Chapter 25

Ari: Helloooo Daddy.

Me: It sounds creepy when you say it like that.

King Linc: He didn’t say it. He texted it.

Me: Same difference when it comes to Lancaster.

Ari: Would you prefer ‘Daddy Disney’? Daddy…actually that’s as far as I got.

Me: I’ll find out today.

Ari: Oooh. I’ll totally act surprised when Olivia tells Blake.

Me: She won’t exactly know today…

King Linc: She won’t exactly know? How the fuck are you going to find out without her knowing?

Me:…

Ari:…

King Linc:…

King Linc: Good boy.

“What is that smell?” Olivia groaned as she walked into the kitchen.

“Eggs?” I asked, confused as I turned towards her with the skillet of breakfast I was about to spoon onto our plates.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said, her face pale as she scrambled from the room.

I froze for a second before a big grin lit up my face.

And then I hustled into the bathroom to hold my girl’s hair.

An hour later, I had the news I wanted.

Two pink lines on a stick.

Pregnant.

Best fucking day of my life.

I watched Olivia rummage through the kitchen cabinets, wearing nothing but one of my tees that completely drowned her. The collar had slid off one of her shoulders and my dick twitched as my gaze traced her smooth skin. I couldn’t help but grin at the sight.

She was looking for the coffee, a morning ritual she cherished almost as much as I cherished her. Unfortunately for her little ritual, I had disposed of every last coffee bean in the house.

I’d read that caffeine was a no go during pregnancy, so I’d rid the kitchen of all of her coffee and Diet Coke. I would also be giving up coffee during her pregnancy…just in case somehow the caffeine could be transferred in my cum.

I was not taking any risks.

‘Hey, babe, did you finish off the coffee yesterday?’ she asked with a frown, pushing some hair out of her face. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she turned to face me, her hand still hovering over the empty coffee canister.

That she had just filled for the third time in a week.

I leaned against the counter with practiced nonchalance. ‘No, I thought we had a bunch left.”

Her frown deepened. “So did I. Didn’t we just get some yesterday?”

I shrugged. “I’ll grab some after practice.”

“Let’s go to Starbucks,” she said, sounding a little panicked. “I need my fix.”

Olivia’s caffeine addiction was going to be a problem.

“How about I make you a smoothie instead?” I asked. “Oh, and Mrs. Bentley’s burritos. She sent some to practice with Lincoln.”

“We should try and steal her away from Lincoln,” she murmured, temporarily distracted from her quest for caffeine with the mention of Lincoln’s housekeeper’s burritos.

When I was silent, she turned and glanced at me. “Disney, you simp,” she said in what I assumed was her best attempt at Ari’s voice, “You’re quivering in your shorts just thinking about taking anything away from Lincoln.”

It was true. I would never ever try to steal Mrs. Bentley. Even for the love of my life. I grinned unrepentantly and she laughed.

I started pulling out ingredients for smoothies. I had become an expert over the last week at pregnancy smoothies, blending together fruits, veggies, and a healthy dose of prenatal vitamins. Olivia had no idea that her morning pick-me-up was now laced with all sorts of ingredients meant to nourish a growing baby.

I was desperate for her to realize she was pregnant, but so far she hadn’t seemed suspicious at all about the nausea, increased breast size, and missed periods. I’d specifically searched pregnancy topics on her phone so now all her ads were baby related.

Still nothing.

Apparently getting pregnant was so far out of the realm of possibility for her that she was missing even the most obvious signs.

She went to get some water out of the tap and I hurried to “accidentally” knock her glass over so it all spilled out.

“Oh babe, use the filtered water in the fridge, sink water sucks,” I told her, grabbing the glass and filling it for her. I’d paid to have a super fancy filter put in the fridge that got rid of everything bad because I’d read that tap water had a bunch of toxins in it.

Who knew?

According to my five baby books, apparently everything was bad for you while you were pregnant. Which made my job really hard at the moment keeping everything away from her.

I finished making the smoothie and handed it to her, feeling even more crazy as I stared at her perfection. I wished I knew how she would react to the news. Having a baby with her was the best thing I could ever imagine…but I wasn’t sure she would feel the same way. I could have pointed out her missed period, but I was trying to enjoy this little calm before the storm…just in case she freaked out.

At least she’d never know exactly how she came to be pregnant. That would be far harder news to deliver.

I laughed at that little thought and Olivia raised an inquiring eyebrow. She didn’t ask me what I was thinking about though, since I tended to do that a lot—laugh at random things in my head.

“Drink your smoothie,” I ordered, and she wrinkled her nose.

“What all do you put in these? They taste a little different than usual,” she commented as she took a long draw from her straw.

“Just some vitamins,” I answered innocently, obviously leaving out the fact that she was gulping down the most expensive prenatal supplements that money could buy.

Nothing was too good for my two babies.

I was pretty sure that the role of the smoothie-making, coffee-banning, overprotective partner was my life calling.

Hopefully she was cool with that.

Later that day, as we headed out for a walk in the park after my practice, I made sure to keep a close eye on her. I insisted on carrying the heavy bag with our picnic essentials, brushing off her protests.

‘You’re glowing today, baby,’ I murmured, watching her with adoration as she told me about a song she’d been writing that afternoon.

Her cheeks flushed pink, and my mouth watered. My sex drive had been even more insane knowing she was pregnant, like I had some kind of pregnancy kink.

Another thing for me to examine later.

We settled down on a patch of grass, and I pulled out the blanket and spread it out, making sure Olivia was comfortable before joining her. My gaze kept dipping to her flat stomach, wishing the bump was already there.

A large and in charge sign that she was mine.

I opened the basket and freaked out when I saw that she’d packed sandwiches for the picnic. Our cook, Marsha, had gone grocery shopping this week before the positive test and our fridge had been full of contraband items before I went through it.

How the fuck had I missed the deli lunchmeat?

“This looks good,” I said, leaning over the basket so that my body was blocking what I was doing, and grabbing the sandwiches so I could slip them behind me. “Let’s see what we got. Fruit salad, chips, pasta salad, and holy fuck….are these Marsha’s german chocolate brownies?”

“Yeah, she made a batch for us this afternoon. But aren’t there sandwiches in there?” she asked, trying to look into the basket.

“What’s that kid doing?” I muttered, throwing the sandwiches as far as I could behind me when she turned her attention over to where I’d been staring.

“Which one?” she asked, confused because there were tons of kids at the park right then.

“He was eating some grass. Really weird,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders when she looked back over to me. “Now what were you saying before that?”

“What? Oh, um. Sandwiches. There were supposed to be sandwiches in the basket.”

I made a big show of moving items and looking around. “I’m not seeing sandwiches, but the rest of it looks amazing.”

“Crap. I’m sorry,” she muttered, her nose wrinkling when I opened up the pasta salad.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Maybe don’t eat that. Something smells off about it.”

“Oh,” I answered, immediately closing the lid while mourning the chance to eat pasta salad. It was my favorite.

“Apparently I didn’t do a very good job with this picnic,” she huffed as I pulled out what was left.

“Looks perfect to me,” I told her as I stared at her hungrily.

She swooned like I’d said something particularly romantic before she grabbed a chip and took a bite.

It was nice to be out here like this with her. I’d stopped leaking where we were going to the paps last week when Jeff had finally come up with more evidence against Marco and Jolette and I could stop with my ruse.

I’d been ignoring texts from them all week, all of them complaining about the lack of recent stories.

The stupid fools had no idea what was coming.

It was nice to have a break from the cameras, although I had liked the pics. I had a folder on my computer with all of them.

A few more weeks and I’d have everything in place so that we could have a lifetime of days like this.

After we’d eaten what was left in the basket—excluding the pasta salad of course, she laid in my arms.

And I pretended it was completely normal for me to cradle her stomach the entire time.