Page 16 of The Light to My Darkness (The Light to My Darkness 1)

Matt was so cute with all of our kids. I could tell he would be a wonderful father. But he hadn't found the right girl to settle down with. Melissa and Matt had dated for about a month. Their personalities were both too strong, though. Now Melissa and her college sweetheart, Josh, were giving it another go. She had moved to Texas last year. I missed her, but she seemed happy and I was happy for them. James and I had talked about visiting them right before we found out we were expecting again. He had this fear that I'd go into labor on the plane. Even when I was only one month along. So our trip had been postponed indefinitely. I really needed to call her.

"And how are you feeling?" Matt asked. He kept his eyes on my stomach. He was much more discreet than Rob.

I slowly exhaled. "I'm good."

"Yeah?" He looked up at my face.

Yes, one day Matt wo

uld be a great father. He was looking at me like my dad would whenever I'd cry. "Yeah." I tried to give him a reassuring smile.

"Stop feeling her up, man," Mason said. "She's basically your sister."

"Oh, no, I wasn't." Matt immediately dropped his hand from my stomach.

"I'm just messing with you." Mason punched his brother's arm and leaned down to hug me. "How you feeling, Penny?"

The Caldwell brothers were so sweet. Which was hilarious because when I met them I never thought I'd use that adjective to describe them. "I'm good," I said as Mason released me from his embrace. "Matt just wanted to feel the baby kick."

"Oh." Mason sat down on the other side of me. "In that case, do you mind if I feel it too?"

"That's fine."

He put his hand on my stomach. I felt the baby kick and Mason smiled.

Bee laughed. "Well, I never thought I'd see the day. For someone who claims to be terrified of children, you sure are excited about this one."

"I'm not terrified of children. I'm terrified of having children. So many things could go wrong." Mason immediately dropped his hand. "I mean, the odds are small. Medicine and technology are so good now. It's very rare for pregnancies to be dangerous."

"And I'm the one harassing her?" Matt said. "Nice one."

"I just meant...Penny, you know what I meant," Mason said. "I'm sorry. Of course everything will be fine with your pregnancy."

"Mason," Bee hissed.

God, everyone was being so weird.

"I feel like I'm missing something," Hailey said. Tyler, Daphne, and her were sitting on the couch on the other side of us. It didn't look like any of them knew what we were talking about.

Daphne put her hand protectively on her stomach as she stared at me. She looked as confused as Hailey and Tyler. It definitely didn't seem like Rob had told her. The Caldwell brothers may have been sweet, but they were way worse at keeping secrets than the Hunters. I couldn't fault them for that, though. It was probably a good thing.

"Seriously, Penny, is everything okay with the baby?" Daphne asked.

What was the point of keeping a secret from half of my friends? Now I just felt guilty for thinking they shouldn't know.

"Of course everything's fine," Rob said from behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Don't you dare say anything, you're going to get me in so much trouble for keeping it from her," he whispered under his breath.

I awkwardly cleared my throat. "Everything's fine."

"You're lying," Tyler said.

Hails gave him a sideways glance.

Tyler shrugged. "I can tell when she's lying. She's always been a terrible liar." He took a sip from his drink.

Hailey laughed. "I guess that's true."

"It really is true," Matt said.

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