Page 105 of The Fine Art of Faking It
There was a cheerful pop of a champagne bottle. “Since we had so much to celebrate this year,” Donovan said, pouring a round of champagne into plastic cups, “we thought we should have a toast.”
“What a lovely idea,” Phoebe sighed. Her gigantic wine glass had made the trek from Jax’s to Carter’s and had been refilled.
The cups were distributed, and all gazes landed back on Donovan. He tucked his wife under his arm and promptly lost the power of speech.
Noticing her husband’s predicament, Eva cleared her throat. “So. Um. We’re pregnant.”
There was dead silence around the table. Phoebe was the first to recover and ran squealing for Eva. Eden, Davis noticed, looked decidedly unsurprised.
“Well, this is the first I’m hearing about this,” Jax said loudly.
Carter punched his brother in the shoulder.
“Why don’t you look surprised that we’re going to be an aunt and uncle?” Gia demanded, poking Beckett in the arm with one hand while she wiped away happy tears with the other.
“Who? Me?” Beckett asked.
Donovan made a slashing motion over his throat, and then his father and mother were pulling him into a back-slapping hug.
Franklin was taking his turn hugging his youngest daughter. “We’re going to need a bigger bunkroom,” he announced. “All of these wonderful grandbabies!”
“Congratulations, Eva,” Carter said warmly.
“Why aren’t you congratulating Donovan, too?” Summer asked, her eyes narrowed shrewdly at her bearded husband.
Emma gave a very un-Emma-like squeal. “We’re going to have babies together,” she said, wrapping her sister in a tight hug. “Baby buddies. Isn’t that a wonderful surprise, Niko?”
“The best kind of surprise,” he agreed.
Summer pointed an accusing finger at her friend. “Nikolai Vulkov! You’re not surprised either.”
“Mayday. Mayday,” Jax whispered to Davis.
“Jackson Scott,” Joey’s voice rang out.
Jax picked up Caleb and held the boy in front of him as a shield.
“You sneaky sons of b—ears,” Joey corrected herself at the last second. “You knew!”
Eva gasped and stared up at Donovan. “Youtoldthem?”
Donovan was back to speechless.
“It wasn’t his fault. We were talking about vasectomies and kids, and he didn’t tell us, but he got this…” Davis trailed off, feeling the weight of a roomful of female glares. Eden cautiously stepped in front of him.
“He got the stupid, goofy ‘I’m going to be a daddy’ look,” Jax said, jumping in to swim with the sharks.
“Leave it alone, man,” Beckett sang under his breath. “Don’t try to save him.”
“I can’t believe you told everyone,” Eva said, hands on her hips.
“We practically beat it out of him,” Davis insisted.
Donovan shot him a look of gratitude.
“Honey, I—” he started but stopped when Eva dabbed her eyes with a festive cartoon turkey napkin.
“No, it’s okay. I just had hoped we could have this big surprise.”
