Brock sighed.

Olivia’s eyes cut back to him. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll tell them.” And she said this like she was doing him a favor.

Brock didn’t reply.

She crossed her arms on her chest and held his eyes.

Brock said not a word.

She tapped her foot.

Brock finally spoke. “We done?”

“Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked, flipping out a hand.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Something. I’m moving to Maine, for God’s sake.”

“And?” he asked.

“And?” she asked back.

Brock sighed again.

“Slim, we were married and in each others’ lives for over a decade and you’ve got nothing to say after I just told you I’m moving away?”

“Bon voyage,” Brock muttered, Mitch tried to strangle down another bark of laughter, failed and quickly knifed out of his chair and headed toward the hall.

Olivia’s face got red.

“Nice,” she hissed, gave him a long glare, turned on her high heel and marched her bony ass out.

He didn’t watch.

He turned to his desk, instantly grabbed his phone, flipped it open and hit buttons without looking at them because he’d memorized them.

She answered on the second ring.

“Sweetness,” he said the minute Tess finished her greeting, “you are not gonna believe the surprise birthday present I just got.”

* * * * *

“Brock, honey?” Tess said in his ear as he walked through the backdoor into their kitchen.

After they finally got Rex’s room sorted, he sorted the one car garage in the back that was old, had no garage door opener and thus Tess didn’t use it and parked on the street. And he sorted it as in he had it scraped and a massive two car garage built in its place. He did this because he was not a big fan of scraping ice off his windshield. He also did this because he was less of a fan of Tess doing it so he did it for her and since he didn’t like doing it on his own f**king truck, he didn’t like adding her car. And, lastly, he did it because it was a f**k of a lot safer for her to drive into a garage that had a door to a fenced backyard that had motion sensor lights that lit up the backyard from both garage and house the instant she exited the garage, something else he installed.

This took up a fair amount of the backyard.

Tess didn’t say a word. Somehow, she sensed when something was important to him and she didn’t argue. Ever.

He liked this. He also liked that she didn’t make a big f**king deal about stupid shit like him (or his boys) drinking from the milk jug. If it mattered to her, she had a quiet word with him (or his boys). If she could find a fix without having her quiet word, she did. Case in point, they each got their own milk jug, she wrote their names on them in magic marker before putting them in the fridge.

This way, she could give him (and his boys) sweet mostly all the time.

And she did.

It made for a beautiful life.

For him.

And his boys.

“Babe, I’m in the house, you don’t have to call me,” he said into the phone, smiling because she had to be there somewhere too. He was meeting her and the boys there and they were going out to dinner with his family at The Spaghetti Factory.

“Um… well, I’m not in the house, I’m at the hospital.”

Brock stopped dead, his eyes, unseeing, on a fancy-ass cake stand on the corner of the counter that held the remains of his birthday cake that had been nearly decimated by him and his boys that morning.

She went on quickly, “I’m okay, the boys are okay, it’s just Lenore. She’s kind of…” she paused, “not okay. She went into labor about three hours ago. Levi got her to the hospital and was separated from her because he was told both mother and child are in distress.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

He did the calculations in his head and came up with an unhappy number.

Lenore, who became his sister-in-law three weeks before Christmas and not because she was pregnant but because Levi loved her, the baby was just good news on top of good news, was only six months pregnant.

“Which hospital?” he asked.

“St. Joe’s,” she answered.

“I’m on my way,” he stated, turning back to the door. “The boys with you?”

“No, I called Dade. He went to get them at school. They’re at his house helping him with Grady, Dylan and Ellie.”

Even though many would think it was f**ked, Dade McManus had slid into their lives naturally and this was because Tess made that happen. He was a good addition because he was a good man, he loved Brock’s boys and he adored Tess. Brock grew to like him, grew to respect him and he’d earned that back from McManus. This worked, how, he had no clue, but it did and Brock was glad that it did. As far as he was concerned, anyone who loved his boys and adored his wife was welcome in their lives so Brock welcomed him. And, just then, he was happier than usual that he did.

“Right.” He was out the door and locking it.

“Baby,” she whispered in his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Hurry.”

Fuck.

* * * * *

When Brock arrived in the waiting room at St. Joe’s, Levi was sitting with his elbows to his knees, his torso bent double, his fingers laced at the back of his head.

Brock’s eyes slid through his wife, his sisters, his mother and his brothers-in-law as he walked to Levi.

None of their faces were happy birthday faces.

Then he crouched down in front of his brother.

“Brother,” he murmured, Levi’s hands unlaced and just his head came up.

“Slim,” Levi whispered. “Fuck, Slim.”

Brock’s arm moved out, his hand curling around the back of his brother’s head.

“Keep it together,” he whispered.

“Fucked it up with her, she was in and outta my life for three years before –”

“Get that out of your head.”

“Never made it official, never made it permanent, she came to Thanksgiving on a f**king rotation. Had a girl at Easter, a different one at Fourth of July, she was due up.” He paused then the next two words came out tortured. “Due… up. ”

Brock squeezed his brother’s neck. “Levi, get it outta your f**kin’ head.”