Fire & Brimstone

He didn’t take shortcuts, not like his cousins. When he did something, he gave it his all and his uncle knew that. Which was why…

Was that screaming?

“Shit!” he snapped as he hurried up the stairs and ran straight for her apartment door. He didn’t bother knocking since it was never locked these days. He swore if that fucking dog knocked Rebecca on her adorable ass one more time that he was going to-

“Stop screaming!” Melanie screamed.

“What the hell do you mean stop screaming?” Rebecca screamed back.

“Because you’re freaking me out!”

“Freaking you out? Are you insane, woman? What the hell do you expect me to do?” Rebecca shouted, hysterically.

“I don’t know!” Melanie shouted back right around the time that he stepped up behind her in the bathroom doorway.

“You don’t know?” Rebecca demanded, waving around a thick white stick. “Of course I’m going to freak out!”

“What the hell is going on?” he heard himself asking, barely noticing that both women had gone completely still or that Mojo had joined them. The only thing that he knew was that he was looking at a pregnancy test.

Swallowing hard, he said the only thing that he could think of, “Rebecca?”

“Hmm?” she said, still holding that stick up in the air.

“Is that positive?” he managed to get out as he was forced to reach out and grab onto the doorway when black spots began dancing along his vision.

“What’s this now?” she asked with a frown.

“Oh, god,” came Melanie’s muffled response as she buried her face in her hands and leaned back against the door.

“The test…,” he said, wondering when breathing had become so difficult, “is it positive?”

“Oh,” she said, blinking as she glanced at the test that she was holding in her hand. “Umm, no?” she said, lowering her hand and trying to discretely toss it in the trash, but she had terrible aim.

“Damn it!”

It hit the rim of the trashcan, bounced back and landed on the floor between them. Swallowing hard, he looked down at the test and clenched his jaw tightly shut.

Positive.

Chapter 43

“What’s he doing now?” Melanie whispered, hiding behind her as Rebecca cracked open the bathroom door a little wider and stuck her head out the door.

“Still ransacking my room,” she whispered back.

“Why is he ransacking your room?” Melanie asked, making her roll her eyes.

“How the hell would I know?” she asked, seconds before she was forced to shove Melanie back when Lucifer suddenly stormed out of her room, so that she could shut the bathroom door shut and lock it.

“This is bad,” Melanie mumbled, stating the obvious.

Sometime in the last twenty minutes of so, her boyfriend had lost his damn mind. As soon as he saw the positive test result he’d nodded to himself several times, went pale, kind of wavered on his feet a bit there, mumbled something about New Hampshire and stormed off, kind of freaking them out a bit. Since that special moment that terrified them to their very being, he’d gone a little…nuts. When he wasn’t tearing apart her room, he was raiding their kitchen, and mumbling something about needing “sustenance,” with the help of Mojo, the little traitor that she’d once considered her sweet little baby.

Speaking of baby…

She folded her arms over her chest, turned around to face the woman that had started it all, cocked a brow and said, “Explain.”

Melanie worried her bottom lip as she said, “I can’t.”

“Yeah, you really can.”

“I really can’t,” Melanie said, leaning back against the counter.

“Oh, I really think you can,” she said, narrowing her eyes on the woman that had broken her boyfriend, a job that was rightfully hers.

Looking down at her feet, Melanie shook her head. “I really can’t.”

“He thinks I’m pregnant, Melanie,” she reminded her.

“I know,” Melanie said, sounding absolutely miserable.

“So, start talking,” Rebecca said, guessing that they had ten minutes before Lucifer broke this door down and took his mental breakdown to the next level.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Melanie said, and as much as she hated pushing her best friend to talk about something before she was ready, right now she didn’t have a choice.

“That pregnancy test says otherwise,” she said, leaning back against the door. “Who’s the father?”

“I’m not ready to talk about that.”

“I didn’t even know that you were dating someone,” Rebecca said, listening as Lucifer stormed past the bathroom and headed back to her room. The sounds of Mojo following after him followed a few seconds later.

“I’m not,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “It was a one time thing. I haven’t even spoken to him since it happened.”

She digested that for a minute before asking, “Are you going to tell him?”

“When I’m ready,” Melanie said, and she didn’t have to ask if she was going to keep the baby. There were just some things that you didn’t have to talk about when it came to your best friend.

“I’m going to have to tell Lucifer,” she said, sighing when she heard what sounded like him tearing through her bureau. She had absolutely no clue what he was looking for, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

“I know,” Melanie said, quietly.

“You know I’m here when you’re ready to talk, right?” she said, reminding Melanie that she was always going to be there for her even though it was a given.

Melanie looked up at her and blinked. “Is this our Hallmark moment?”

“It is,” Rebecca said, sighing heavily.

“Should we get a cup of tea, hold each other and cry with Michael Bolton playing in the background?”

“We should,” Rebecca said, solemnly.

Laughing, Melanie pushed away from the sink and pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you.”

“You should be,” she said, returning the hug. “Are you happy?”

“Terrified,” Melanie admitted with a nervous chuckle, “but yeah, I’m excited about this even though it doesn’t feel real yet.”