Never Tied Down (The Never Duet #2)

“Anything you want to talk about?”


I could tell he wanted to know what was going on in my head. He wanted reassurance that I wasn’t panicking and that we were okay.

“I guess I’m just kind of drained from the whole weekend, ya know? A lot happened.”

“Yeah,” he replied, still not satisfied with my answer. And that was fine. If there was one thing I could do for Riot from then until forever, it was make him feel secure that I wasn’t pushing him away or shutting him out. If he needed me to tell him, straight up, that I was still there with him, I would, every time.

“Hey,” I said softly, waiting until he turned his face to look at me. “I love you.”

He didn’t respond with words, but he brought my hand up and kissed the back of it.

“I’m worried about Halah,” he said ten minutes later.

I squeezed his hand. “She’ll be okay.”

“She just seemed off, you know? Well, you wouldn’t know because you’ve never met her before. But she just seemed, I don’t know, like something was hanging over her head. And then she kept having to go to the bathroom, and then out by her car…” His voice trailed off and I could practically hear the thoughts ticking in his brain. I bit my lower lip, trying to keep my mouth closed.

“Did you think she was acting strange?” he asked finally, after I’d been silent.

I shrugged. “I don’t think she felt well today.”

“Yeah, but I mean, it was weird, right? She was fine one minute, then sick the next. She was starving, but then she wasn’t hungry.”

I cringed because I knew it was only a matter of time before he came to the same conclusion I had. Finally, I let out a loud sigh. I wasn’t going to just let him flounder around, he needed to be put out of his misery.

“Do you think, possibly, and I’m just throwing this out there, that perhaps…she could be pregnant?”

My question was nearly a physical force. I could almost see the way it hung in the air between us before it landed right on top of his head with a brutal impact.

“Pregnant?” he asked, but more exclaimed. Loudly.

“I don’t know,” I said, pulling my hand free from his, wanting to give him all the space and hands he needed to deal with his emotions. “I just thought the way the smells got to her, how hungry she was, how she kept saying she would be okay, or that it would pass, like she knew exactly what was wrong and knew nothing could be done about it.” I held my hands up and scrunched my shoulders. “It kind of seemed like she was pregnant to me.”

“Pregnant?” he repeated, his face blank except for his eyebrows, which were reaching new and uncharted heights.

“I don’t know. I mean, I could be way off base.”

“Like ‘having a baby’ pregnant?”

“I don’t know of any other kind of pregnant,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. He was quiet for a few more moments and then turned to look at me.

“You think my baby sister is going to have a baby?”

Again, I held up my hands and scrunched my shoulders. “Possibly?”

Then his eyebrows dropped to their regular height, and he got a little quieter. “She did mention something to me about having thirty weeks to figure everything out…”

Oh. My. God.

“Riot,” I said gently, placing my hand on his thigh. “She’s totally pregnant.”

“Shit fucking damn it,” he cursed, as he slammed his palm against the steering wheel.

“She’s probably ten weeks pregnant, which totally explains why she still has morning sickness, why she isn’t showing, and her, uh, emotional instability.” I thought of her eyes at lunch and how they were begging me to save her from her brother finding out she was, indeed, pregnant, and suddenly I felt like a traitor to the female sisterhood. “Listen, you can’t tell her I told you. In fact, you can’t tell anyone. She didn’t even tell me, I guessed. But I figured it out at lunch and I’m pretty sure she knew I’d guessed and she gave me the look that said, ‘Please don’t tell my brother.’ So, please, don’t tell her I told you.”

“I’m just supposed to tell her I figured it out myself?”

“No! She’ll never believe that.” He looked at me, eyebrows back up, offended. “I just mean that she’ll never believe that a man who’s never had a kid or been around a pregnant woman before would put all those clues together.”

“Okay, I won’t tell her. But I’m calling her every week. And I’m texting her daily. What’s she going to do? Have a baby on a cruise ship?”