Page 58 of Screamer
“Is it time?” Poker asks, jogging in our direction.
“Fuck, you, too?”
I don’t wait for him to respond before picking up my pace.
By the time I reach the back deck of the clubhouse, which was added about ten years ago as the kids started to get older, my heart is racing, and sweat trickles down my back.
“Roxie!” I shout when I step inside.
Fender, the asshole, steps in front of me. “Where are you going?”
“He was summoned by Roxie and Rosie,” Crow answers before I can, and I groan.
“Oh, I know,” Fender states. “But you have to go wait for them in the common room.”
“Where are they?” I snarl.
Fender grins, and if he weren’t such a good friend and the retired president of the Soulless Kings mother chapter, I’d clock him in the mouth.
“Follow me.”
Benji slings his arm around my shoulder as we walk to the large room. “This is killing you, isn’t it?”
“Just you wait, son,” I say. “Someday, you’re gonna have an old lady and children, and your life will no longer be your own.”
“No fucking way,” Benji says.
That causes laughter to break out through the crowd. I slowly turn around because the sound is deafening, and that’s when I realize that every single person that was outside followed us in and is now crowded in the common room.
“Can someone please tell me what the fuck is goi?—”
“Daddy, stop.”
Rosie’s sharp tone cuts through the laughter, and I spin around again to see her and her mother standing a few feet away.
“Honey, what’s going on?” I ask her.
“I have an announcement to make,” she says with a serene smile on her beautiful face.
Rosie is a carbon copy of her mom, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Well, all except for the pride and stubbornness. Those things cost me a lot of sleep while she was growing up.
I glance from her to Roxie. “Do you know what’s going on?”
My wife grins. “I do.”
“Jesus, Rosie, put me out of my misery,” I plead, unable to take the secrecy a second longer.
Rosie closes the distance between us, and Roxie moves to stand at my side, sliding her arm through mine. Then my daughter hands me an envelope.
“Open it,” she says.
I peel the flap back and slide out the photo that’s inside. The weight of what I’m seeing hits me like a ton of bricks, and I lift my eyes to Rosie’s.
“I’m gonna be a grandpa?”
“Yep. They’ll be here in roughly seven months,” she replies, rubbing her hands over her still flat belly.
“They?” Roxie asks, clearly not in on this part of the secret.
