Snow White and the Seven Hunks editedbymegan .wps (32 page)

Should I tell them?
Guess what? I’m pregnant!

I could see that going over well, especially since I couldn’t tell them which one of them was the father. All I knew was that it had happened since I’d moved in with them.

If I’d thought there was any chance in hell that I’d get pregnant, I would’ve …

well, done something different … maybe.

I had a bad feeling they weren’t going to take it well so I decided to take the coward’s way out and just not tell them. They were bound to notice at some point, but why do today what I could probably put off for a couple more months, at least?

* * * *

Hunter watched Nicole climb the stairs with frowning intensity and finally glanced at Shaun. Shaun, he saw, was also watching her. After a moment, he dragged his gaze from her, turned absently and headed back into the parlor where Basil and Gabe were going over the storyboard.

Shaun plopped down at one end of the couch. “She isn’t just getting a little

plump, is she?” he asked of no one in particular.

Gabe lifted his head and stared at his brother blankly for a moment.

“Nicole?”

Gabe glanced toward the door, raked a hand through his hair, and sat back. “I

don’t think so.”

Basil gaped at him. “You’re not suggesting … what I think you’re suggesting?”

Gabe’s lips tightened. “It isn’t going to do any good to keep waltzing around it, you know. It isn’t going to go away.”

“Nobody’s waltzing around it!” Hunter snapped. “I just hadn’t noticed! Had

you?” he asked Basil.

Basil flushed faintly. “I thought, maybe, she was just plumping up a little,” he muttered. “How long has she been here?”

Gabe sent him a look. “If you’re trying to figure out if it’s yours or you can blame it on somebody else, forget it. She had her period not long before she left, if you’ll recall.”

“Yes, but … it was a week and a half before she moved back in.”

“You’re starting to piss me off,” Gabe growled at his brother.

“I’m just saying …. How the hell did it happen anyway?” Shaun retorted.

“Well, you stuck your dick in her and you forgot to pull out for the come shot,”

Hunter said dryly.

Shaun shot a bird at him. “She was on birth control, though, right?” He frowned, clearly angry for a few moments before a sudden thought occurred to him. “She went off the pill! She must have! That means she’s decided, right?”

Gabe shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, she didn’t go off the pill … unless she was flushing them and I don’t know why she would. She didn’t know I counted them.”

“You were
counting
her pills?” Basil demanded. “You’re sure you counted SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN HUNKS Kimberly Zant 143

right?”

Gabe glared at him. “I just happened to notice the package!” he snapped. “It was lying on her vanity in plain sight! I didn’t search the medicine cabinet for them.”

“How long have you been counting them?”

“I haven’t been counting them!” Gabe said indignantly. “I just said I saw the

package and I picked it up and looked at it and there was an empty spot everywhere there was supposed to be one!” Of course it had crossed his mind that he could ‘misplace’

them and that would settle the question of whether Nicole stayed or packed up and left, but he hadn’t. Thinking about it didn’t count any more than the idea of replacing them with something else counted, particularly since he hadn’t been able to think of a handy substitute that wouldn’t make her immediately suspicious.

Hunter frowned. “Actually, I looked at the package, too—when I packed up the

stuff in her bathroom. He’s right—at least at that time—she was on the pill.”

“Baby trap!” Shaun said.

“What makes you so damned sure she’s trying to trap you, is what I’d like to

know?” Hunter demanded.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, what the fuck would be the point of deliberately going off the pill to trap any of us when we all know that we’ve all been sleeping with her? She has to know she couldn’t pin it on any one of us!” Gabe said tartly.

They all exchanged a look. “So? She could get a paternity test,” Shaun pointed out.

“She could, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s on the pill—or was when she moved in,” Gabe said tightly.

“Ok, so all that fucking tells us is that it was definitely one of us—we can rule out the other three because it didn’t happen when we were filming the show,” Hunter said.

“It didn’t happen then,” Gabe said, “because she had her period and
that
rules out the possibility. And it isn’t likely that it happened between then and the time she moved in because of her cycle. I looked it up and calculated it. She wouldn’t have been fertile until mid-cycle and she’d moved back in with us by that time. I think it’s mine.”

“What the hell makes you think it’s yours?” Basil demanded.

“Because I was there at the right time?”

“You can’t calculate that close! I was with her the next night. It could be mine!”

Basil growled.

“I don’t see much point in arguing about it,” Hunter put in. “The question is, what to do about it?”

“At this point, I’m thinking we should start shopping for baby stuff,” Gabe said wryly. “I’m not saying I know a hell of a lot about these things, but I’m pretty sure she’s planning on having it.”

“Well hell! That’s going to break up the fucking party—squalling infant, shitty diapers, and no pussy—no tits either if she means to breast feed!” Hunter said in disgust.

Gabe studied him thoughtfully. “You can always get another place.”

Hunter glared at him. “I don’t want to get another place, damn it!”

“You said ….”

“I’m just saying this is getting heavy. I wasn’t planning on starting a family …

yet.”

SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN HUNKS Kimberly Zant 144

“Well, what the fuck makes you think you have?” Gabe snapped. “It’s probably

mine, anyway!”

“You don’t know that she got pregnant right away,” Basil said pointedly. “What if it was the next cycle? How long has she been here? A couple of months?”

“I thought
I
was out of it!” Hunter said dryly. “I looked it up—five months.”

“Five months! You’re sure?” Basil demanded, frowning as he tried to figure it up himself. “What month is this, anyway?”

“She looks like she’s more than a couple of months along anyway,” Gabe said

pointedly. “Hunter’s right—five months and if she got pregnant right away, then she’s got to be at least four. That sounds about right to me.”

“Just when was the last time you were around a pregnant chick?” Hunter

demanded.

Gabe glared at him. “If she’s far enough along
we
noticed, then she damned sure didn’t just get pregnant!”

“The thing that worries me,” Basil said after a little thought, “is that she hasn’t said anything. Why do you think she hasn’t said anything? I mean, if we’ve noticed, it stands to reason she’s figured it out. Besides, she went to the doctor—at least twice since she moved in.”

Gabe frowned. That was the thing that was bothering him, too, had been

bothering him since he’d finally accepted the fact that she
had
to be pregnant. It seemed to him that she would’ve at least told him, because he was as sure as he could be that it was his.

* * * *

I was sure I was about to catch hell when the guys started cupping my rounded belly. Gabe was the first that seemed to notice my belly was taking on a plumpness it hadn’t had before. We’d just had sex and he was idly stroking his hand along my body and then his hand just sort of settled right over my belly and stayed there. I held my breath. The next thing I knew I could hear his heavy breathing that told me he’d lost consciousness.

Basil didn’t even make any pretense of caressing me. He simply settled his hand there and left it.

By the time Hunter and Shaun had done the same thing and not one of them had

said a word, I decided they either hadn’t actually noticed or they were waiting for a confession.

I considered it and discarded it again. I didn’t want to make a general

announcement, damn it! I also didn’t want to point a finger. I decided it was
my
baby.

Why should I tell them?

Seven months into my pregnancy, they took to patting my stomach when they

walked by me and occasionally, when we’d sit in the front parlor watching TV, they would sit with their hand on the mound, waiting for baby to kick.

I had to suppose Gabe finally got tired of waiting for me to announce it. One

night after we’d had sex, he simply moved to my belly and lowered his head, as if he was trying to listen in.

“Do you think it’s a boy? Or a girl?” he murmured, brushing his lips lightly over my belly.

I swallowed a little convulsively, listening to my heart hammering in my ears.

SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN HUNKS Kimberly Zant 145

Not ‘is it mine?’ or ‘who’s the father?’ but ‘is it a boy or a girl?’

“It’s a boy,” I said finally.

He lifted his head and moved up the bed, nuzzling his face against my neck. “We should fix up the spare room as a nursery.”

I started crying. I had the awful feeling that he thought the baby was his and I didn’t know!

He leaned away to look at me for a long moment and finally pulled me into his

arms, stroking my hair. “It’ll be alright, baby. Don’t cry. Did you think we wouldn’t notice eventually?”

There was a thread of amusement in his voice that sounded promising. I sniffed.

“I thought you’d all be mad with me. I didn’t go off the pill! I swear I didn’t! It just happened. The pill isn’t a hundred percent and ….”

He expelled a deep breath, but I couldn’t tell if it meant he was angry or not. “I was actually kind of hoping that you had.”

I sat up and looked down at him. “Really?”

He shrugged. “At least I’d know for sure then that you wanted to stay.”

I stared at him blankly. “Of course I want to stay! I love it here! I was afraid you guys would want me to leave because I got knocked up, that maybe you’d think I just did it ….”

Gabe cleared his throat. He thought he would’ve liked it if she
had
tried to trap him. Then he’d know she’d picked him over the others. He realized abruptly, though, that they’d all pretty much fallen into the habit of thinking of her as theirs—and she probably thought of all of them as hers. Why wouldn’t she? They all
were
hers!

“Nobody wants you to leave,” he said gruffly. “
I
don’t want you to leave, and it’s my house—well, mine and Shaun’s—but Shaun doesn’t want you to leave either.” He was silent for several moments. “I’d like to think its mine. I don’t suppose …?”

“I don’t know!” I wailed.

He chuckled. “Well, don’t cry about it! It isn’t your fault—no more than ours, anyway. It isn’t like we didn’t all know. We can’t very well be pissed off at you when we did. Anyway, we could always get a paternity test and then we’ll know.”

“You aren’t angry with me?”

“I’m a little pissed off with me. If I’d realized I was going to fall in love with you

….” He stopped. “Honestly? I didn’t know what the hell to do. I was in so deep there was no backing out. I didn’t want to until you showed up. This is seriously fucked up, but I don’t see how we’ve could’ve done anything any different and now … well, I’ve kind of gotten used to it, at least. I still don’t especially like it, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that I’m—mostly—happy. I don’t remember the last time I felt this … content with my life.” He shook his head. “I knew I was in trouble the first time I laid eyes on you. I just didn’t know how much.”

He smiled at me. “I thought you were the prettiest, sexiest little thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to jump your bones right then and there.”

I could feel my face heat at the compliment. I stared at him with a wide-eyed, breathless, ‘tell me more’ look. He loved me! He’d said it straight out!

He grimaced. “We were halfway through the shoot before I began to realize that I was in trouble. I couldn’t see any way out of what I’d started, though. In all honesty, I didn’t even realize, at first, that I wanted out of it. I didn’t have any options but to finish, SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN HUNKS Kimberly Zant 146

though, even when I did finally admit it to myself. I was tied up. Shaun was tied up.

Everything we had was tied up. I’m not pissed off with you. I don’t think I’m pissed off at all any more, although I sure as hell was for a while.”

I swallowed with an effort, trying to understand what he was trying to tell me. “I didn’t really want out of it,” I said finally.

He shrugged. “You were tied up, too. So … here we all are—the five of us. Just one happy family … and baby makes six.”

I felt like crying again. “I guess you’re right. It isn’t going to work, is it?”

He frowned. “That’s the weird part. It actually has worked.”

I studied his face hopefully. “You think … we can stay together?”

He lifted a hand to my cheek. “Stay with me, Nicki. I don’t know what the

others want to do, or will do, but stay with me. We’ll raise the baby together. I think it’s mine, but it doesn’t matter if isn’t. When all’s said and done, it wouldn’t be any different if you’d had the baby before we met.”

I settled my cheek against his chest, thinking. “I’m in love with you, too,” I said finally.

He tensed. “And Shaun? Basil? Hunter?”

I chewed my lip, wondering if I should lie. “I … care about them. I’m in love with you. If I’d realized you cared about me, that I meant something to you …. Well, I couldn’t really have changed anything either. We had to shoot the show. I couldn’t help

… becoming attached to them.”

He didn’t look happy about that, but I hadn’t really expected him to be. I guess I should’ve lied—but I
did
care about them. As much as I loved Gabe, I couldn’t bring myself to deny that I also cared about the others. I didn’t want to hurt them, if they cared about me, any more than I wanted to hurt him.