowed to be nervous. It means you care.”

That earned him a soft smile, because damn it, hesawme. He always did.

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