A good dad.
I pulled her hand up, tucked it in the crook of my arm and we walked with our drinks into the family room.
I stopped because everyone was lounging, except Lee and Indy were standing, Lee’s arm around her shoulders, hers around his waist.
This was not weird, entirely. Lee didn’t often have Indy close when he wasn’t claiming her in some way.
It was just weird they were standing.
My eyes went to Ren to see his eyes were doing a sweep of his mom and me. They stopped on his mom’s face, where it was clear he approved of what he saw, before he looked to me. He was also sitting in an armchair and he tipped his head to the armrest.
Seems another alpha hot guy wanted to claim his woman (yes, again, melty).
I let Amalea go and moved across the room to him. I sat my ass on the rest, felt his arm slide around my hips, and looked up at Indy to see she was looking at me.
But it was Dad who spoke.
“We had a lot of surprises tonight, but now I’ll explain one. And that is that Lee and Indy and Hank and Roxie are here because Lee asked that they be.”
What?
My gaze shot to Roxie who was giving me a wide-eyed look, then we both looked to Indy.
Lee was holding her closer, now with both arms, tucking her front to his side, and Indy had wound both arms around my brother.
“We have something to tell everybody,” Lee took over.
Oh my God.
Oh my God!
Oh my God, God, GOD!
“We already told Tom,” Lee went on, and I felt my eyes get hot as I glued them to Indy.
She looked happy. Not her usual run-of-the-mill, I-married-the-man-of-my-dreams-who-I-loved-since-I-was-five happy (which was pretty freaking happy).
But happy.
Oh.
My.
GOD!
“We’re having a baby,” Lee finished.
At his words, I hurdled from the chair, clapping and shouting, “Oh my God! Oh my God, God, God!”
I made it to Indy just as she pulled away from Lee. We collided and wrapped our arms around each other. I bounced her up and down with me as I kept shouting, “Oh my God, God, God!”
“I know!” Indy shouted back.
I stopped bouncing and pulled away an inch, declaring, “You know it’s a girl—”
Indy interrupted me. “She’s named Allyson.”
I smiled.
Indy smiled back.
My eyes got hot.
Her eyes got wet.
“Oh my God, God, God,” I whispered.
“I know,” she whispered back.
We stared at each other for a long time before Mom asked from our side, “Can I hug my daughter-in-law?”
I didn’t want to let her go.
Then again, I never wanted to let Indy go. My BFF. My partner in crime. My sister of the heart and sister by the law. The soon-to-be mother of my brother’s baby.
No, I never wanted to let her go.
Not ever.
“Sure,” I said, my voice husky, and it took some effort to tear my eyes from Indy’s as I let her go and let Mom move in.
Dad called out, “Champagne.”
“I think we have some in the fridge in the garage, Mal,” Mom told him, hugging Indy.
I moved in after Roxie moved out and hugged Lee.
“Pleased for you, bro,” I said in his ear.
“Not as pleased as me,” he said in mine, his arms going tight.
That was not in doubt.
I pulled back and grinned at him.
He let me go with one arm so he could lift a hand and touch my cheek.
Then he said, “When he or she gets here, do me a favor. Don’t try to convert them to Scientology.”
I burst out laughing, and when I was done, my brother was still holding me close and smiling down at me.
I heard Amalea murmur, “An unexpected honor, but one nonetheless, to be here to hear this joyous news,” thus proving she was total class.
But I was listening with half an ear because I was fully feeling the vibe, looking at my brother’s smile and experiencing it again, almost exactly twenty-four hours after I’d just felt it.
That feeling you get only a handful of times in your life, if you’re lucky.
That feeling that I was lucky to get often.
That feeling of sheer beauty.
*
I was curled up in Ren’s armchair in his non-TV seating area downstairs.
It was the dead of night and I’d twisted the chair so I could look out the window at a sleepy street disturbed only by the occasional car.
I couldn’t sleep, and not for the reasons people normally couldn’t sleep.
No, mine were different.
“Jesus, Ally.”
I turned my head to see Ren’s bare chest, pajama-bottomed legs (and the rest of him) through the shadows walking down the stairs.
“Woke up, you gone, not in the bathroom, you worried me,” he kept talking as he moved across the room toward me.
“I’m cool. Just couldn’t sleep,” I told him.
He stopped by the chair and looked down at me.
A nanosecond after his eyes hit me, he crouched in front of me and reached out a hand to wrap his fingers around my ankle.
“Is everything okay, baby?” he asked in his sweet voice.