Page 113 of Shootout Daddies
Not in the way I’ve loved before. Not fleeting or uncertain. Solid. Like bedrock.
I glance at Hunter, catch him watching her with the same fire in his eyes. He meets my gaze, nods once.
Triplets. Sleepless nights. Mess and chaos and love so big it swallows us whole. We’ve totally got this!
She looks better this morning. Color in her cheeks, hair falling soft around her shoulders. Less like the pale, shell-shocked woman who came back from the ultrasound yesterday. My chest unclenches at the sight.
She clears her throat. “So… I have news.”
All of us look up. Forks pause, mugs stall halfway to mouths.
I tilt my head. “News?”
Her eyes bounce between us, nervous but steady. “I called my employer last night. I was supposed to start in New York in a few days.” She twists her fingers in her lap, then breathes out. “But I asked for an extension. Three months.”
Silence hits first. Then it bursts into joy.
Hunter whoops so loud Chloe squeals over the monitor in response. He’s up and wrapping her in his arms before she can blink. Landon smiles in that quiet way of his, eyes crinkling, setting his mug down to lean over and press a hand to her thigh.
And me? I just sit there, soaking in the picture of her smiling, flushed from our reactions, like the weight she’s been carrying has finally eased.
“You’re staying,” I say.
“For now,” she whispers, but there’s hope in it. “Just… I need time to figure things out. But I couldn’t leave, not yet. Not when—” She swallows, patting her stomach. “Not with this.”
Hunter’s mouth is already on hers before she finishes the sentence. She laughs against him, the sound muffled but sweet. Then Landon leans in, catching her chin for his own kiss.
She reaches for me next, and I don’t hesitate, cupping her face and tasting the soft promise on her lips. But it doesn’t stop there.
One kiss becomes three, becomes a chain of touches and gasps. Her hands slide over my chest, over Hunter’s arm, over Landon’s shoulder. The hunger in the room builds like a storm until it breaks, and suddenly we’re on the sofa, Ivy beneath us, laughing one second and moaning the next.
Her shirt’s tugged up, my mouth skimming over the soft skin of her stomach while Hunter claims her neck and Landon takes her lips again.
She arches beneath us, body pliant, and the world shrinks down to the press of heat, the sounds spilling from her throat, the feel of her nails dragging over my back.
By the time we’re done, the kitchen smells of cooled bacon and coffee gone bitter on the warmer, and the sofa’s a mess of rumpled blankets. Ivy lies between us, chest rising fast, lips kiss-swollen, eyes glazed in the best way.
I press my forehead to hers, still catching my breath. “We should have a babymoon before preseason starts.”
Three sets of eyes swing to me.
“A what now?” Hunter pants.
“A babymoon,” I repeat, grinning when Ivy blinks up at me in confusion. “I saw a post about it on social media and I think it would be cool. It’s like a honeymoon, but before the baby. A trip. Time away. Just us and her, before life gets completely swallowed up in diapers and midnight feedings.”
Hunter lets out a low whistle. “That’s… actually brilliant.”
I shrug like it’s no big deal, but inside I’m proud. She deserves something good. Something just for her.
Landon leans back, still shirtless, beard shadowing his jaw as he thinks. “We could make it happen in about a week. Three days, maybe four, we could get away.”
Ivy’s eyes widen, lips parting. “You’d really do that?”
“All of us,” Hunter says, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Wherever you want to go.”
Ivy’s voice wobbles. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Say yes,” I tell her simply.
