Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

BAILEY

I ’m speechless. I have no words for this. I think I’m in shock.

“Excuse me?” I hear Tanner’s deep voice bellowing in the hallway. “What did you just say to her?”

Tanner walks into my room and takes in my state of undress. His eyes practically bug out of his head.

Linc shrugs. “Sorry, man. I know you’re into her, but we slept together a decade ago. You went to UCLA, right?”

I can only nod.

He winks at me. “Best lay I ever had. I never forgot it. And she gives great head.”

I’m not sure what Tanner is going to do right now, if his anger will be at me or his brother, but he grabs Linc by the shirt and shoves him against the door. “Watch your fucking mouth. Don’t disrespect her. Ever.”

I cry, “Tanner. I’ve never touched him. I swear. I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

He nods. “I know. You’d never stoop so low as to let a guy like him near you.” He then turns his attention back to Linc. “Why are you here? What do you want? ”

“I wanted to reconnect. To spend time getting to know Hailey.”

“It’s Harper, you fuckwit, and you’ve had nine years to connect with her. Stay away from my kid. Is it money you want?”

Linc smiles awkwardly. “I’m a little low. If you’re offering, I’d be up for that. Dad has become a scrooge in his old age.”

I hear the front door open and close. Kam stops at my doorway to see the commotion, easily assessing that it’s a contentious situation. She looks Linc up and down. “You look familiar.”

Linc’s head toggles between me and Kam as things start to make sense to both Tanner and me.

Kam slowly nods. “Oh, right, I remember you. Rocco’s Tavern in LA. Worst lay I ever had. You never forget your worst. Why are you here?”

I answer, “He’s Tanner’s brother.”

She lets out a laugh. “Holy shit. That’s crazy. I guess Tanner got the sexual prowess genes in the family.” She looks down at Linc’s crotch area. “And the girth. And the length. This fucker was blowing up my phone for months. Remember when I had to block a guy who I was afraid was going to boil a bunny in our kitchen? This was him. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. What a loser.”

I remember that. She was actually a little freaked out. She showed me a picture of him so I knew to steer clear. That’s why he looked familiar when I saw him.

Tanner tightens his jaw. “I think this little visit is over, Linc. I don’t want you in my house ever again. And stay away from my daughter, Bailey, Kamryn, and Fallon. This is your one and only warning.”

He pulls him away from my doorway toward the front door. Kam walks into my room and shuts the door.

“That guy is an asshole.”

I nod. “Yep.”

“I’m guessing he and Tanner aren’t close? ”

“No, not at all. He was a dick to Harper earlier. It’s certainly clear Fallon doesn’t like him. Poor Tanner.”

“Poor Tanner? What about me? I had sex with the shithead.”

“You’ve had sex with a lot of shitheads. That’s nothing new.”

She lets out a laugh. “True. Good ones are hard to find, both men and women. I swear there are more crazy people than normal ones out there.”

“And which category do you think you fall into?”

She smiles. “You’re feeling salty today. I like it.”

I sigh. “I’m just realizing why Tanner is the way he is. I may have been too hard on him.”

“Maybe I have too.”

My jaw drops. “What?”

She rolls her eyes. “Look at all he’s done for you. I know we clash at times, but he’s obviously gone above and beyond for you, Bails.”

“I know he has.” I motion toward her shopping bags. She’s got three big ones. “I see you were shopping. What did you get?”

“I needed a few things.” She reaches into one, pulls out a box of condoms, and throws it on my bed. “I got you some more condoms. You two have been having so much sex, you must be running low, right?”

She stares at me oddly, waiting for a response. This feels like a test. One I’m about to fail.

I scrunch my face. “I know it’s against your rules, but we haven’t been using condoms.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Bails, didn’t the doctor tell you they had to remove your IUD when they removed your ovary?”

I shrug. “Yes, but Tanner is shooting blanks. It doesn’t matter. He hasn’t been with anyone else since me. I needed to feel all of him. I needed things to be like they were the first time around.” Holding up my hands before she argues with me, I say, “I know you think I’m in over my head, but I truly needed him the past month. He’s my happy place. You know it’s helped me. ”

She takes a few deep breaths and rubs the spot on her forehead like she does when she’s stressed. I’m not sure why it’s a big deal.

“Kam, I need to talk to you about something and you’re not going to be happy.”

She visibly swallows but simply nods her head. I think on some level she knows what’s coming.

“I know you mentioned us moving back home.”

“And?”

“Kam, I love him. I’m in love with him. I know I’ll never love a man more than I love this one. If the ups and downs of the past year have taught me anything, it’s that. And I know he loves me right back. You can’t possibly argue with that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that maybe I can be flexible. Maybe I don’t need marriage and kids of my own if I have him and Harper. Sometimes life doesn’t go exactly how you plan. You’ve got to go with it. Look at what happened to me. It’s given me some perspective.” I run my fingers through my hair. “I just…I need him. My heart belongs to him. I can’t be without him anymore.”

She has an unreadable look on her face. I thought she’d yell and scream about me giving up on what I’ve always wanted for a man. It’s basically against everything she stands for.

In the wake of her deafening yet odd silence, I continue, “I think you should move back to the apartment. I’m going to talk to Tanner about telling Harper about us and giving this a go. My heart is telling me that this is where I belong. He’s my home.”

She remains silent. Kamryn Hart has never been silent about anything in her entire life.

“Say something. You not screaming at me is unsettling.”

She lets out a nervous laugh before pinching her lips together. “I think I need to sit on it for a minute. Let me know when dinner is ready. I…umm…need to do some research on my computer.”

What?

“Oookay. If that’s what you want. I’m happy to talk about it whenever you’re ready. I need you to be okay with it before I move forward. I need your support. I can’t have the two people I love the most playing tug-of-war over me. I want us all on the same page.”

She nods. “Just give me time to process. I want to react…appropriately.”

She’s legitimately the knee-jerk-reaction queen of the world, but if this is the first time in her life she wants to take a step back and process, I’ll certainly let her do so.

She starts to leave, but I stop her. “Hey, Kam?”

She turns her head back and answers, “Yeah?”

“Thanks for being here with me the past few months. I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.”

Tears fill her eyes, and she walks over and hugs me. “It’s been an honor. You’ve taken care of me for thirty years. It was about time I returned the favor. I love you, Bailey, more than anything in the world. I truly want you to be happy. You deserve it.”

“I love you too. And I want you to be happy too. That’s why I want you to go home and get back to your real life. You probably miss sex.”

She scoffs. “I’ve been having sex. I might be a good sister , but I’m not a nun.”

I giggle. “That was a good one.”

She squeezes my arm. “Don’t make any rash decisions about your life until we’ve talked, okay?”

I feel like she’s speaking in code. “Umm, okay.”

She leaves, and, as I’m getting dressed, Tanner walks back in with pain written all over his face. “I’m sorry about that. He’s…umm…not a good guy. Never has been.”

I shake my head. “I don’t care from my perspective; I just didn’t like the way he talked to Harper.”

He sighs. “Neither did I. It doesn’t make the way he talked to you remotely acceptable. I’m truly sorry you had to endure that.”

He sits on my bed looking a little distraught.

I’m seated next to him, rubbing his back. “Are you okay?”

He shakes his head. “Even though I want to wring her neck at times, you’re lucky to have Kamryn. I’ve grown to envy your relationship with her. So much so that I was planning to reach out to Linc to see if we could rebuild our relationship. When he showed up at the door, I allowed myself a moment of hope that we could turn things around, but I see now that it will never happen. He’s not a good guy and no amount of optimism will ever change that.”

I lean my head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It can’t be easy.”

“It’s not. You’re so fortunate to have someone you inherently trust. Someone you know will always be there for you.”

I want to reassure him that I can be that for him forever if he wants, but I want to wait to talk to Kam more about it. She asked me to wait, and I want to give her that. I need her support. I hate seeing him like this though. It makes me sick to my stomach. In fact, I’m actually getting sick to my stomach.

I sprint toward the bathroom, fall on my knees in front of the toilet, and puke up everything I’ve eaten today. Where did that come from? I hope I’m not coming down with something.

Tanner is suddenly there holding my hair, rubbing my back. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “Sorry. That came out of nowhere.”

“Why don’t you get into bed? You may have overdone it today. I’ll order dinner.”

He’s right. I’m exhausted. I did a lot today. Getting into bed suddenly sounds like the best plan ever.

TANNER

I order Chinese food and extra soup for Bailey. When I call everyone to dinner, Kamryn asks where Bailey is .

I answer, “She wasn’t feeling great. I think she did too much today. She’s in bed.”

“She seemed fine an hour ago when I was in there.”

“Right after you left, she puked. That’s why I ordered dinner. I didn’t want her to have to cook. And I stocked up on plenty of soup for her.”

Kamryn chokes on her water. “She puked?”

“Yes.”

Harper asks, “Can I bring Bails her soup? She’s probably hungry.”

I nod. “Sure, bug. I’m sure she’d love it even more coming from you. Grab some crackers.”

Kamryn mutters, “Bring the whole box of saltines. She’s gonna need it.”

Harper leaves with a tray of soup. Kamryn appears nervous and on edge. I’ve never seen her this way.

I stare at her. “What’s wrong with you? Are you sick too? We don’t need a sick house.”

She wordlessly shakes her head.

I ask, “Is this about our conversation from earlier today?”

She widens her eyes and motions toward Fallon.

I shake my head. “Fallon knows. You can speak freely.”

“She knows you had a vasectomy reversal?”

Fallon pinches her eyebrows together. “You already had it? You told me you were thinking about having one. I didn’t know it was done.”

I nod. “I thought I told you I had the procedure. I guess not. I had it months ago, shortly after we originally spoke about it.”

“Oh. Did it take?”

“I find out next week. I’m waiting to tell Bailey, hoping it’s good news.”

Fallon’s head jerks before her eyes rapidly move from Kamryn to Bailey’s room and back to Kamryn again. Her mouth widens. “Didn’t Bailey have her—”

Kamryn blurts out, “Yes, she did.”

I shake my head in confusion. I feel they’re speaking a different language. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

Kamryn stands and grabs Fallon’s hand. “We need to talk. We’ll be right back.”

They run out of the kitchen toward Kamryn’s room, slamming the door behind them.

Has everyone lost their minds?

Harper reemerges. She and I end up having dinner alone. I have no idea what Kamryn and Fallon are doing. I know they’ve gotten close, but I’m clearly missing what’s going on under my sorority house roof.

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. I open it and find Arizona and Ripley. Arizona is holding her belly, heavily pregnant now with her and Layton’s daughter.

Ripley looks nervous. “Umm, Kam called us.” She points toward her room. “We need to go see her.”

I open the door wider. “Please, join the Montgomery looney bin. Everyone is off their rockers tonight. Must be a full moon.”

They run toward Kamryn’s room, open her door, and then quickly close it behind them. I look back toward Harper, and she shrugs. “They’re all maniacal, Dad.”

I nod. “I can’t argue with that. I think I have too many women in my life.”

She giggles. “Girls are the best.”

I smile. “You’re right, they are, but I don’t think I ever imagined this many living in my house.”

Harper and I have just cleaned up dinner when the psycho sorority sisters all reappear, dragging an unwilling Bailey with them.

Kamryn nervously chews her lip as she moves her pointer finger between Bailey and me. “Umm, we need to talk to you two.” She nods toward Harper. “Almost all of us. Rip, can you take Harper upstairs?”

Ripley shakes her head with a huge grin on her face. “No way I’m missing this.”

Kamryn sighs. “Arizona, can you?”

“Heck no. I’m staying right here.”

Fallon rubs Harper’s arm. “Sweetie, I’m sorry, but we have a few adult things to discuss. Can you go take your shower now? You can stay up past your bedtime tonight if you do.”

“Can we watch a movie?”

Fallon smiles. “Anything you want.”

Harper agrees and happily runs upstairs. When we hear her bathroom door close, Fallon points toward the living room and cryptically says, “I think we should all sit for this.”

As we’re walking, Bailey glances at me, and I shrug. She’s clearly in the dark like me.

I pull her to sit next to me. I’ve given up pretending we’re anything less than what we are. I love her, and I don’t care anymore who knows. It’s not like everyone sitting here doesn’t know anyway.

I stare at the firing squad. “Can someone clue us in on what’s happening?”

Everyone turns to Kamryn. She laces her fingers together and places them in her lap. “I think there’s been a little…miscommunication, but I’m pretty sure the result is a good one, even if unexpected.”

Bailey pinches her eyebrows together. “What in the world are you talking about? You’re acting so ducking weird tonight.”

Kamryn looks at me. “Tanner, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you did not know that Bailey’s IUD came out with her ovary.” She raises her eyebrows like something should be clicking for me.

“No, I didn’t know tha—” And then it hits me. I whisper, “Holy shit.”

Kam nods. “Yep.” She pops the P.

My mind starts spinning. No IUD, a vasectomy reversal, no condoms, a lot of sex, and she just threw up with no real reason. She’s pregnant. Bailey Hart is pregnant with my baby.

A huge smile finds my face. I honestly wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it if the moment ever came, but now that it’s here, I couldn’t be happier. Ecstatic. Thrilled. Elated.

I turn to Bailey, the only one still in the dark, and hold up a finger. “Give me one minute. I need to go get something.”

I run to my office and open my safe, grabbing the box that’s been sitting there for many months before practically sprinting back to the living room.

I stand in front of Bailey and grab both her hands. “Sweet girl, I love you so fucking much.”

Her eyebrows pinch together in confusion. “Umm, okay. I love you too, but I feel like Kam was just about to tell us something. Can we discuss this later?”

Without another word, I drop down to one knee.

Her jaw drops with it. She swivels her head and looks at everyone else with their giant grins before turning back to me. “W…what are you doing?”

“I know we took the road less traveled, but I love you and want to spend my life with you.”

“I…I thought you didn’t want to get married again?”

“You’ve brought color to the parts of my life I thought would forever remain gray. I’m a changed man from living under the light of your love. I want to spend every single day of my life loving you back. Marry me.”

I think she’s toggling between emotional and confused. “ Why right this second? What am I missing? I love you, and I want to be with you, but I feel like everyone is in on a big secret but me.”

“Do you want to spend your life with me? As husband and wife?”

Tears begin streaming down her cheeks. “I do. And I know what I’m giving up, but I’m willing to give that up to be with you. And I’m not really giving it up. I gain Harper and I love that little girl as much as I would if she were mine.”

“I know you do. It’s one of the million reasons I love you.”

“Tanner, we don’t have to get married. I’m okay to just be with you.”

I grin. “I want to marry you. More than anything.”

She turns her head to Fallon. “Are you okay with this?”

Fallon has tears in her eyes. “I love you for thinking of me during your special moment, but I’m more than okay. Another person loving and protecting Harper sounds good to me.” She smiles. “To be clear, I’m not going to be one of those ex-wives whose entire TikTok personality is videos of her and her baby daddy’s new wife getting along.” She exhales a breath. “Fine, one TikTok a month together. But that’s it.”

Bailey and all the girls laugh. I don’t know what any of that means, but I think it was nice.

She looks back at me with all the love in the world and nods her head emphatically. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

I kiss her hard and place the ring on her finger. Rubbing her face with my thumbs, I look into her big brown eyes and shock her to her core. “One more thing. Sweetheart, you’re pregnant.”

BAILEY

Tanner looks at me with all the love in the world. “Sweetheart, you’re pregnant.”

I’m frozen in place. I can’t move a single inch. He said pregnant, right?

I hear Kam’s voice. “Don’t piss yourself.” She mumbles, “She pissed her bed until she was eight.”

I blink a few times, turn to her, and deadpan, “Perfect time to bring that up. Thank you.”

She smiles and winks at me.

I look back at Tanner, who has an enormous grin on his handsome face, and say, “I’m pregnant?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“How?”

Again, Kam’s intruding voice says, “It happens when a penis goes into the vagina and—”

“Kam! Not now!” I snap.

The four of them giggle.

Tanner squeezes my hands. “I didn’t know about your IUD being removed. And you didn’t know that I had a vasectomy reversal.”

“A what? When?”

“A vasectomy reversal. A few weeks before your accident.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was going to wait for them to run tests to make sure it worked before I told you. I didn’t want to get your hopes up only for you to be heartbroken.”

“You haven’t had the tests yet?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Then I might not be pregnant.”

Kam interrupts, again, “I did research on it. Reversing it isn’t that big of a deal. The success rate is high. That, along with your lack of birth control, the number of times I heard you orgasm through the thin walls the last several weeks, and the vomiting all tell me you’re pregnant. I’m also your twin. I can sense it.” She grabs her boobs. “I think my tits have sympathy tenderness.”

I’m still processing. “I think we should go buy a test.”

Kam nods. “That’s where I was earlier. I bought, like, a dozen pregnancy tests for you.”

“Okay. I’ll take one in a minute.” I look at Tanner. “Is that why you proposed? Because you think I’m pregnant?”

He raises one of his thick eyebrows. “And I just so happened to have had a ring for you? No. I bought this ring before your accident, at the same time I decided to get the procedure. I was waiting to propose until I found out if I could give you babies. I won’t take that from you.”

I take his handsome face in my hands. “Whether I’m pregnant or not today or ever, I still want to be with you. I love you. I will always love you, no matter what.”

He places his hands over mine and looks at me with all the sincerity in the world. “Maybe the pregnancy changed my timeline, but I want to marry you. I have for a long time.” He smirks. “I promise it’s not a taradiddle.”

I can’t help but smile.

He stands and pulls me to him. “Let’s go find out. Whether you are or aren’t, I want to marry you and will do my best to give you everything you want and deserve. I can think of nothing better than filling this house with you by my side.”

My heart feels like it might burst. I love him so much. I can’t help but bring my lips to his.

Ten minutes later, six pregnancy tests are sitting face down on the bathroom countertop, because it’s totally normal for each person to want to read their own. It’s a good thing I had a huge bowl of soup and therefore plenty of pee inside me.

Kam giggles. “This is like our senior year in college when all four of us were late and took pregnancy tests.”

Fallon asks, “All four of you? That’s odd.”

She nods. “Turns out we’re all dumbasses and took our birth control pills a week earlier than we were supposed to. ”

Arizona shakes her head. “I still don’t know how we managed that. We took our pills together at breakfast each day and not one of us noticed that we started a new pack a week early. Idiots.”

Ripley smiles. “We were planning a Golden-Girls -like baby commune. All living together with our babies.”

Fallon’s eyebrows raise. “Ooh, that sounds like fun.”

Kam nods. “It would have been. We had this whole Golden-Girls theme planned, but it was going to be Olympic gold, not old-age gold.”

Tanner shakes his head in disbelief. “Can we focus on the task at hand?” He glances at his watch. “It’s time.”

My mouth is dry. My heart is beating fast. Everyone takes a test and holds it face down in their palm. Tanner flips his over first. A big smile finds his handsome face. “Pregnant.”

I look at mine, and a moment of absolute bliss takes over. Warmth floods my body. I whisper, “Pregnant.”

Everyone else flips theirs over.

“Pregnant.”

“Pregnant.”

“Pregnant.”

“Pregnant by Daddy Tanner’s new and improved swimmers.”