“Fuck,” Aideen hissed.

She stormed off up the stairs, and Branna and Alannah quickly followed her. I sighed and looked back to the remaining brothers. “I'll be back.”

Ryder and Nico nodded at me, but they were both in a world of their own.

I moved over to Alec and leaned up to kiss him.

“I love you,” he whispered.

I smiled. “Why are you whisperin'?” I asked.

“Because they're all in deep shit with their ladies, and I'm cool with you. I don't want to pour salt in their wounds by shoving it in their faces.”

“Then learn to whisper, you prick,” Nico growled making me smile.

I kissed Alec again.

“I love you, Kitten,” he repeated. “I really do.”

I relished in hearing that.

“And I love you, Playboy. To Neptune and back.”

“Good, now go and get those pregnancy tests before me and my brothers lose our minds. I want to know if it's one of the sisters. I hope so, I want to be an Uncle,” Alec said, chuckling.

Ryder and Nico dove for Alec as I ran out of the house giggling to myself. I stopped smiling and making sounds when I climbed into Alec's SUV and looked to Kane in the driver's seat.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “Fine.”

He took off driving then and I took his hint of wanting silence loud and clear. We got to Tesco a few minutes later and exited the car. We walked side by side into the shop and Kane trailed me as I headed for the hygiene aisle.

“Fuck me,” Kane whistled. “That's a lot of different brands.”

I nodded my head. “Yep. There is a lot to choose from.”

Kane lifted his hand to his head. “Can't we just pick any box? I want to get out of here.”

I snickered.

“Feelin' uncomfortable being in the women's aisle?” I teased.

He shook his head then stumbled a little to the side.

“I just... I just want to leave,” he said, his voice low.

I dropped my smile and stepped toward him. “Kane... are you okay?” I asked.

“I don't... I don't know. I don't feel good,” he said.

The next few seconds passed by in slow motion. Kane turned to face me, but he lost his footing. He grabbed at thin air as he fell to the ground looking for something to stop his fall, but found nothing. I heard myself scream when his body hit the floor and his eyes closed and didn't re-open.

“KANE!” I cried and dropped to my knees next to him.

I placed my hands on his face and shook him. “Wake up!” I screamed.

Nothing.

He was breathing, I could tell that from his chest movements, but he was unconscious and not responding to me. That frightened the life out of me. I shook him a few times and shouted his name hoping to get his attention, but he didn't wake up. He didn't move, or flinch.

He just laid there.

He gets ill now and then, but he has never collapsed... he hasn't even mentioned lately that he wasn't feeling good.

Something was very wrong.

I looked up and down the aisle and was surprised when I found nobody at either end. I could hear multiple fast paced footsteps though, and people calling all different things out to me to see which aisle I was on. I placed my hands on Kane's chest and screamed.

“Somebody help me!”

I had a headache.

A pounding headache.

My stomach was queasy too, and I felt a little dizzy.

I felt like shite.

I felt like this because I was scared.

I was so damn scared… and all because of a damn plastic stick!

I tried not to look at the stick that would decide my fate as I sat in the main bathroom of the Slater brothers’ house. I focused on the tiled floor, and the grout that cemented them in place to avoid looking up. I counted the tiles, and each time I only got to ten or eleven before my head automatically turned to look at the counter.

No.

I hissed at myself and stilled my movements before I could take a peek. I didn't want to know what the stupid stick said, but I had to. It was eating away at me and has been for the last hour and a half. I looked up at the ceiling and blinked.

I wish you were here, ma.

I needed my mother, I needed to vent to somebody about the fucked up day I had. I swallowed and pictured my ma was in front of me, and I mentally unloaded everything onto her. I told her everything.

Today was a pretty eventful day to say the least.

It was moving day for Keela and Alec. They moved out of their box-sized apartment into a beautiful house, directly across from the brothers’ place in Upton. As a member of the friendship group we uphold, we were all drafted in to help pack up boxes in the old apartment and then unpack them in the new house.

Everyone had some fun packing up the apartment and unpacking in the new house, but we also had arguments… and a lot of other bullshit to deal with. Keela had more bullshit than anyone to deal with.

My girl was stressed, and I put it down to moving because that was stressful, but she revealed she wasn't doing good and it wasn't all down to moving house. She was having nightmares about an incident that happened with her uncle and the brothers thirteen months ago. Keela never liked talking about what happened. I knew the gist of what went down, but not everything. I didn't know what caused Keela to be so scared… scared enough to still be having night terrors so many months after what happened.

Her nightmares weren't her only problem though. She wasn't comfortable with how fast Alec was moving with their relationship. She wanted to enjoy him in the dating game, but he wanted to get married and have babies right away.

The kicker?

Alec knew none of this. Nothing about her nightmares, and diddly-squat about her hesitation with what she wanted out of their relationship. This all came out of course… during a surprise housewarming party that Alec arranged. Keela wasn't impressed at all, she had a bit of meltdown, and if things weren't bad enough, her uncle, her cousin Micah and her husband showed up.

You know, the uncle who is really a gangster, the cousin who puts the B in bitch, and her husband who is the biggest wank stain ever. Yeah, those bastards. They showed up, and they caused arguments, physical fights… they even caused the Gardai to be called. They found out about the party thanks to my bastard little brother, Gavin. He was somehow close to Brandon and Jason now, however that situation was too fresh for me to hink about right now. I needed time before I even thought about that little fucker

The whole situation was bad, but what really put the cherry on top of our fucked-up-day-cake was the stupid thing myself, Branna, Bronagh, and Alannah did in Keela's bathroom for fun.

Before shit hit the fan, we had some drinks to unwind from a long day of packing and unpacking and we thought it would be funny to take pregnancy tests. And it was funny, until Keela showed up and knocked the pregnancy tests into the sink and mixed them up. That wouldn't normally be a problem, but guess what one of the test results turned out to be?

You guessed it.

One of us was fucking pregnant, and we had no clue who.

We had Keela to thank for that.

It got scarier when Alannah ruled herself out of possibly being pregnant because she swore there was no tick in her clock for at least six months. So that left Bronagh, Branna, or myself to have the pleasure of being with child.

Ha. Pleasure my arse.

I prayed it was either Bronagh or Branna who was pregnant, simply because those two were in committed relationships, while I wasn't. The closest I ever got to being in a relationship was the hate/hate thing I had going on with Storm—and he was a dog. And he hated me.