Page 311 of The Omega Exchange: Omnibus
“We want to know, right?” Nik probes, bouncing on his toes. He’s got his hands in his jeans pockets and he looks like he’s about to burst out of his skin if Melody doesn’t agree.
“We do,” she finally says, reaching out to grab Nik’s hand.
“Fuck yes!” He actually fist pumps the air before intertwining their fingers. He wraps his other hand around her back, leaning in to kiss her forehead.
“Are you sure, Mom?” the tech asks, chuckling.
“Oh yeah, I think I froze for a minute, but I definitely did want to know before we got here.” Mel grins. Her excitement and maybe a little fear slide through the bond.
“Okay, let’s see if we can tell,” the tech says, giving a bright smile.
“Thank you,” Carver says, holding his phone toward the screen.
“All right, so we’ve got the cord up here which means I feel pretty confident in saying it’s a girl.” The tech points at the screen. “I’ll print out a picture.”
“A girl?” Nik whispers. “Holy shit.”
Melody leans forward to get a good look at the screen and promptly bursts into tears.
Carver aims the phone at her, but his eyes cut to mine. My shoulders slump. He needs a bond. I remember what it felt like to wonder what was going on in her head.
“They’re happy tears,” I whisper, giving him a smile.
“Yeah, I’m going to need to get in on that bonding action soon,” Carver mutters.
“We can do it tonight after we give her the thing,” Miller suggests in barely a whisper. His eyes are glued to the screen, and I’m pretty sure he’s mentally calculating how much savings we’ll need to hire a hitman one day in case someone hurtsour daughter. I mean, I’m only getting mild impressions. He’s excellent about blocking the bond.
My knees go a little weak.
A baby.
Our baby.
And it’s so fucking real that I panic.
I yank out my phone and start searching for companies to baby proof the house. It suddenly feels imperative that we handle thisnow.
“Oliver?” Mel calls softly.
My eyes fly from my phone to her. She stretches out her fingers and I cross the room, wrapping her hand in mine.
“Are you okay?” she asks, looking at me with slight creases in her brow.
“Yeah, just making preparations,” I assure her, kissing her forehead. She squeezes my hand and I take a deep breath and blow it back out again. I can’t panic right now. It bleeds through the bond, and Mel needs me to be her rock.
I give her as sincere a smile as I can manage while my brain calculates through the fifty-three things on my to-do list in order of importance.
I shove my phone in my pocket and live in this life-changing moment with my packmates.
I can obsess once we’re in the car.
The press caught wind of us being back in Virginia, but I don’t think any of us were expecting to walk out to four or five paparazzi.
Melody holds the ultrasound pictures to her chest along with the bag of stuff they gave us.
“Nikolas, is it a boy or a girl?”
“Oliver, how do you like being bonded?”
