Lina: Yeah. You just have to wait for your evil twin to abandon the child you didn’t know about.
Naomi: I was thinking more along the lines of adoption. But I can confirm that the evil twin thing works!
Lina: Hey guys, not to steal the spotlight, but I’m getting married next week!
Me: Has Nash thrown a Morgan hissy fit over baby’s breath yet?
Naomi: There will be no fit throwing of any kind. Only bridal perfection!
45
Snippity-Doo-Dah
Lucian
Nash: Good luck today. Make sure you can still walk down the aisle next week.
Knox: Oh fuck. Today’s the day our boy becomes a man?
Me: Fuck you both very much.
Nash: I’m feeling unloved and used.
Knox: Yeah. Maybe we shouldn’t hold up our end of the deal until Lucy learns to play nice.
Me: I hate you both and plan to kick your asses at my earliest convenience.
Itook a deep breath and straightened my tie in the mirror. On the outside, I looked cool, calm, perhaps a touch pissed off. On the inside, I was a roiling mess of…something. I narrowed my eyes at my reflection.
I was Lucian Fucking Rollins. I didn’t get anxious about shit. I made shit anxious about me.
I adjusted my cuffs one final time, nodded to the mirror, and headed out of the room to kick-start my future.
My future was sitting at the breakfast bar, polishing off an omelet, looking both adorable and sexy in tight jeans and a red sweater with strawberry elbow patches.
“Let’s go,” I said, spinning the keys for the Jag on my index finger.
Sloane looked up, and I caught her quick grin. For years, her first reaction on seeing me was a scowl. I wasn’t about to take that smile for granted.
“You didn’t have breakfast,” she pointed out, glancing at her watch. “And it’s not even 7:30 yet.”
I pressed a kiss to her wrinkled brow. “We’re not going to the office this morning.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, looping her arms around my neck.
“It’s a surprise.”
She frowned. “You didn’t buy a castle, did you?”
“A castle?” I asked, ushering her toward the door. “No. Do you want one?”
“I’m not sure.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sloane looked even more concerned.
“The urologist? Listen, big guy, I’m great at peeing after sex. I swear I don’t have a UTI,” she said, eyeing the building in front of us as I locked the car.
“We’re here for me, not you,” I said dryly.
“Oh God. Did I break your penis with that spinning maneuver?”
“Not yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time,” I said, handing her the keys.
“Are you sick? Is something wrong?” Her eyes were wide and worried behind her glasses.
“I’m fine,” I assured her as I held the glass door open for her. The waiting room was all marble and leather and chrome. There were half a dozen men my age, most looking nervously toward the exit, with unread magazines in their laps.
Sloane trailed me to the check-in desk where I gave the nurse my name and accepted the clipboard she handed over.
“Lucian, what the hell are we doing here?” Sloane hissed.
I turned to face her. “I’m getting my vasectomy reversed.”
What came out of her mouth wasn’t a sentence. It wasn’t even words. It was the garbled tongue of an ancient civilization.
“That was not the reaction I was expecting. That wasn’t even English.”
“Oh my God. You’re willing to have penis surgery just to make babies with me?” Sloane announced to the entire waiting room. She looked like she was about to faint.
I reached for her arm, determined to keep her upright.
“It’s more in the testicles,” a stranger in a golf shirt said, pointing to a helpful 3D model of a ball sack.
I waved a hand in front of Sloane’s face. “Pix? You in there?”
“I think she’s in shock,” the guy’s wife observed as she got out of her chair. “Come here, sweetheart. Let’s get you a drink of water.”
“Vasectomy. Babies,” Sloane murmured. “He’s going to unsnip whatever they snipped just because I want to have a family.”
The woman led her to the beverage center and pressed a paper cup of water into Sloane’s shaking hands. “Well, honey, some men surprise their wives with jewelry. Other men surprise them with surgery on their genitals.”
“Don’t be scared, buddy,” the husband said to me. “It’s in and out, bingo bango. You get to sit on the couch for the rest of the day icing the boys. Nothing to it.”
“Take it from him. This is his second vasectomy. Snippity-doo-dah,” his wife said, returning Sloane to me. “He’s a pro.”
“Say something, Sloane,” I ordered.
She was staring at me with glassy eyes and a dazed expression. I had never in my life seen her make that face before.
“If you don’t say something in the next ten seconds, I’m going to drag the nearest medical professional away from the nearest set of testicles to examine you.”
She bent at the waist and sucked in a dramatic breath.
“Well, hell, Lucian. I didn’t know you were serious about this. I don’t know how to handle this.” She straightened and scrunched up her nose at me. “What if I don’t want to have kids with you?”
“You do,” I assured her smugly.
“Fair point. But if we have kids, we’re going to have to get married. Not that you have to be married to have kids, but because I want to. I want a partner. I don’t want to be a single mom with a baby daddy who sends a check.”
“Judging from the suit, it would be one hell of a check,” the wife mused in not quite a whisper.
“We’re getting married, Sloane. I already told you that.”
“Heh. He thinks he can tell her shit like that,” the husband wheezed in amusement.
“I–I–I just don’t know what’s happening right now,” Sloane said, pacing two steps away from me before returning to pinch me. “You feel real. You look real. Am I real? Did I slip into some kind of alternate dimension? Oh my God, am I the main character from The Midnight Library?”
“You’re not dying,” I said.
“You read The Midnight Library?” Her voice rose a full octave.
“I read all your book club picks,” I told her.
“But why?”
“Why? Jesus, Sloane. Why do you think? Because I love you. I’m in love with you. I’ve had the last twenty-some years to obsess over you from afar.”
The wife elbowed her husband. “You never obsessed over me from afar.”
“That’s because the farthest afar you go is your sister’s book club meetings. Maybe if you went farther, I’d have some room to obsess,” he shot back.
Sloane brought her hands to her face. “Shit. I don’t know what to do or say. Last night, Emry told us to take some time. This isn’t time. This isn’t even a day later! Not that I wanted time because my fertility is probably dropping by the second. But I was so sure there was nothing you could do to prove to me that you meant everything you said. And now…” She trailed off and gestured at my crotch.
“Pixie.”
“Don’t laugh at me. I’m allowed to freak out over this. Damn it,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “I would have handled a castle better.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time.”
“I still don’t see why you couldn’t recover at home,” Sloane said, marching me up the walkway to her front porch.
“I thought you’d like driving the Jag, and I am recovering at home,” I said. It was the truth. The Waltons’ house was the only real home I’d ever known.
“Rest. And ice. That’s what the doctor said,” Sloane reminded me.
“I had minor outpatient surgery. I’m fine,” I insisted as she walked backward up the porch steps, holding me by the biceps. I was sore and hungry, but mostly I was nervous as fuck about this next part.
She was so intent on helping me up the porch steps that she was ankle deep in cherry blossoms before she bothered to look down. “What the…”
I made a mental note to kick Knox’s and Nash’s asses. The Morgan brothers had outdone themselves to the point of insanity. The entire front porch was buried under four inches of cherry blossoms. It looked as if a florist shop had exploded.