Page 253 of Labor of Love

“Of course I do.” Starry waved his free hand in the air. “You’re my best friend.”

“Wow.” He shifted the baby to one arm so he could use the other to give Starr a huge hug. “I knew you weremybest friend, but to hear you say that is amazing. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Starry squeezed him and then stepped back. “Okay, we have a lot of work to do on this party that we’re planning for Des. Whatever it is he’s doing. I never know he just gives me the theme, and we make the party.”

Reed chuckled, because as the leaders of their clan, Des and Starry were expected to entertain, and Starry always complained, but he loved it.

“Right. It’s for some sort of charity thing, which is weird, because usually you’re the charity person. But he gave us the entire list of guests and food preferences and all that stuff. And also a list of who should absolutely not sit near each other.”

“Well, that’s helpful, at least. Usually, he’s a lot more obscure about things.”

“I think Hamish helped. I said something to him last time about the wild instructions that Des sends to us, and Hamishsaid he would see if he could get Des to make more sense. And not necessarily hand write everything,” he teased.

“Now that’s wise. Come on. Let’s go do this planning meeting, and then we can eat ice cream for lunch.” Starry went to push a call button for the nanny.

“That sounds amazing.” Reed tilted his head. “You never eat ice cream for lunch, though, unless… Starry, are you pregnant too?”

His friend beamed at him. “I think so, but I haven’t taken the test yet, so I haven’t told Des. “So, keep it under your vest.”

“Oh my God!” Reed took another huge hug, and they both laughed like loons. “We’re going to be pregnant together!”

Starry just grinned at him. “We are. I can’t think of anything I would rather do than share this with you.”

“Same!” Somehow just knowing that he wasn’t in this alone -- and he didn’t mean Hamish. Of course, Hamish was going to be there for him -- but knowing that he and Starry were going to be experiencing this together made everything easier. It made the worries about his father ease right off all of a sudden. Reid thought he could do this now. And that was worth ten planning meetings where he had to try to read Des’s handwriting.

“Did you get this stuff for the charity party to Reed?” Des asked Hamish, scribbling something in his day planner. He really was an analog dragon.

Hamish nodded. “Yeah, I did. The seating chart was really helpful.” He had to grin across the desk at Des, because Des hated doing charity auctions and formal dinners and all of the attendant things that happened with this particular yearly event,but he knew that it was important, so he had thrown himself into it wholeheartedly.

“Good. Good.” Des closed the planner on his desk and sat back in his fancy chair. “So is there anything else we need to talk about today? Any security issues?”

Hamish was Des’s head of security, and it was a heck of a job, as big and prosperous as their dragon clan was getting.

“Nothing like that, no. I did have some news for you, though.” Hamish took a deep breath because he still couldn’t believe what Reed had told him. They were going to have a baby, and he was over the moon.

“Hmmm? What’s that?” Des was smiling, in a great mood, and this was the perfect time to tell him about Reed being pregnant.

“Reed and I are going to have a baby. He’s pregnant. I just found out yesterday.”

Des’s eyebrows rose to his hairline almost. “Hamish that’s fantastic! Congratulations.”

He beamed at Des. “It is, isn’t it?”

“It so is, my friend. I’m so happy for you.” Des crossed his arms and frowned a little bit. “But it’s going complicate things, I fear. I have a feeling that his father is not going to be happy.”

Hamish figured Reed’s family was never happy about anything, but he didn’t really care. They’d been awful to Reed, and he didn’t want his omega to ever have to deal with them again. “We’ll mess with that when it comes down to it, I suppose,” Hamish said. “I mean I’ll have contingencies in place in case they show up, but...”

“That’s what I like about you, my friend. You always have a contingency plan.”

Hamish bared his teeth in a feral grin. “I always do all right. And that’s why I’m your head of security.”

“True enough.” Des leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, studying him. “Do you need bigger quarters?”

He blinked. “I don’t know. I never thought about that. I do sort of have a one-bedroom open concept, don’t I?”

“You do, and that doesn’t work very well for babies. Now, you could keep what you have, and we could just modify it and tear down some of the walls. That will make you more bedrooms.”

“You would do that?” They lived in a serious hardcore high rise, and Des wasn’t particularly invested in tearing things apart. He believed in the value of real estate as it was created, but maybe…

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