25. Cole

25

COLE

David's message played in my head all night, and by the time Rebecca pulled into the driveway, I'd imagined every possible scenario for what she might want to tell us. It had to be bad, considering she wanted us all together.

David and Ethan paced behind me, both with their shoulders hunched and heads lowered like they might charge the door at any second. Rebecca opened her car door and stood. She looked pale, and the sight of her rippled through me in waves of alternating concern and adoration. She'd brought light and color to my life. Finding out Carrie was her stepmother was a blow I'd never seen coming, but it changed nothing about my feelings.

Sweat glistened on her forehead, and she held the back of her hand over her mouth while raising her chin and staring up at the blue sky.

What was that all about?

"She's here." I yanked the front door open, not willing to miss a second of her presence.

David and Ethan turned simultaneously and fell in behind me. The three of us created a barrier between Rebecca and the door, so I turned and pushed them back. "Stop lurking. You two are acting like a couple of Mob bosses."

"Something's wrong." David palmed a hand over his chest and around to the back of his neck. "She's pale and her hands are shaking." Concern took him over, and he pushed past me, jogging toward Rebecca.

Well, at least I knew he'd gotten over the whole Carrie incident.

I followed David and held out a hand to Rebecca when she reached the steps. "Come on inside. Do you need anything to eat? Drink?"

She shook her head and somehow managed to pale further. I'd never seen such translucent skin and it sent shocks of worry tingling in my fingers.

"Can we sit down?" Her hands shook, and she knotted them over her waist.

I guided her to the couch with a light touch on her elbow and sat on the coffee table in front of her. Our knees brushed, and her leg rested against mine instead of pulling away.

"What's going on?" Ethan asked the question in all of our minds, but his tone lingered more on the worried side than the accusing one I'd expected.

Silence descended on the house. I'd never thought the place was chilling before, but a draft swept over my skin and Rebecca shivered, pressing her lips tightly as she inhaled a deep breath and held it. When she let it out, we all leaned forward. "I don't know how it happened." She picked at the hem of her shirt, plucking at a string until it unraveled. "I mean I know , but I don't know." Her hands batted at the air like she might smack the words away.

Clouds covered the sun outside and sent shadows scurrying across the floor.

Ethan flipped on the overhead light, bathing Rebecca's sallow skin in a yellowish hue.

"What don't you know?" David sank onto the couch beside her, staying close but not touching her. "Why did you call me last night? Why did you want me to wait before talking to Carrie?"

She took another deep breath, this time closing her eyes. "This is harder than I thought."

"Just tell us." I patted her knee. "Whatever it is, we can handle it." I shot a look at David and Ethan that warned them not to fuck this up.

"I'm pregnant."

The words hovered in the air with enough tangibility that I tasted them. The pups I'd been fostering whined from the next room, but the sound buzzed in my ears as I blinked at Rebecca. No wonder she'd looked on the verge of throwing up when she arrived.

David froze, his body stiffening. Ethan took a step back. Our ranks were obliterated with those two words.

Sound came in slow increments. First my thudding heartbeat, then Rebecca's jagged breaths. She held her hands together over her stomach, her eyes wide with enough fear that I almost drowned in them.

I couldn't help—and didn't want to stop—the smile that tugged my lips wide. "That's fantastic." I pulled her forward into a hug and locked my arms around her back. "I'm sorry you were so scared to tell us."

I'd always wanted to be a father, to the point I'd considered adoption and almost every other method of having a child. But this, to have one with Rebecca, it caused something hot and fierce to burst open inside me and spill out.

She clung to me, the side of her face nestled into my shoulder and her breath warm on my neck. "You're not mad?"

"Mad? No. No way." I rubbed a hand up and down her spine. "Am I the father?" I had meant to keep that question for later, but my need to know burst through all my defenses.

Rebecca stiffened in my arms, her back turning rigid. She backed out of my embrace. Confusion and what looked like shame were stamped across her face. "I don't know."

Right. Of course. Because David and I had sex with her at the same time, and he'd had her before me as well. Even Ethan… I shot a look at him over my shoulder.

He wore a mask of feigned indifference. To anyone else, it would be intimidating, but I'd known him too long. "Well, we know it's not mine."

Rebecca flinched at the caustic tone, and I pointed at him with another warning glare. I might be the mediator of our group, but I'd knock him on his ass if he kept up the shitty attitude.

David stayed beside Rebecca, but the small distance between them seemed to widen. They looked at each other like they were strangers.

The puppies scrambled into the room, their clumsy paws going in every direction as they made their way over to me and flopped onto my shoes and commenced chewing on my shoelaces.

Ethan edged toward the door. Despite the obvious retreat, a look of longing pinched his mouth into a flat line. "I understand if this changes things between us. If you want me out of the picture…"

"Changes things?" I scooted off the table and sat beside Rebecca, who continued to tremble like a leaf in a hailstorm. "What the hell kind of bullshit is that? We're in this together. All four of us. You're not cutting yourself out." I'd be damned if I let him off the hook. He liked Rebecca too much to walk away, but he looked prepared to do that very thing. Why? What purpose did it serve? Enough about Ethan. I brought my attention back to Rebecca. "How far along are you? Have you started your doctor appointments yet?"

Puppy whines drew her attention to the floor, and for the first time today, she smiled while reaching down to scratch the puppy who kept pouncing on her shoe. "I don't know. I just found out yesterday." A spasm of discomfort flitted over her face. "I left before they did an ultrasound or anything. It was a walk-in clinic. I don't even know where to start with all this."

"I see why you wanted me to wait." David sat back and drummed his fingers on the couch arm.

Wait? Oh, right. Carrie. I should be worried about that, or feel uneasy about the conversation we'd have to have with Rebecca's parents. Should being the operative word in that sentence. "Let's see how many OBs there are locally." I snatched up my phone from the side table and angled it toward Rebecca. "We can look together. If you see someone you like, let me know."

No matter which one of us was the father, we were going to figure out how to make this work.

Ethan crept closer, as I'd hoped he would. Neither he nor David had the deep-seated desire for fatherhood that I'd repressed for years, but they would be excellent fathers.

"What about that one?" Rebecca rested a hand on my wrist, and I stopped scrolling. "Doctor Patricia Rawlings." Her gaze narrowed on the screen. "Impressive bio, and she's been in business for twenty years. Can you click on the website?"

I did as she asked and read alongside her.

Ethan stepped around to the back of the couch and leaned over my other shoulder. "Who gets to go with you to the appointments?"

Me . I bit my tongue before I snapped the word and created a void between us. Rebecca's pregnancy was a twist in the relationship, but it could bring us closer together if we let it.

"We could take turns. Say we're close friends or something." David scratched a knuckle down his cheek.

Chin up, lips pursed in a frown, Rebecca looked from David to Ethan, and finally, to me. "Why can't you all go? If we're really doing this, we shouldn't have to hide our relationship."

A moment of tense silence snapped taut. None of us breathed as reality crashed in all around us. It hit hard and fast, almost crushing me beneath a heavy weight. We'd gotten our student pregnant.

Ethan–bastard that he was–broke the moment with a dry laugh. "Yes, we do. Or have you forgotten how precarious our predicament is?"

"No." Rebecca answered automatically, but I caught the way her head twitched away and her lips flattened into a thin line. She had forgotten. In the chaos of this new development, she'd let herself forget that we should have truly ended this relationship the first time it came up.

"If the dean finds out that we slept with you, we'll lose our jobs. And if he finds out you're pregnant by one of us but we don't know which one…" He left the thought dangling.

A dozen scenarios flickered in my mind. We'd all lose our jobs and never work in a classroom again. And that was just the beginning of what could happen.

"You should call and make an appointment." I handed the phone to Rebecca since I had the information already pulled up. I'd do it for her, but there was pertinent information I didn't know. Like her birthday. Fucking hell. What a sad lot we were.

Rebecca glared at Ethan but the look barely held any heat after a few seconds. Her body slumped even as she took the phone from me. "Fine. I'll quit school. It's not like I'll be able to keep up with classes and a baby, anyway." She muttered under her breath, something that sounded like, "Just hope I can keep writing my book," before she tapped the phone screen and held it to her ear.

I stood and grabbed Ethan and David, dragging them to the back of the living room so Rebecca could have some privacy while we worked out a few details. "We're not letting her quit school. There are three of us. Surely, we can figure out how not to fuck this up." I wanted it too much. David and Ethan read it in my face, my words, and in past conversations where I'd lamented never being a father.

Rebecca's quiet monotone created a background of softness.

I focused on that to temper the annoyance filling me up and begging me to throttle my two best friends. "There has to be a solution."

"All set." Her perky tone did nothing to mask her fear. "What's going on?"

"We're figuring out how you stay in school without getting in trouble and without us losing our jobs." I dared Ethan or David to contradict me. "You're not giving up your goals or your degree, not when you have us."

"Oh." She wedged herself into the space between us. We had the whole room, but we kept coming together like this, like we couldn't stand to be more than a foot apart. "I guess that's easy. I'll transfer to different classes."