Page 44 of Cade

“Ready?” Kayla asked.

April nodded. They walked downstairs together, finding that most of their group had already arrived. They were waiting on Jake and Lauren still, but everyone else was here except for Owen and Jessica, who weren’t able to make it.

Cade sought her out the moment they entered the living room. He was right there at her side, one hand on the small of her back as it always was and the other one passing her a plate of food.

Since the doctor had helped with the nausea for now, Cade had been feeding her at every opportunity. She didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop just yet, but if she kept eating like this, he was going to have to roll her out the front door.

“Wine?” Kayla offered her a glass.

“None for me tonight, thank you,” April waved her off.

Kayla didn’t stop staring at her. Her friendly gaze turned questioning before her eyes lit up. “Are you?” She made a rounded motion at her stomach.

“I’m going to need you to stop being so perceptive and give us a chance to make our own announcement,” Cade joked.

“Shut up!” Kayla squealed.

“Oh, please don’t shut up. I want to know, too,” Lauren joined them.

“I didn’t see you guys come in,” Cade said before turning to April. “Should we just do it now?”

April smiled back at him and nodded.

“Everyone!” he shouted to get their attention. “April and I have an announcement to make.” Cade looked down at her and smiled. “We’re expecting!”

Cheers came from everyone.

Catherine pushed past all the guys to hug them both. “I’m going to be an aunt! This is so exciting!”

April looked around to see all their friends were excited for them. Evan Ryker was smiling, and that was a rare occasion from what little she knew of the man. Everyone, that is, except Luke, who was looking grumpy at the end of the sofa and not looking their way.

“Ignore him. He’s still too young to understand that life isn’t about sleeping around,” Cade whispered.

Fair enough, she thought. Everyone knew Luke was a playboy and didn’t want to settle down. Maybe he was just upset it was getting closer and closer to his own turn to date. Ryker was next, but it seemed no one was in a hurry to tell him that.

Catherine was stepping away, answering her phone, and she looked up to see Cade watching her.

“Can you believe it? You’re going to be a grandma!” Catherine was squealing.

Leaving her side, Cade went to her and yanked her phone away. “Just because I told you doesn’t mean that you get to go off spreading it around. If I wanted our elusive parents to know, then I would have told them.”

“Cade!” Catherine shouted back. “They’re our parents. You can’t just pretend they don’t exist and leave them out of everything.”

“Fucking watch me.”

Cade turned and left them all standing there, watching him walk out the front door. No one knew what had just happened except April, and even then, she was confused. The plan had been for her to get pregnant, so why wouldn’t he want his parents to know?

“What is up with him?” Catherine asked April.

“I think it’s just the stress of everything. I know he has plans of how to tell everyone, so maybe that was something he was going to do with just us?” That wasn’t it, but it sounded like a good enough thing to say. She could only hope that anyone believed her.

“Cade doesn’t normally get like that, except when it comes to his father. I’d just leave him be for now. He’ll come back soon enough,” Lauren told her, squeezing her shoulders.

“Yeah. Everyone eat up. We bought all this food and Cade won’t stop feeding me, so please eat it all before I do,” she laughed.

The rest of the evening went okay. There was no more mention of Cade’s outburst, but the mood was not what it was before. After about two hours, mostly everyone had left except Catherine.

“I feel bad that I ruined everything tonight,” she told April.

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