NASH

NASH

We took her home, Locke driving her car while I followed behind on my hog—the same V-Rod I'd been riding when the HGV had hit me last year.

This felt kind of the same, but without the blinding pain and fear of death.

My death, anyway.

Twins.

Fucking twins.

This shit…it wasn't real. It couldn't be, and it was a feeling that stayed with me as I steered my woman—my pregnant woman—inside, ran her a bath, and settled in to stare at the subtle swell of her belly while Locke made himself busy looking after us.

He could cook, by the way. All that self-deprecation about being the worst dad in the world, it had no fucking legs. He took care of us better than we ever had ourselves.

Worn out, Orla fell asleep early, curled between us on the couch. I switched my attention to the ceiling. Locke gave me space, but eventually, he carried Orla and our unborn children—both of them—to bed, and came back with a beer to share and a hug.

I had no fucking clue how I'd lived most of my life without the comfort of him to lean against. Without the warmth of his big hand dropped on my head. "Fucking twins. More twins."

"Fourth set." Locke swigged beer. "Must be something in the water round here."

"Or at your brother's place. I fucked her in the shower that morning you took the boys on that hike with Remy."

Locke laughed. "Don't tell Lo that."

Wasn't planning on it. I had a good relationship with Locke's twin brother, but it probably didn't extend to me defiling his bathroom. "Maybe it was when we DP'd her. I came like a motherfucker that night." Locke snorted, but I wasn't done spilling my utterly brilliant fucking thoughts. "Twins run in the maternal line, right?"

"I think so."

"You think?" I turned to him. "You're the twin guru, man. I need your help."

Locke's crooked grin remained. "I wasn't born with an encyclopaedic knowledge of twin conception. Just a big oaf of a brother genetically obliged to be nice to me."

I didn't know how that felt. I had no siblings. No brothers I hadn't chosen for myself. I had a thousand cousins, but only a couple I gave a fuck about, and my parents…

Fuck them.

"Hey." Locke set the beer aside and pulled me closer, kissing my temple. "It's going to be okay. Raising twins is a theme park, but you've got an army around you who'll be tripping over themselves to help."

"What if we don't get to raise them?"

There it was. The elephant in the room suffocating the joy Orla should've felt in the poky cubicle when the radiographer had pressed the wand to her belly and found first one heartbeat and then another.

She was ten weeks pregnant with "endometrial tissue" altering the shape of her fucking womb. It was a miracle we'd conceived in the first place, and the risk of complications was "higher than we'd like". Of miscarriage and stillbirth. And that was without considering the risk to Orla.

A deep shudder rocked me.

Locke held me tighter, like he had in the waiting area when I'd blown through the doors to fetch him because I hadn't understood a word people were telling me and Orla deserved better than that.

"I can't lie to you." Locke brushed his lips to my temple again, before letting me go and coaxing me to meet his gaze. "There's a chance this won't work out, but there's a bigger chance that it will. That in six months time, you'll have a baby in each arm and this fear in your heart will be fuckin' gone. That's the endgame here, brother."

Brother . I liked it better when he called me dirtier things. When he was buried inside me while he cradled Orla's tits in his big hands. But I didn't need that right now. I needed this, and he knew it. Because he fucking loved me.

Orla's tits, though…

"How did I miss how big her boobs were getting?"

Humour returned to Locke's sea-green eyes. "You didn't miss it—you just didn't connect it to something you thought you'd never have. Neither of you did."

"You did." He'd told me all about it. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't sure. I thought maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, until Folk said something a few days ago. Then Ranger brought his chaos train home and we got distracted."

Fighting. Locke had split knuckles.

So did I. "Folk knows?"

"He suspected. Saint and Alexei too."

Colour me unsurprised. I'd have felt stupid, but I'd learned a long time ago not to compare myself to men who were incom-fucking-parable. "Does that mean Cam knows?"

"No. It was just a rumour among the Knowers. They only brought it up with me cos they saw into my brain enough to figure out I was halfway there."

"How did we find three of these loons?"

Locke mussed my hair. "Don't know, but we'd be fucked without them, and without you ."

A few years ago, I wouldn't have been quite so sure. But everything we'd survived to get to this point had taught me different. That every branch of our found family was as vital as each other, and that in the weirdest fucking way, even Alexei needed me as much as I needed him.

I finished Locke's beer and we went to bed. Somehow, I slept, and in the morning, when Orla was no longer bleeding and what we now knew was pregnancy sickness had settled down, I put a call out for church, to face our brothers. To tell them everything from the endo she'd suffered since she was a teenager to the high risk pregnancy she faced now. Everything except the double-bubble heartbeat I still struggled to believe. Maybe later, but for now, that she carried twins belonged only to the three of us.

We rode out when Juana arrived to keep Orla company, zipping into the tail end of school run traffic. It was the first time we'd ridden together since before the accident, but I felt distant from the freedom of having him at my back as we burned through town. Yesterday, when I'd asked Folk to help me get back on my bike, the untapped anxiety in my chest had consumed me in ways I hadn't wanted Locke and Orla to see.

Now I didn't give a rat's fuck. The past didn't matter anymore—any of it. All this time, we'd been fighting for the future. Now we had to live it.

We were late. The only brother not in the chapel waiting on us was River.

I ducked into the garage, kicking the mismatched boot that stuck out from beneath the van he'd been working on since a prospect had fucked the tracking by steaming through a pothole. "Church. I need you."

River unfurled himself from under the van. "What the fuck for?"

I was already walking away, and it was out of character enough for me that for once in his life, River didn't argue.

He trailed me to the chapel and slipped in behind me, dropping into a seat that a long time ago had belonged to Cracker Delaney.

I pushed that cunt out of my mind and avoided Cam's gaze as I claimed the last chair. Avoided everyone and the curiosity at what-the-ever-loving fuck was going on. I rarely called church these days, not since Cam had come back from his mental health leave and I'd celebrated by getting squished by a lorry. I'd spent most of my sick leave having mad sex, and now I got to sit at the table and tell my brothers that if I turned out to be the luckiest man who ever lived, I had something to show for it.

And that I could lose it all at any moment.

If I could only find the words.

Saint rose and moved to the kitchen.

He came back with water and offered me a pack of the cigarettes I was still battling to give up.

I waved them away, the whooshing thump of the ultrasound heartbeats loud in my ears, and forced myself to glance around the table. At Folk, Saint, and Alexei who already knew most of what I had to say. At Decoy, Mateo, and Embry, brothers who'd prop me up no matter what. At Cam, Rubi, and River who knew me well enough to look scared to death of whatever was about to come out of my mouth.

At Locke who gave me so much fucking strength with his soft grin.

"Orla's pregnant."

Silence blanketed the table, Cam frozen in the act of lighting a smoke, barely a second passing before Rubi began to surge from his seat.

I held up a hand to stop him. "It's not as simple as we want it to be. I've got some shit I need to lay out."

Rubi sat back, his gaze never leaving me even as he automatically reached for River. As everyone leaned closer to their people. As I found Locke's hand under the table and dropped fifteen years of stress and worry on my brothers that I'd always kept to myself, rounding it off with the grim reality that even the next two weeks were dicey as fuck before Orla reached her second trimester.

I didn't understand half the words that spilled from my mouth, and I was forever grateful for the men in the room who did. For the rest of them who'd move heaven and earth to learn. For Locke who kept an iron grip on my hand as he stayed quiet.

For River who kept Rubi in his seat until I was done.

Then a hulk missile of brotherhood blurred across the room and I didn't see it coming. Just felt his arms cage my body, absorbed his familiar scent, and let my best friend embrace the shit out of me.

"Nashie, it's going to be okay. We're gonna manifest like mad dragons and it's going to fucking happen."

I had to believe him. It was the only way.

"…in six months time, you'll have a baby in each arm."

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Rubi let me go. River took his place, but his hug was shorter. "She's at home?"

I nodded. "She'll want to see you."

River socked my arm, gave Rubi a smacker, and disappeared, leaving me to the love of our brothers. Saint hugged me. Alexei too, kinda. If I hadn't been so poleaxed, it would've been funny.

It was a minute before I looked for Cam, but he'd bypassed me to embrace Locke, and I realised how much I'd needed that—to see him recognise that these were Locke's babies as much as they were mine, even if Cam had no fucking clue that there were two of them.

The room settled down. Most brothers returned to their seats, but Rubi stayed close, kept his hands on my shoulders. Almost as if he knew something I hadn't thought of was about to bubble out of my mouth. "What if I sleepwalk a baby off a cliff?"

I didn't mean to say it at all, let alone to the whole fucking room, but that's what happened.

"You've caught a nap in the same room as my kids loads of times." Mateo stood, aiming for the kitchen, brushing his knuckles over the nape of Embry's neck as he went. "It's never crossed my mind."

"Or mine," Decoy piped up.

My brows stayed cinched together. "Maybe it should have."

"Maybe you need some breakfast, brother."

I heaved a sigh and escaped Decoy's gentle kindness to let Embry skewer me instead. "What?"

"Are you really worried about that?"

Was I? Logic said no. I hadn't been rowdy in my sleep in months. But I'd gone long periods without sleepwalking before, and it had always come back. "I don't know."

"It'll be okay." Rubi repeated his mantra. "There's three of you and the Locktipus sleeps like a stray cat. He'll take care of you."

It was true that whenever I'd gone walkabout around Locke, he'd always caught me before I'd got too far. But what if he wasn't there? My brain rerouted to the one time he hadn't been. When I'd smashed a guitar against the wall. When Decoy had fucked his shoulder up restraining me until I'd simmered down again.

"That was different." Saint spoke for the first time all morning, engaging his spy hole into my worst thoughts. "You thought Locke was dead."

"This might come to that."

"It won't."

Saint's soft declaration quieted the storm in my heart, and I realised how much I'd needed that too. His otherworldly confidence in an outcome none of us had any hope of controlling.

I nodded, slowly, and a wave of tension left my body. Rubi was going to manifest. Saint had the faith. And Locke had us safe in his big arms no matter what. Combined with everything else, it had to count for something—for everything . Locke was right—there was no other way.

After breakfast, church fizzled out. The dads had shit to do while their kids were at school, and everyone else had legitimate jobs now we were all in again with our best attempt at good behaviour.

I watched them all leave, heading Cam's silent command to stay put.

Only Locke lingered. "You okay?"

"Yeah." I tilted my face to meet his concern. "You're going home, right?"

To be her bodyguard. Her lover. Her friend.

"I can wait for you?"

"No." Go home to her .

Locke nodded, understanding. "Get someone to drive you if you need it."

Denial bloomed in my throat, but my battered leg throbbed, cutting it off, and I found myself agreeing before Locke left.

I didn't like being without him. Locke was more than my lover. Like Orla, he was part of me. The three of us and five kids, baby Wren as real to us as the little jelly-armed walnuts in Orla's belly.

A family of eight.

Fuck. I wanted that.

Cam made coffee. He brought it back and tossed his cigarettes over my head and into the bin. "Daddy Nash."

"Uncle Cam."

He smiled, from the bottom of his big O'Brian heart. But it didn't last. "I'm really fucking sorry you couldn't tell me most of that years ago."

"It wasn't my story to tell."

"Yeah, well. I'm sorry about that too." Cam let his gaze drift to the window and across the yard—to where Saint and Alexei had unusually chosen to hang out rather than evaporate into thin air. "I've piled too much shit on you."

"No, you haven't."

Cam heaved a sigh, his mind circling a thousand things before he came back to me. "You need to stay off the road."

"I'm not stepping down."

"That's not what I said."

"What are you saying then?"

He got up and let his heart draw him to the tinted glass that allowed him to see his lovers better than they could see him. Saint was sweeping up litter. Pretty sure Alexei was heckling him, but they still looked cute. And sweet as fuck as Saint ditched the broom to whisper something that made Alexei smirk.

Cam didn't smile. He put his back to them, for a stricken second, his gaze wide open as he turned it on me. Then he shuttered it, and it dawned on me what was happening. That he was shutting me out. For my own sake. For Orla, Locke, and our unborn children.

You don't have to do this. But the words stayed throttled in my chest, because I knew Cam, and even if there were a thousand of me, nothing and no one would stop him from falling on his sword to protect us.

A different fear threatened the one that had taken out a lease agreement that would last beyond Orla's due date. One I'd felt before, but had grown complacent of over the past few quiet months we'd lived through. "Is this about Ranger?"

"Is what about Ranger?"

"Whatever's folding your face into a broken deck chair."

Cam glared. It looked good on him, but Orla's was better. "Ranger rode out."

"I know that." I darted an unwitting glance to the cigarettes in the bin before I caught myself. "I fixed his bike up while he was climbing the walls in the residence. Got it road ready after he'd barely put air in the tyres for six months. Now I'm wondering why he suddenly gave a shit about it conking out on him."

"Uh-huh."

I rolled my eyes at the O'Brian speak. Cam didn't often use it on me, and when he used it on other people to fob them off, I usually agreed with him. But I didn't like the shadows that crept over him as we stared each other down. "Are you okay?"

"I need you to not ask me that fucking question for the next few months. If you can give me that, I promise I won't lie to you."

"That's a shitty deal."

Cam laughed, humourless, but somehow saturated with emotion. "Brother, it's all I have."