Page 87 of The Triple Play

Annie rolled her lips between her teeth. “We’ll absolutely consider Melody,” she said firmly, and I caught the way Colton’s shoulders relaxed a little, like he’d been holding onto the suggestion since the moment he’d found out earlier and it was weighing on him.

“We can probably find a way to make Melody work for a boy, too,” I offered, reaching over and patting Colton’s shoulder. “Melvin, maybe.”

“Melvin sounds like an old man,” Xavi snorted. “I really think we should stick with something like Stick or Netta?—”

Annie tossed a pillow at his head, and he yelped, falling into a fit of laughter as he pretended to be mortally wounded.

Slowly, the room slipped into comfortable silence, and we all shifted, getting comfortable beneath the covers in a way that wouldn’t suffocate Xav from being so low down on the bed. Occasional giggles turned into deep breaths and light snoring, and I flipped off the light, tucking myself into Annie’s back.

————

The feel of her shifting against my chest stirred me from sleep.

My eyes blinked open, the low light of the room making it difficult to see, but she was sitting up between me and Xavi, Colton off somewhere behind Xav and snorting lightly, Xavi still out cold.

I reached out to her, my brain still foggy from sleep, and found the clammy skin and ragged rise and fall of her back.

I fully woke up immediately.

“Annie?” I murmured, trying to keep my voice down to not wake the guys.

“Bathroom,” she whispered, but her voice was tight, muffled. “Bathroom.”

Shit. “Okay.”

I pulled the covers back and slid off the side of the bed, reaching out a hand for her to take and come my direction. Her fingers were freezing, but she wrapped them around my hand, letting me pull her to the side of the bed and off it.

“Come on, darling,” I whispered, half tempted to pick her up and carry her there myself, but I knew she’d protest in case she ended up spewing her guts on me.

She shuffled quickly, her bare body following the path she barely knew to the guest bathroom. I trailed her, one hand on her back, gently guiding her right when she tried to go left.

I flicked on the shower light as we got to the bathroom, trying to keep the light low to not assault either of our eyes, and she sprinted for the toilet before dropping to her knees like she’d done it a million times before.

I knelt down beside her, my chest tightening. The light reflected off her damp, sweat-slicked skin, still bare from last night, her body shivering, and I reached up and grabbed the towel from off the rack and threw it over her shoulders for a little extra warmth.

“I’ve got you,” I murmured, gently sweeping her hair out from under the towel and into my hand. My other rested between her shoulder blades as she heaved, wrenching sounds echoing off the bathroom walls, her little whimpers and gasps for breath making my heart break.

It felt wrong, watching her like this. Not because she was sick, but because I couldn’t do anything tostopit — if I could’ve taken it on myself, I would have.

When she finally slumped forward, her breath shuddering, I released her for a second to grab a wash cloth and dampen it. I sat back down beside her and dragged it over her mouth, cleaning her up a bit, then tossed it aside with a promise to myself that I’d come back and sort it out in the morning.

“God,” she croaked, her voice broken and wrecked from the act. “I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head and leaned back against the wall, pulling her into my chest. Her skin was still a little damp, but she was warming back up. “Don’t be. Not for this, never for this.”

“It’s been like this for weeks.” She let her head fall against my shoulder, and I cradled the back of her head, dragging my fingers gently through her hair. “Nausea so bad I can barely keep food down. I saw a doctor last week, he gave me some meds for it, but it’s still a little here and there. It’s worse at night.”

I pressed a kiss to the side of her head, my chest aching for her. “You said your mom had it too, right? When you were on the phone with your dad.”

She nodded against me. “Yeah.”

I exhaled into her hair. “I’m sorry.”

She let out a humorless chuckle. “You just had to hold my hair while I threw up and you’re apologizing tome? Absolutely not.”

I shrugged, kissing her head again. “Weirdly, when I used to think about having a kid someday, I’d imagine this part. The whole being-up-at-three-in-the-morning thing, holding your hair back, trying to make it better. I looked forward to it, somehow. So it doesn’t bother me.”

She gave a breathy laugh, the sound exhausted and small, but it made the ache in my chest dampen a little bit. “You’ve got this whole grumpy-guy persona down pat, but you’re such a softie. Dreaming about being the knight in shining armor and actuallydoingit. You’re down bad, Cole Maxwell.”

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