Page 134 of The Strike Zone

“Tanner?” I called out again. “Tan?”

“Find him?” Lux asked when I walked back to the kitchen.

“No.” I shook my head. “Can you call him? Maybe he went in already?”

“No one’s that excited about dogs,” he replied, hitting Speed Dial on Tanner’s number.

The three of us waited for him to pick up, only it rang out.

“This isn’t right. There’s no way he would have left without us, he’s slept in his bed. Can you two go and get ready, we need to find him.”

Ace drained his cereal, placed the bowl in the sink, and jogged down to his room, the opposite direction Lux had gone. I’d finished the coffees for Scout and me, and was grabbing an apple when the elevator pinged, and out walked Tanner.

“Hey! Guys, he’s back…” I called out loud enough for them all to hear me. “Bud, where’ve you been? We called you.”

He could have been mistaken for a robot for how still he was. I watched as he walked to the couch, his face a mask devoid of expression, and sat down. When the bright morning light caught him, it only highlighted how pale he was.

I perched on the coffee table opposite him. “Tanner, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

For the first time since he’d walked in, he focused on me instead of looking into the distance. While I waited for him to speak, he removed his cap, slowly pushed his fingers through his hair, and sat forward. “Millie’s pregnant.”

My inhale was so sharp, the bite of apple I’d just taken was sucked into my throat, where it lodged. Panic ensued. Not that Tanner noticed, he was back to staring into space while I tried to cough out the apple—it didn’t work. I tried to scratch it out, I tried anything I could to loosen it becauseI couldn’t breathe.

This is how I would die, by Tanner telling me the girl he liked was pregnant with another man’s baby.

Somehow, I managed to stand up and throw myself against the edge of the couch. Where the fuck was everyone else? Why had no one else rushed out to see where Tanner had been? I’ll tell you why, because they were all selfishly going about the same business, whatever the fuck that was, as I fell onto the back of the couch over and over.

I was about to give up hope when the apple projected through the air, landing by Tanner’s feet, and I collapsed to the floor, coughing and gasping for oxygen.

“Tan…fuck…” I crawled to where he was still sitting. It was only when I arrived back in front of him that he seemed to notice that I hadn’t been there for the past minute.

He blinked at me. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I croaked, picking up the apple and launching it as far as I could into the kitchen and out of my sight. “Are you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What happened?” I turned back to the kitchen, where the fuck were Lux and Ace? “Guys? Can you come here? It’s urgent.”

Lux appeared first, typing away on his phone, while Ace sauntered down from his bedroom holding a coffee cup. Both of them frowned when they saw me on the floor.

“What’s up? Are you okay?

“No,” Tanner and I answered in unison.

Ace stopped by the couch. “What are you doing?”

“Tanner has something to tell you, but can you put the coffee down first?” I wasn’t about to get sprayed with it, and our housekeeper was already annoyed with the amount of spillages she’d had to get out of the rugs.

Ace frowned but placed the coffee on the table. I turned to Lux, who looked equally confused.

“Okay, Tan. Go.”

He paused and took a deep breath. “Millie’s pregnant.”

Ace’s mouth dropped, and my eyes flicked to Lux. “Did you know about this?”

He shook his head, again mirroring Ace’s expression. “No. No, I didn’t. Does Radley know?”

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