Chapter Twenty-Eight

Amara

B ecause Amara was feeling antsy, anxious, and a little off, she decided to take another day off of work. She had been taking a lot of those lately, and it was starting to upset her. She loved the shop, and she wanted to be able to devote herself to it, but she was currently not in any position to do so. Not with everything else going on.

Amara had officially moved in with the guys a few days ago. Because she had only let them buy her the basics in the beginning, they kept coming home with more and more things for her. Zeke would bring her books, Drake would bring her clothes, and Knox, being the kinky bastard that he was, had a thing for bringing her lingerie. At this rate, she was going to run out of places to put everything. Already, she had to split all of her clothes between the guys’ closets and dressers.

The guys had taken the first few days off of work to help make sure that she got settled in. At least, that was what they had said. They had mainly spent the majority of the time in bed, leading her to believe that they’d had ulterior motives for staying home.

That morning, however, they told her that they needed to go back to work. They had to do inventory and payroll, which meant that she was left in the apartment alone for the first time.

Amara still had a lot on her mind, and whenever that happened, she cleaned. Cleaning helped her figure things out. She didn’t know how or why it worked that way, but it did.

After changing into some shorts and a t-shirt, she set about cleaning the apartment, hoping that she wasn’t overstepping by doing so.

Zeke and Drake’s rooms hadn’t taken much time. They were fairly neat people. Especially Drake. And over the last few days, Amara had made sure that the kitchen and living room stayed livable, so that didn’t take much time either. Knox’s room, on the other hand, had been an absolute disaster and had taken her the longest, which made her smile because it fit his personality perfectly.

Once she finished with Knox’s room, she moved on to the bathrooms. Each guy had his own bathroom, and she did everything from cleaning the mirrors and the showers to wiping down the baseboards. Every room smelled so much better now because of it, and she had three giant trash bags full of trash to take out when she was done.

Amara squatted down to grab a roll of toilet paper in order to change the roll in Drake’s bathroom. As she did, she stopped when she spotted a box of tampons. A smile crept to her lips, knowing that he had thought of that. Not many guys would have.

She blinked rapidly as she whispered, “Wait.”

She suddenly realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she had her period.

Swallowing hard, she rushed into Knox’s room where she had spent the night before and snatched her cell phone off of the nightstand. She scrolled through her apps until she found the one she used to track her periods and pulled it up. She was late, and by over a week.

Amara’s stomach dropped as a sudden wave of nausea rolled over her and panic began to blossom in her chest. She should have known this was a possibility. She wasn’t on birth control, and all three of her mates had some kind of aversion to condoms. She had just been so preoccupied with worrying about her father that she hadn’t had the time to think about it.

Clenching her fists at her sides, she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. There was no point in freaking out until she knew for sure what was going on.

Her feet padded against the floor as she rushed from the room. She made her way to the living room and grabbed her keys and purse off of the entry table. The lock clicked ominously when she locked the door behind her with the key that Zeke had made more for her and exited to the side stairs. She didn’t want or need the guys to see her leave because that would raise too many questions. Questions she just wasn’t ready to answer yet.

Amara reached the pharmacy in record time even though it was right down the street. She made her way to the correct aisle and grabbed a box of pregnancy tests off of the shelf. As she began heading toward the pharmacist to check out, she paused and went back to the shelf to grab a couple more. Just to be sure.

Besides, unless she managed to convince the guys to start using condoms or allow her to go on birth control, this might become a common occurrence.

Her face was flushed as she paid for the tests. She wasn’t sure why she was embarrassed, but she was, especially when the pharmacist smiled at her knowingly. It was as if she knew that she had been with three guys.

With the tests now in hand, Amara went back to their place, the place she now called home. Once again, she took the side stairs and then immediately headed into the bathroom.

Her mind was going a mile a minute as she waited for the results. She had taken three of the tests because she wanted there to be no doubt left in her mind. As she waited, she silently chastised herself, unable to believe that she was already in this position.

Mainly, she was worried about how the guys were going to react. They had all just fully accepted each other, and she had only moved in a couple of days ago. They were still trying to learn how to be together. She didn’t even know if any of them wanted kids, and Knox didn’t think he’d make a good father. What if this messed everything up?

The timer went off on her phone, and Amara rose shakily to her feet before peering over the counter.

She was met with three little plus signs.

L ater that afternoon, Amara was lying in Knox’s bed, bundled beneath the blankets. Her eyes were red and puffy from all the crying she had done since she discovered the truth. She didn’t know if she was ready for all of this. She didn’t exactly have the best example when it came to parenting, and she didn’t want to mess the kid up. On the other hand, she didn’t want to get rid of it either. This was a little life growing inside of her, a life that she had created. Well, she and one of her mates, of course.

That was probably the hardest thing for her to wrap her head around. The fact that she had no idea which one of her mates was the father. It could be any one of them. How were they supposed to love and care for a child when they didn’t know who the father was?

The sound of the front door opening and the guys laughing about something made her cower deeper within the blankets, clutching the pregnancy tests tightly in her hand. She wasn’t ready to face them just yet.

Zeke called out for her, but she didn’t respond. A few moments later, footsteps sounded down the hall.

“Amara?” Drake said, stepping into the room.

Still, she didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong?” Zeke asked her as the three of them crowded the side of the bed. Knox reached over and flipped on the light on the nightstand, but it was Zeke who took a seat on the bed next to her. “Why are you in bed?”

Knox knelt on the floor so he could meet her eyes. “Did your father call again?”

She shook her head.

“Are you sick?” Drake asked, pulling the covers back a little. Thankfully, she had moved the tests down by her belly so none of them had seen them yet.

“Depends on how you look at it,” she muttered, her voice muffled by the pillow she was burying her face in.

Knox shook his head. “What does that mean?”

Unable to bring herself to respond, Amara shut her eyes tighter, pushing more tears down her cheeks.

Zeke squeezed her thigh. “Tell us what’s wrong so that we can fix it.”

A broken laugh escaped her lips, making her sound a little hysterical. “There’s no fixing it, Zeke. At least, nothing that I would consider.”

“Now you’re just talking in riddles,” Drake stated, a little frustrated.

“And you’re a jackass,” she snapped involuntarily. “This is your fault, you know. Well, one of your faults.”

“That you’re sick?” Knox asked, frowning. “We didn’t give you anything, little bunny. None of us has been sick.”

“Not that kind of sick, Knox,” she replied with a sigh. “This particular bug hangs around, oh, for about nine months or so.”

Silence stretched across the room, but Drake eventually broke it. “You’re pregnant?” he whispered.

She nodded, pulling her hand out from beneath the blanket and laying the tests on the comforter. “Took three tests to confirm it.”

Zeke took her hand in his and brought it to his lips before kissing her knuckles. “Why does this upset you?”

Her eyes snapped to his, dumbfounded by his calm response. She couldn’t believe he was even asking that. How could he not see that this was probably the worst possible time for something like this to happen?

Sighing, she pushed herself to a sitting position and ran her fingers through her hair. “Because we only just started trying to make this work, Zeke. Because I literally just moved in a few days ago. Because my father is still out there and has it out for us. But mostly because I don’t know which one of you is the father.”

“I don’t give a shit who the father is,” Knox told her firmly. “Drake, do you?”

“Not particularly, no,” Drake agreed.

Knox turned his attention to Zeke then. “Zeke?”

“Not at all,” Zeke stated without taking his eyes off of her.

Amara looked between the three of them and shook her head. “You all are insane. Just out of your fucking minds. How can you not care? What are we even going to tell this kid when it gets here?”

Drake reached out and cupped her cheek with the warm palm of his hand. “We tell them the truth, Amara, that they have four parents who love them unconditionally. This child will be one of us, a shifter, so we will explain that we are mates. It doesn’t have to be this complicated.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment as she processed his words. Was she making it out to be a bigger deal than it really was?

“So, you guys aren’t upset?” she asked.

Knox grinned at her. “I’m fucking excited.”

Amara raised her eyebrow in question, wondering what had suddenly changed with him. They had spoken about this exact thing before, and he seemed unsure, if not reluctant, to become a father. But now, he really did seem to be excited about the prospect, which was a strange but endearing look for him.

None of them seemed to be upset about this new turn of events, and she was beginning to realize that she had been worried for nothing. Or maybe she was just already dealing with pregnancy hormones. She’d seen that it was a lot worse for shifters in that regard.

The four of them had gotten through everything else that had been thrown at them thus far, and she guessed this would just be another thing that they would handle. Together.

“So, that’s it then?” she asked hopefully. “We are just going to become parents and act like this is the most natural thing in the world?”

Zeke leaned over and pressed a kiss to her salty cheek. “That is exactly what we are going to do. We aren’t going to live a lie. We are what we are and we’re fated to be this way.”

Amara gave him a watery smile, tears falling again but this time for a different reason. This was really happening. They were really going to become parents. All four of them.

“Oh! We need to go shopping!” Knox suddenly exclaimed, jumping to his feet and pulling out his phone. “We need a crib, and some diapers, and some toys.”

His excitement seemed to be infectious as everyone laughed, and the tension in the room was gone just like that.